The Water Crisis: A Practical Solution

The water crisis is the most serious problem humanity has ever faced. Water pollution has infused the entire food chain with neurotoxins, poisons and pharmaceuticals, all of which damage the health and survivability of man and planet. The cause is our modern, water based sewer system. We flush all of our disposables down the drain, into the sewer system where more chemicals are added and then finally pumped back into our water system. Water based sewer systems are the prime polluters and our use of them has proved to be full of unintended and unanticipated horrors. The use of water based sewer system wastes and contaminates the entire water supply with pollutants and nutrients that if captured and recycled, could provide sufficient agricultural nutrients to ensure a sustainable food supply.

One practical solution to the water shortage is to replace our centralized water based sewer system with on site, waterless toilets and recycle grey water. Grey water is the water from the kitchen and shower and can be recycled, on site and reused for landscaping. This will reduce our demand on the water source by 80 percent while simultaneously creating a sustainable, renewable, agricultural resource, namely, organic nitrogen.



What is the economic value of human urine? Here is how it works, the value of comparative petroleum derived fertilizer with the same 18% nitrogen content is approximately $10.00 a gallon and requires a massive polluting industry that is not renewable. The average person produces 2 liters of urine a day or roughly $5.00 worth of organic nitrogen. A city like Miami flushes down the drain 10 to 20 million dollars worth of nitrogen a day and spends another fortune to do it. Integrated Recycling is the future of our economy and could replace taxation in funding community services. The cities will become fertilizer factories and urban and suburban farming and food production could provide a sustainable, local food supply. Schools and churches could be nurseries and local gardening centers, hubs of city and urban agriculture and recycling. This could be a sustainable, local system that is a renewable doable foundation for local economies. Local food production is the basis of all economies and the missing component in modern cities.

This kind of integrated recycling is highly profitable and turns three life threatening problems, water shortage, water pollution and imported oil into one sustainable, environmentally positive and economically beneficial solution.

Water based sewer systems unnecessarily wastes and pollutes our most valuable resource, clean water. There is only one water supply for the entire earth. We share this single resource with 6.5 billion other humans and with all living organisms. Water should be regarded as our most important natural resource and shared birthright. Water is the first thing mankind must agree to share according to the highest collective principle. Water is the tie that binds us together, for better or for worse.

Water is the blood of the earth and a true sacrament, something we all share, something that is absolutely necessary for life. We should not pollute the water supply with chemicals, insecticides or human disposables that can and should be recycled to insure a healthy and sustainable future.

Modern, water based sewer systems could be the worst idea mankind has ever adopted. Common sense informs us not to defecate in the drinking water, but that is exactly what we currently do in every city of the land. We do it without thinking. That is the problem. We are not thinking right. It is possible, conceivable, that the water crisis could be THE reason people begin to think of ourselves as truly united with everyone else on the planet, known and unknown, united in our fears, hopes and desires. 6.5 billion separate destinies have become one destiny for us all …

Clifton Middleton is a 62 year old reformer, born the son of a sharecropper, trained to farm by the cycles and traditions. The article is part of a book he wrote Hard Seed, a collection of essays on sustainable systems and economies. He currently teaches sustainable gardening to students of all ages and operates a 5-acre garden grove outside of Homestead, FL. Read other articles by Clifton.

7 comments on this article so far ...

Comments RSS feed

  1. Deadbeat said on December 30th, 2009 at 7:00pm #

    Excellent article and extremely informative.

  2. anthony innes said on December 30th, 2009 at 7:26pm #

    The re evaluation of so called waste is vital for sustainablity.This is a great article and DV is to be commended for getting this kind of thinking into a wider distribution.

  3. Don Hawkins said on December 31st, 2009 at 2:56am #

    A practical solution and a few more are needed and soon.

  4. Don Hawkins said on January 1st, 2010 at 4:05pm #

    A kind of global effort the planet has never seen. Two million place Capital one voice calm at peace and would it make things right, no but it would be a start.

