Night soil is a historical euphemism for human excreta collected from cesspools, privies, pail closets, pit latrines, privy middens, septic tanks, etc. This material was removed from the immediate area, usually at night, by workers employed in this trade. Sometimes it could be transported out of towns and sold on as a fertilizer. Another definition is "untreated excreta transported without water (e.g. via containers or buckets)". Night soil was produced as a result of a sanitation system in areas without sewer systems or septic tanks. In this system of waste management, human feces are collected without dilution in water. Night soil is largely an outdated term used in historical contexts, while fecal sludge management remains an ongoing challenge, particularly in developing countries.
Collection and disposal
Feces were excreted into a container such as a chamber pot, and sometimes collected in the container with urine and other waste ("slops", hence slopping out). The excrement in the pail was often covered with ashes or earth (soil), which may have contributed to the term "night soil". Often the deposition or excretion occurred within the residence, such as in a shophouse. This system may still be used in isolated rural areas or in urban slums in developing countries. The material was collected for temporary storage and disposed of depending on local custom. Disposal has varied through time. A night soil collector usually arrived during the night, hence its name. The vehicle used for collection has been called a night-cart, and its operator a night-man or night-cart man. In isolated rural areas such as in farms, the householders usually disposed of the night soil themselves.
Uses in agriculture
Human excreta may be attractive as fertilizer because of the high demand for fertilizer and the relative availability of the material to create night soil. In areas where native soil is of poor quality, the local population may weigh the risk of using night soil. The use of unprocessed human feces as fertilizer is a risky practice as it may contain disease-causing pathogens. Nevertheless, in some developing nations it is still widespread. Common parasitic worm infections, such as ascariasis, in these countries are linked to night soil use in agriculture, because the helminth eggs are in feces and can thus be transmitted from one infected person to another person (fecal-oral transmission of disease). These risks are reduced by proper fecal sludge management, e.g. via composting. The safe reduction of human excreta into compost is possible. Some municipalities create compost from the sewage sludge, but then recommend that it be used only on flower beds — not vegetable gardens.
History
Ancient Greece The use of sewage as fertilizer was common in ancient Attica. The sewage system of ancient Athens collected the sewage of the city in a large reservoir and then channelled it to the Cephissus river valley for use as fertilizer.
China, Hong Kong, and Singapore
At least as early as the Western Han dynasty, there were mentions of using human feces and urine as fertilizers in Fan Shengzhi shu (The book of Fan Shengzhi on agriculture), but it did not become a common practice until the Song dynasty, along with health warnings when using them. The term is known, or even infamous, among the generations that were born in parts of China or Chinatowns (depending on the development of the infrastructure) before 1960. Post-World War II Chinatown, Singapore, before the independence of Singapore, utilized night-soil collection as a primary means of waste disposal, especially as much of the infrastructure was damaged and took a long time to rebuild following the Battle of Singapore and subsequent Japanese occupation. Following the development of the economy and the standard of living after independence, the night soil system in Singapore is now an anecdote from the time of colonial rule when new systems developed. The collection method is generally very manual and heavily relies on close human contact with the waste. During the Nationalist era when the Kuomintang ruled mainland China, as well as Chinatown in Singapore, the night soil collector usually arrived with spare and relatively empty honey buckets to exchange for the full honey buckets. The method of transporting the honey buckets from individual households to collection centers was very similar to delivering water supplies by an unskilled laborer, with the exception that the item being transported was not at all potable and it was being delivered from the household, rather than to the household. The collector would hang full honey buckets onto each end of a pole he carried on his shoulder and then proceeded to carry it through the streets until he reached the collection point. Chinese has a similar euphemism for night soil collection, 倒夜香 dou2 je6 hoeng1, which literally means "emptying nocturnal fragrance".
Japan
The reuse of feces as fertilizer was common in Japan. In the city of Edo, compost merchants gathered feces to sell to farmers. That was good additional income for apartment owners. Human excreta of rich people were sold at higher prices because their diet was better; presumably, more nutrients remained in their excreta. Various historic documents dating from the 9th century detail the disposal procedures for toilet waste. Selling human waste products as fertilizers became much less common after World War II, both for sanitary reasons and because of the proliferation of chemical fertilizers, and less than 1% is used for night soil fertilization. The presence of the United States occupying force, by whom the use of human waste as fertilizer was seen as unhygienic and suspect, was also a contributing factor: "the Occupationaires condemned the practice, and tried to prevent their compatriots from eating vegetables and fruit from the local markets".
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