February 2009
→ Cows
(27th February 2009)
I'm often asked about cow manure and I always have to admit I don't know enough about it to comment on it. I still don't, but I know a little more at least after reading this, about one farm turning cow shit into CowPots. Biodegradable seed-fertilizing containers made of dried manure fibres. I bet they grow damn good flowers. The Freund family of farmers ...
(27th February 2009)
I should have posted this sooner but neglected to. I'll be in conversation with the Observer's science editor Robin McKie at the Bath Literature Festival on Sunday 1 March. The topic: "Undercover Writing: Adventures in the World of Human Waste." Not sure what's so undercover about it but there we are. And you only have to pay £6 for the privilege.
→ Spills
(27th February 2009)
And, as if by magic (a catchphrase that will only mean something to someone who grew up in Britain in the 1970s and watched the marvellous children's show Mr. Benn), the Associated Press nicely backs up my op-ed in today's New York Times, that wastewater treatment doesn't work as well as we assume it does. For a start, to paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt, civilized ...
(27th February 2009)
In the far reaches of Shaanxi Province in northern China, in an apple-producing village named Ganquanfang, I recently visited a house belonging to two cheery primary-school teachers, Zhang Min Shu and his wife, Wu Zhaoxian. Their house wasn’t exceptional — a spacious yard, several rooms — except for the bathroom. There, up a few steps on a tiled platform, sat a toilet unlike any I’d ...
(27th February 2009)
An op-ed piece on the merits of urine separation toilets, and the power of pee, is published in today's New York Times.
→ Ryanair
(27th February 2009)
Usually, my position on fee-paying toilets is that neither toilet facilities, nor attendants, nor the wastewater treatment system are free, so a little fee is not unreasonable. Also, in developing countries, a properly run community fee-paying toilet is a godsend and does a lot of income generation. But something is not quite right about Ryanair wanting to charge passengers to use its toilets. I'm ...
→ NYT
(26th February 2009)
One of the reasons I love the New York Times is because, in careful sober tones, it tells you things like the fact that all the toilets at the Oscars were furnished with recycled toilet paper. (Another reason is that as long as the Obama administration doesn't make another major announcement like that they want to get out of Iraq in 19 months, the ...