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Too good to waste: spring webinars on the wisdom of recycling human nutrients
You’re invited!
Too good to waste: spring webinars on the wisdom of recycling human nutrients
Toilet Rewind
Monday, April 27th, 12-1 pm PST, 3-4 pm EST
Get ready to peek into the fascinating and little-known past when city dwellers kept their local waters clean by recycling and reusing poop. We’ll visit sand toilets of ancient Egypt, earthen- plaster toilets of the Mali empire, nutrient recycling systems of the Aztec’s lake-side city of Tenochtitlan, and the 19 th century toilets that rivaled the water-flushing variety of today.
Presenters: Laura Allen, co-founder of Greywater Action, educator and author, will present with Martin Medina, a circular economy and waste management expert who works in Latin America, Africa and Asia. As an academic, he’s worked in universities in Mexico, Japan and the US, and he’s consulted for the World Bank, multiple UN programs and more.
Poo, pee and biochar equals Kenyan fertilizer
Monday, May 11th, 12-1 pm PST, 3-4 pm EST
A team working in an informal settlement in Kisumu, Kenya, is turning human excreta into clean, granular fertilizer to improve sanitation, agriculture, and the health of Lake Victoria. Learn from Cornell University professor Rebecca Nelson how her team is finding safe, low-tech, affordable products that help address the interwoven global challenges of food security, environmental sustainability and inequality.

Presenter: Dr. Nelson is a former MacArthur Fellow and expert on the Circular Bionutrient Economy. She teaches and conducts research in Cornell’s School of Integrative Plant Science and also the Ashley School of Global Development and the Environment.
Both webinars are free and sponsored in partnership with OnThisEarth.blog, Greywater Action and the Rich Earth Institute.