Having a pee in your own backgarden

[User76022]

Humans can't smell it? Clearly you have never visited the toilet at Solstice services KFC, or any lorry park between Calais & Antwerp!

You describe a common misconception.

The wee of a healthy human is just water with a few minerals in it. It is sterile and inert. If it smells a bit when it first comes out, the smell is very rapidly neutralised as it dissipates into the air. Natural soil microbes quickly utilise it so within a very short time in contact with soil it is not even wee any more.

What you describe is the smell that happens when anaerobic bacteria feed off wee, such as in the plastic containers of portaloos. Such anaerobic bacteria feed off and breed in the contained wee, and release a multitude of noxious gases. That doesn't happen when you wee on soil.

 

[Adam4868]

Dare we broach the subject of peeing in other people’s gardens.

Used to be able to get it that high,these days its downwards.....

 

[PaulSB]

Read The Humanure Handbook. It is a very clear and in depth method for this, based on experience and a lot of scientific theory. In particular they differentiate between a compost toilet and a long drop toilet, which is dangerous, and also between sewage sludge, which as you say has all manner of nasties contained therein, and would be very difficult for individuals to safely dispose of, and Humanure, which doesn't. I also have a friend who lived more than a decade with a bucket/compost combo unsing this method. He reported that he never smelled poo at home but regularly smelled it at work.

Of course, trusting that everyone follows the correct proceedure is another matter, as anyone who has used a portaloo on a building site will testify. But it can be done safely.

I don't dispute it can be done safely, in fact I know it can, but after a 40+ year career in horticulture I still struggle to get my allotment compost heaps up to temperature. Expecting the public to deal with human waste which must be composted correctly is at best foolhardy. A bucket/ compost combo is fine for people who are sufficiently interested to make it work but the vast majority of Joe Public would simply end up with a bucket full of s***. It's something which is impossible to make work on any sort of scale without risking taking us back centuries in terms of disease control.

 

[Blue Hills]

Dare we broach the subject of peeing in other people’s gardens.

Ok. A long long time ago in a pretty intense conversation in a woman's back garden I did periodically (ok, maybe twice) walk away for a pee at the back of the garden. Although no prude she did have a bit of an issue with this with regard to the prize plants. Which told me she knew nowt about gardening, along with a few other things.

 

[pawl]

I had enough problems with the dog peeing on the lawn and the resultant brown patches without e contributing to them.

 

[Katherine]

http://www.waughbrowfarm.com/our-story/4583801607

We go to this place on bike rides.
The food and welcome are wonderful.

Anyway, they have a composter style toilet, in a barn. They provide shavings to cover any solid matter. You have to climb up a wooden step and sit on a big wooden seat on an even bigger wooden box. There's no smell at all.

 

[uphillstruggler]

i did read that it may keep foxes away too.

that's my excuse - in our house, its called a jungle wee.

 

[Globalti]

Peeing outdoors is routine to anybody who goes walking or cycling. But pooing outdoors is another thing, there's nothing more natural than hoofing a hole in the ground, squatting while enjoying the view and examining the local flora and insect life then nipping off and covering up leaving no trace. The body functions much better in the natural posture as well. I'd like to have a squatter bog in my house but fear I would be derided even more than I already am over my discrete home urinal with lid and aiming fly in the glaze.

 

[beepbeep]

is it the 1st of April so soon???????????

 

[Pale Rider]

How about peeing in the sea?

When I was rehabilitating after a hip replacement I went for long - for me - walks on the seafront.

The foreshore provided nicer going than pavements.

On a couple of occasions I was caught short and relieved myself into the North Sea.

If a dog can pee in the sea, so can I.

Although I doubt Sunderland Magistrates would agree with me.

 

[beepbeep]

I once got thrown out of Leeds International pool for peeing in the water...couldnt see any problem with doing it and after all I was only on the spring board !

 

[beepbeep]

Peeing outdoors is routine to anybody who goes walking or cycling. But pooing outdoors is another thing, there's nothing more natural than hoofing a hole in the ground, squatting while enjoying the view and examining the local flora and insect life then nipping off and covering up leaving no trace. The body functions much better in the natural posture as well. I'd like to have a squatter bog in my house but fear I would be derided even more than I already am over my discrete home urinal with lid and aiming fly in the glaze.

I was cycling through Norfolk this year and decided to pull into a quite lane for a drink of pop and biscuit only to be confronted by an oldish gent squat on the ground and what I can only describe as ' curling one out '' right in front of me...He didn't even bat an eye lid as I rode past ......

No 1's are ok but No 2's ''alfresco'' should definitely be avoided at all costs !

 

[Blue Hills]

How about peeing in the sea?

When I was rehabilitating after a hip replacement I went for long - for me - walks on the seafront.

The foreshore provided nicer going than pavements.

On a couple of occasions I was caught short and relieved myself into the North Sea.

If a dog can pee in the sea, so can I.

Although I doubt Sunderland Magistrates would agree with me.

Fine by me. Peeing in the sea fine. And in any case the north sea has never struck me as crystal clear.

Edit: i do rather wonder where this thread might lead.

 

[Globalti]

The only place I wouldn't swim in the sea is off Blackpool for fear of blundering into a "Mersey trout".

I did have a bad experience once when walking along a beach in Nigeria. As I approached a fishing village I saw some people squatting on the sand staring contemplatively out to sea. Walked on thinking they were just admiring the view then suddenly realised - too late - that I had blundered into the village loo. I picked my way through a variety of landmines with care, the problem being that when the tide is high people can't go in the inter-tidal zone so Nature's cleansing doesn't get a chance to happen. Horrible.

 

[Globalti]

My brother and I were once walking home from the centre of Newcastle having missed the last bus. We came up to a site of the new Metro they were building and feeling in a mischievous mood we decided to climb the tower crane. We were both active rock climbers at that time so the security hoarding presented no problem and before long we were right out at the end of the jib. Having been drinking McEwan's best Scotch bitter it seemed only natural to drain some off so we let rip. In those heady teenage years we could drain the bladder in a quick burst and so high was the crane that we were actually shaking off before the deluge even reached some plastic sheeting far below. Next morning we discovered that the greasy wire ropes had left filthy marks all over our suits (one wore a suit to go clubbing in the 70s) so had to smuggle them out to the cleaners before our Mum noticed. How we laughed.