Animal and Human Wastes

Abstract

As every coprologist should be quick to point out, animal and human wastes are not to be wasted at all; they are just resources out of place. In this chapter I will attempt to estimate the global and some national production rates of these resources (a difficult task indeed) and outline their traditional uses as excellent fertilizers and not-so-excellent fuel, before taking a closer look at the only sensible way of turning some of these products into energy—anaerobic fermentation.

We knew before that putrid animal substances were converted into sweet vegetables, when mixed with the air and applied as manure.…

—Joseph Priestley Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air (1790)

Who says you have no sheep? You have three hundred.

Who says you have no cattle? There are ninety steers

All seven feet high. Your sheep have curly horns,

Your cattle come with stately, flapping ears.

—Shi Jing Book of Songs, verse 190 (trans. H. G. Wells)