Talk:Night soil

NPOV
"This is sometimes used as a political football to further an agenda. For example, some on the right of the political spectrum in the United States have used the fact that people have gotten sick from vegetables imported from Mexico to argue against NAFTA and even illegal aliens, although the latter relationship is tenuous." - I am removing this comment, I don't know the specifics of the cases the author of this comment mentions, but the way he injects a political dimension into this article without any context seems inappropriate. The comment also reflects the author's bias.


 * - As the author of the above, I can categorically state that I have no such biases, but I have heard such biases expressed, particularly on talk radio. I'll go through the logic. Many on the right think NAFTA is a bad idea. Because E-Coli outbreaks from human feces make people sick and create news and because night soil is used for fertilizer in developing nations, the idea is therefore floated that NAFTA is a bad idea because it impacts the health of Americans negatively. Despite the fact that I personally think NAFTA might not be the best idea in the world, this is an incredibly weak argument. I won't edit the comment back in because politics isn't particularly encyclopedic. KellyCoinGuy 02:48, 3 January 2007 (UTC)


 * This doesn't sound like a neutral point of view, nor does it really sound like it's appropriate for this article: "It is contrary to the principles of sustainability to dispose of human waste byproducts in landfills. It is irresponsible to dump sewage into rivers, lakes and oceans."


 * Furthermore, it is not really coherent. It first says that Night Soil is the practice of using human waste as fertilizer.  Then it says Untouchables remove Night Soil.  Are they removing the practice?  --SVTCobra 00:58, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I've redefined the scope of the article. Elle vécut heureuse à jamais  (Be eudaimonic!) 18:03, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

what it is
Anyhow, I was reading this interesting page by a museum on toilets [|Sulabh Internation Museum of Toilets] which makes frequent references to Night Soil or nightsoil. Not knowing what "exactly" was meant, I naturally came to Wikipedia. For now, I will assume that it means "human shit" whether produced at night or day. --SVTCobra 01:13, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hi, I think night soil is the substance, not any practise of using or disposing of the substance. I think it can be put in other words eg night dirt dirt from soiled or dirty. The dirt was and is still removed at night at places where development has not progressed that much.. Gregorydavid 06:21, 14 March 2006 (UTC)


 * It's called "night soil" because "night" is a good euphemism for anything that is necessary but needs to be discreet...(plus the fact that the coolies collected the night soil at...night, not a good idea to be carrying feces in the street in the hustle and bustle of broad daylight, you know). Elle vécut heureuse à jamais  (Be eudaimonic!) 18:00, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Bizarre sentence
"Choosing between starvation and ultimate death due to low crop yields or the possibility of serious illness due to disease is easy."

Not really! Is this a typo ("not easy" would make more sense). On the other hand, if the risk of serious disease is negligable compared to starvation, then this sentence needs to be changed to reflect this.

--163.1.176.254 00:20, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

heavy metals
If heavy metals in our doo-doo are bad, then how did it get into us in the first place? Explain!


 * They're probably more heavily concentrated as fertilizer. Elle vécut heureuse à jamais  (Be eudaimonic!) 18:03, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


 * They mostly come from industry. Big sewage plants are more necessary in cities, and cities have factories in them too. Tweeq 06:26, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * The citation does not support the assertion that human waste contains heavy metals in any significant proportion. It relates strictly to sewage - which contains far more than just human waste. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.0.159.16 (talk) 10:33, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

68.188.203.251 (talk) 21:17, 6 March 2013 (UTC) I just read the article and also got the impression that human waste was 'dangerous' 'suspect' due to heavy metals. Only in industrialized waterways does the heavy metal aspect present itself. So the article should do more to present current experiments in human waste composting. What temps are needed to destroy cholera? By discouraging night soil profiting by attaching a dangerous and unsafe aspect to it, the profitability is negated. Yes, who wants to do that for a living? Who wants to do that and be denied profit? Profits build esteem.

Sanitation issues
This section really needs some scientific data. Feces as fertalizer is dangerous and harmful. To claim otherwise you need scientific studies and citations. (Posted by 146.96.81.162 to article.) -- Paleorthid (talk) 23:04, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Tudor Britain
Is this really appropriate? The Tudors ruled England, not Britain. 86.21.225.156 (talk) 21:24, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
 * No. I've fixed it. J IM ptalk·cont 08:13, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

manual laborers
I'm deleting the silly tautological phrase at the end of the sentence, "This was an unpleasant occupation and was predominately done by manual laborers" (emphasis mine). Having an occupation involving manual labor is what makes someone a "manual laborer." So if this job is a matter of manual labor then anyone performing it is by definition a manual laborer. If something else was meant by this phrase someone please re-add it in a better phrased form.--Ericjs (talk) 18:45, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Assumption of western superiority
In Collection : "This system is used in isolated rural areas and is important in developing nations or in areas that lack the adequate infrastructure to have running water."

