eBooks Archives

As the reality of a village life nears us we need to make a choice on what to do with toilets. At first we will need a solution that we can easily add to an old existing house where we will live temporarily. Then we are going to need a long term solution for our house. Then we will probably need to replicate that solution as we prepare to recieve guests, students and friends.

There is no doubt in our mind that we are going to implement some form of composting solution. There really is no justification for actually creating and dealing with waste when it can be transformed into compost.

The question we are dealing with is how to evacuate our waste from the house. One option is using flushing water which is familiar, comfortable, demanding ince for composting the liquids and solids need to be separated. A cheap, simple, direct and ecological solution is a simple composting toilet – a bucket in a box – the shit needs to be carried out by hand!

We’ve been reading around a lot and looking for alternatives and we still have not made up our mind. Today’s discussions and searches brought is to The Humanure Handbook – which seems to be a classic text, often cited on the internet on the subject.

I recently came across this excellent and free eBook on Hemp Lime Construction. It is published by a UK organization called “National Non-Food Crops Centre” – a name that was a huge lesson to me in it’s own right. In my mind “crops” was obviously associated with farming and food. I now know that there is an entire domain of farming for non-food crops. Two prominent example of non-food crops used in construction are Strawbales and Hemp. I am looking forward to learn what other surprises crops hold in store for me 🙂

Back to the book – it is a must read for anyone (home makers, architects, engineers, farmers,governments … ) interested in working with the magical substance that is hemp.

Here is a summary, quotes from the book itself, on the advantages of Hemp construction – just to give you a motivating flavor:

A means of achieving energy efficiency
A way of providing thermal mass
A breathable material which can help to create healthy buildings
Use of a material which is renewable and does little environmental damage
No pollution and no problems at end-of-life disposal
95 Crop-based material which helps farmers and is a good use of land
Helps to facilitate healthier buildings
Offers the possibility of sequestering carbon into building fabric
Hemp lime has the ability to make an impact on the future of sustainable building by reversing the damaging effects of greenhouse gases. It is claimed that hemp lime can lock up approximately 110 kg of CO2 per m3 of wall.

I am sure I will be referencing this book often here on Bhudeva 🙂