  5. Don Hawkins said on January 2nd, 2010 at 4:34am #

    2010 and here we go our choice. Last night on Fox New’s a little program called global warming or a lot of hot air? Such clever human’s with the use of illusion of knowledge.

    The east and west coasts of Australia are facing opposing weather emergencies with floodwaters threatening New South Wales as Western Australia braces for catastrophic fire conditions.

    Temperatures yesterday reached as high as 42 degrees in some WA towns and hot and windy conditions are forecast for today.

    The Bureau of Meteorology has forecast the highest level of fire danger for the central wheat belt, great southern, south and south-east coastal districts, as well as the inland sub-district of the central west.

    It will be the first time the new “catastrophic” rating will have been used extensively in the state.

    A severe to extreme danger is forecast for the inland sub-district of the lower west, including the metropolitan hills area and the coastal sub-district of the central west.

    Meanwhile flood waters in the north-east of New South Wales have cut the small community of Ashford in half. ABC

    The lid is off the Arctic and to late to put back on. The cutting of rain forests continues along with burning of fossil fuels. The oceans are becoming warmer Worldwide and fresh water clean fresh water becoming a bit of a problem. The oceans are becoming more acidic to say the least and we are at the end of the beginning. Yes it’s winter and still cold with snow and as the ice melts in the Arctic a few minor changes coming to the Northern Hemisphere. This summer should prove interesting and if you google global warming the articles are now about 75% BS the push is on from the darkside. Like Australia the Arctic get’s the changes first and big changes they are and moving fast. On this present path and by 2050 with 9 billion people and a carrying capacity of one billion for Earth well that’s change we can believe in. Any plans in place or being put in place for any of this a few called the easy way out and so far stupidity on a grand scale. Just in this Country the States the corruption and arrogance is amazing to see. To watch msm and they talk of this great technology coming are living in dreamland to say the least. I think they still think someone is in charge well that may be true but in charge of an out of control system feed the system and it does appear the system is now in charge. The system we human’s now have is just that a human system and Earth has a system that we never did really understand but will very soon. Aerosol injection into the upper atmosphere seed clouds, big machines to make clouds silly human’s but oh no not change the system and stop burning fossil fuels and cutting forests grow crops in a different way as we want progress and just maybe we will find a cure for cancer and go to Mars but we might want to hurry. Let’s see how this summer goes. War what is it good for?

  6. Don Hawkins said on January 2nd, 2010 at 6:54am #

    Sent this to CNN this morning

    Soy beans,
    Why is it that on any talk of climate change we never hear that it is to late for the Arctic pretty much a nobrainer or when talking about how to make a real try at this tax carbon and return 100% of that tax back to the people. Wait don’t tell me because of two things the truth and hard choices. People can’t handle the truth well the last time I checked we handle the truths we hear daily on say Fox New’s I mean have you ever listened to those people and understood that little agenda they want people to believe I’ll bet you have and why is it ok for you to know what that is all about but not us. Have you ever asked yourselves that question? Let’s see if oil goes to $300 a barrel or more in 2010 that’s twenty ten I get it and what does a Herculean effort mean. Come on use knowledge what does that mean is cap and trade a Herculean effort and a good chance that can’t even pass. Do you all enjoy listening to stupidity on a grand scale? Why is it that on CNN we don’t see and hear the best minds we have you know who they are why is that? I just saw a repot on TV about Obama and the man in Hawaii said Obama is pushing himself to hard as he was getting in his golf cart. I guess that thinking will work for a few years more. A Herculean effort what does that mean and would it be easy, no but boring and stupidity on a grand scale if we tried it would not be. Go shopping, right such wisdom. The lid is off the Arctic and to late a nobrainer but heck let’s talk about it for another ten years, four.


  7. Don Hawkins said on January 2nd, 2010 at 12:44pm #

    Weaving back and forth to and fro