Good Shit: How Humanure Could Save Agriculture—and the Planet

Gastropod

Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley

Science, Food, History, Arts

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 20 June 2023

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For most of us, when we sit on the porcelain throne to drop the deuce, priority number one is flushing and never having to think about it again. But it might be time to rethink our stink: all around the world, people are talking about using human waste for good, applying it as fertilizer to grow our food instead of just washing it down the miles of pipes that undergird urban sewage systems. "Ew" is a common response, along with "yuck!" Is using poop to grow food a good idea—or even safe? We’re getting our shit together to find out! On this episode of Gastropod, how human waste went from being so valuable you could go to jail for stealing it, to causing such a stench it shut down Parliament in Victorian London and led to the invention of the modern sewage system—and why figuring out how to start saving our poop (and pee!) once again could give us cleaner energy, healthier waterways, and lots of delicious food. Listen in now: if you like to eat, it's time to start giving a crap about your crap. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is my headly farm.
0:05.9	And yeah, let's go take a walk.
0:07.1	Go see what you guys want to see.
0:08.9	We won't even worry about the niceties here.
0:10.8	We're just going to go straight to the shitter.
0:12.9	It doesn't smell like anything.
0:15.8	That's the key.
0:16.8	It's not a little bit like earthy, which is great.
0:19.0	Which is kind of...
0:20.0	Yeah.
0:21.0	So, I mean, I'm not over here spraying it with febris before you guys got here, you know?
0:24.6	It's like, it's almost like more stink in like a minute.
0:29.9	It's like a normal toilet, you know?
0:31.9	Welcome to Gastropod, the podcast where we go straight to the shitter.
0:37.9	Or, you know, to the contraption that's making fertilizer to help plants grow on a farm.
0:42.7	Because yes, Gastropod is as usual the podcast that looks at food through the lens of science
0:46.8	and history.
0:47.8	I'm Cynthia Grieber.
0:48.8	And I'm Nicola Twilly.
0:49.8	And so, on one level, there's an obvious connection between food and food.
0:54.7	We eat and then, you know, stuff comes out the other end.
0:58.3	The other, maybe not so obvious connection, at least if you live in the city, is that
	...

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