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For the full version of this article, check out our free Substack post. Crystal’s dog, Lucifer, playing in the sawdust while she turns over the bins. Compost needs time. When we collect poop from a Toilet Equity toilet, it isn't compost yet. We can give it carbon, air, moisture and time. We can tend the conditions. But we can't make compost. A whole living ecosystem does that. Bacteria and fungi break things down. Tiny organisms feed on what they find and become food for others. Each part...

For the full version of this article, check out our free Substack post. Earlier this year, a team of Colorado Mesa University civil engineering students took on an unusual challenge with Toilet Equity: help design a permitted composting site for collected human excreta. The students called their team BrownTown. Erin Brown served as Project Manager, alongside Chase Brown on hydrology and hydraulics, Nolan Morse on environmental engineering, and Alex Spink on structural engineering. They worked...

For the full version of this article, check out our free Substack post. The Western Colorado desert has a way of reminding us what's important. We can ignore a lot of problems in March. We can pretend systems are working in May. But by August, when the pavement is radiating heat and the forecast has read triple digits for a week, everything gets tested. Heat tests our fields and the people who grow our food. It tests our power grid as air conditioners and swamp coolers work overtime. It tests...