The following article by M. Crappington was originally published in Faecal Sludge Management Quarterly (FSMQ), and is reprinted here by permission of the author.
New human manure publication acclaimed at Land Studio launch.
Shit puns flew in the Capertee Valley at the gala launch of a new magazine championing human manure composting.
Your reporter was on the scene at the world premiere of Glimpses of Poo-topia, a publication set to revolutionise the way we think about the afterlife of our number ones and twos. 35 hand-picked participants were privy to the magazine’s long awaited drop at the 2021 Land Studio (on Snowgoose Farm near Kandos, on Dabee/Wiradjuri Country).
The new magazine lifts the lid on real experiences from amateur composting toilet trailblazers. The first two editions – published simultaneously – feature stories from regional NSW, Australia.
[For more on Land Studio, see this report and video about the inaugural 2020 camp]
In Volume 1, off-grid hero “Walty” battles doubt and skepticism as she creates a steaming pile on Ngunnawal and Wiradjuri Country near Wee Jasper. Volume 2 follows “Mrs Kang” as she establishes a covert backyard poo-processing-plant in suburban Port Kembla, on Dharawal and Wadi Wadi Country. Both tales chronicle the logistical struggles, and battle for social acceptance, that are part and poo-cel of any humanure journey.
In an exclusive interview with FSMQ, Editor-in-Chief Don Poo-leone celebrated Land Studio as the ideal venue for the magazine’s launch. “At Land Studio, our select readership had the chance to combine theory with practice, queuing up to empty their bowels in our bespoke, fully-operational craft-outhouses,” Poo-leone enthused.
Land Studio organiser Laura Fisher was overjoyed that Poo-leone had chosen Land Studio for the gala launch. “The magazine is hot shit, and understandably in great demand,” Fisher trilled. “Ours was the winning bid, beating out Milan Design Week and the COP26 Conference in Glasgow. We were so honoured! And because of a lucrative sponsorship deal brokered by Capertee Valley Landcare, we didn’t have to spend a penny on the event. I only hope that our contributions at the launch will prove good enough to produce rich agricultural soil.”
Following the Land Studio camp, more than 180 litres of fresh human excrement, mixed with fragrant wood shavings, were ceremoniously presented to local landholder, artist Leanne Thompson, who has pledged to compost them for 12 months. Then the resulting soil will be scientifically tested, bottled, labelled, and sold to subscribers as a limited-edition growing medium.
Thompson said it was a privilege to be entrusted with the campers’ nitrogen- and potassium-rich outputs. “I’ve learned so much from this process,” Thompson breathed. “The way we ordinarily process human shit verges on the criminal! What Glimpses of Poo-topia provokes is nothing short of revolutionary.”
As Poo-leone writes in his editorial for Volume 1 of the new magazine, standard flush-toilet systems combine three valuable resources – human faeces, urine, and fresh drinking water – and this unholy trinity creates a powerfully toxic pollutant consuming “vast amounts of energy, chemicals, and financial expense to make safe again.”
Poo-leone’s radical manifesto, leaning heavily on the research of Joe Jenkins’ now-legendary Humanure Handbook, foresees a future in which human excrement is so valuable that composting contractors will actually pay good money to haul it away.
In the spirit of recycling, the magazine’s world premiere at Land Studio will itself become the subject of the much anticipated third volume of Glimpses of Poo-topia. Participants are invited to send their stories direct to the editor, via the magazine’s website, for consideration.