This statement assumes that disposing of human excreta in running water is a good idea. In fact, it assumes that the disposal of human excreta is primarily a problem of dealing with a waste product, rather than a component of the natural cycle of land fertility in which humans participate and which they modify. Many societies throughout history have understood the clear connection that human excreta must make with our continued food supply if human societies are not to rely on ever new sources of soil fertility. Because of this understanding, disposing of human excreta is not dealing with waste, but with a valuable (or at least useful) resource. In this view, the reason so called "developing" nations use night soil on their farmland is not the lack of supposedly more developed infrastructure such as running water; it is the application of knowledge about the fertility of land. The modern West regards water-borne waste disposal as preferable 1) because it has invested in other forms of soil fertility (ie, agrochemicals), 2) because water resources are assumed to be limitless, and 3) because raw human excreta can cause disease. The last of these points has and always will be a problem; but the first and second may prove to cause much, much larger problems for society in the long run. In water limited areas especially, including many "developing" countries, disposing of human excreta in water otherwise usable for drinking, bathing, cleaning and irrigation is already a clear problem. 142.103.92.50 (talk) 21:22, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Historical context
The article currently implies that night soil collection is a practice from the distant past in Western countries. Some relatives of mine were still receiving a night soil collection for their privies as late as the 1950s in England. They lived in a rural location, but in a village and only a few miles from a large city. I don't think this was particularly unusual at the time. --Ef80 (talk) 20:38, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Night soil versus fecal sludge
The term night soil is nowadays seen as a "historical term" and the current sanitation literature speaks about "fecal sludge". I have just added that sentence to the lead. I would like to propose that it is made clearer that this article focuses more on the historical aspects but then we should make it clear that the practice continues in developing countries and refer to fecal sludge. The article on fecal sludge needs to be built up more (at the moment it redirects to "septage"). Another option which one could consider is to rename the article to fecal sludge but that's probably not ideal.EvMsmile (talk) 01:49, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
 * The only question I have here is with the use of the term "sludge". In some parts there is a perception problem with that word, in that "sewage sludge" contains both faeces and industrial effluents - which probably didn't happen in the old night soil collections - or at least the specific ones which involved household collection. I can also see people using the terms interchangeably (ie using faecal sludge as the new term for night soil), so it isn't something which has total acceptance. JMWt (talk) 08:45, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your inputs! I would say sewage sludge is something different to fecal sludge. I wish we had a fecal sludge page - so far it re-directs to septage which is better than nothing. Septage is clearly different to sewage sludge... It's true the term "night soil" seems to imply something quite "dry", not like a slurry... The Eawag Compendium calls it a historical term though, and I would subscribe to that. From memory in current sanitation literature, night soil is no longer used or only rarely? Or have you seen new publications where it is still used? (it reminds me a bit of the thing about honey bucket versus bucket toilet so I am a bit scared to go there. ;-) EvMsmile (talk) 10:36, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately this euphemism is still being used in the academic literature, see this abstract for example. Maybe it is still in use in come cultures? JMWt (talk) 14:12, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Recent changes
Good calls on most of these changes, User:EvMsmile. (That lamp was oddly uninformative, but I guess images help to break up the text and add visual interest.) I have two disagreements - please explain: 1. The removal of Sustainable sanitation. 2. The removal of a quote. Just because Humanure now redirects to a section within Compost doesn't invalidate material taken from a published work. The quote in question is:
 * "Finished compost should never be 'sterile,' but it should be sanitary. That means the compost should be teeming with beneficial microorganisms that do not pose a threat to human health. Any human disease organisms that may have been in the original organic material should have been eliminated, weakened, or greatly diminished by the time the compost has become mature."

I propose something along the lines of:
 * Joe Jenkins, an American who popularised a simple method of treating human waste under the name "humanure", claims that "Finished compost should never be 'sterile,' but it should be sanitary. That means the compost should be teeming with beneficial microorganisms that do not pose a threat to human health." + reference

That way, any readers searching for "humanure" will be able to find this page too, and it preserves a reference link to his book, which is an accessible read. What do you think? Carbon Caryatid (talk) 11:18, 15 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Hi, User:Carbon Caryatid, I am glad you liked most of my changes. :-) To answer your questions: Was the "sustainable sanitation" under See Also? I had removed that because nightsoil has little connection with sustainable sanitation. However, I have now added "sanitation" to the See also list. Perhaps that's a good compromise?
 * For the second question: the work of Joe Jenkins is actually quite controversial. The cited reference is not a reputable source but it's basically a sales brochure of someone's composting toilet. I think he's also written books, so you could cite something from there although I am not sure if any of his books are open access? Nightsoil as such is not compost. Information about "finished compost" and so forth should go on the page about composting, not in the nightsoil article. And in the composting page, the issues with pathogens and pathogen reduction are already included. The word humanure also does appear there. In the quote that you proposed, the term "sanitary" is ill-defined. A further discussion on that quote should if anything take place on the page about composting, but not on the nightsoil page. EvMsmile (talk) 11:58, 15 August 2016 (UTC)