Bee is correct! Wolf-Kim, you should really download this book. It's free!
Tortoise, I think I'd like to talk to you about this
PM on it's way shortly!
Couple of folks' concerns:
1. Stink, not at all. I know this from personal experience with a sawdust collection toilet. Just like when your cat uses the litter box & doesn't cover, it stinks. If you don't cover, you get problems with flies & other bugs, plus the smell. However, when that cat scratches the litter over it's deposit, the smell goes away fairly quickly, just like when flushing a toilet.
2. Using raw manure on food crops (grown in the ground, like tomatoes & cabbages) -
NO! This is what many asian countries do. This is night soil. This is how many food born illnesses are spread.
Raw manure of any kind should NEVER be used on a food crop.
3. Using
composted manure. The authors have had their
finished compost tested for pathogens, etc. And these folks have done their homework. Check out the information here:
http://humanurehandbook.com/downloads/Chapter_7.pdf
The authors (and many, many other people, as I am learning) compost humanure for use on ANY crop. Potatoes, tomatoes, cole crops, fruit trees, berry bushes, etc. The key is a properly managed compost pile.
The pile gets HOT (thermolithic) and basically, cooks the poop out of the poop
Pathogens can't survive for long in that type of heat.
Also, it is AGED for a year after the last LIVE deposit was made. Some folks age it two years or more before use.
Does this fly in the face of modern composting wisdom, right up there with composting meat, milk & other protein & fat containing foods? Yep. But not historical wisdom. For example:
Many people have heard of the Healthy Hunzas, a people in what is now a part of Pakistan who reside among the Himalayan peaks, and routinely live to be 120 years old. The Hunzas gained fame in the United States during the 1960s health food era when several books were written about the fantastic longevity of this ancient people. Their extraordinary health has been attributed to the quality of their overall lifestyle, including the quality of the natural food they eat and the soil its grown on. Few people, however, realize that the Hunzas also compost their humanure and use it to grow their food. Theyre said to have virtually no disease, no cancer, no heart or intestinal trouble, and they regularly live to be over a hundred years old while singing, dancing and making love all the way to the grave.
Now, this could be entirely due to the fact that they ate an all natural diet, just the way they had been raised for generations. But, it surely can't be overlooked that they use their manure to return nutrients to the soil.
Just when ya think you've heard everything...... 
Sad, isn't it? 
