August 2008
→ Gorilla
(31st August 2008)
An extract from Chapter Three, in the Sunday Telegraph. It includes pictures of the Inax advertising gorilla (in the print version at least) which I never managed to find but I obviously didn't look very hard because here it is and on reflection, much better than TOTO's. Then again, they're equally insane.
Inax gorilla
Toto's crazy rock chick
→ Fields
(29th August 2008)
An extract from my book in today's Guardian, about whether using sewage sludge on farmland is a good idea or dangerous. I don't know. But I do wonder whether in 100 years people will look back at us and all the chemicals we allow to invade all aspects of our life, and think us lunatics.
(29th August 2008)
It is my first and last day at sewage school. The premises are nothing much to look at, consisting of a Portakabin in the car park of Barston, a small sewage-treatment works near Birmingham. This classroom is one of five run by Severn Trent, one of the 10 utilities that supply clean drinking water and remove dirty water for the people of England and Wales. ...
→ Fields
(28th August 2008)
An extract in today's Guardian, updated for the UK. Which uses one of my favourite pictures in the book, though for some reason in black and white.
→ Clean
(27th August 2008)
I once met a wastewater treatment expert, at a wastewater treatment conference, whose name is Les. He works for a utility in the north of England. He had tales to tell, such as the idiocy of having to add phosphorous for treatment and then having to remove it again before the effluent is discharged (too many nutrients can damage rivers and seas). He said that ...
→ Kibera
(25th August 2008)
I haven't been to Kibera, an enormous slum in Nairobi, but I know that most people's sanitation methods there consist of helicopter or flying toilets, which consist of defecating into a plastic bag, and throwing it somewhere else. Roofs and alleyways are popular. Defecating into a plastic bag actually isn't a bad idea; it contains the shit. It's the throwing part and the leaving in ...
→ Crops
(25th August 2008)
A bit belatedly, here is a story from the Mail on Sunday about how sewage is being used to fertilize crops for human consumption. Maybe because it was published on a Sunday, it didn't seem to get much publicity, though I don't think that is because Britons are serene about it. More that they haven't thought about it and would prefer not to. I'm ...