Poo

The poo bin

Today's post is about poo, so I apologise in advance if you are eating your dinner! This is the topic that I always get asked about and it's probably the topic lots of people would like to ask about but don't. Anyway it was sparked off by me asking someone after lunch what he would be doing this afternoon, and his reply was 'burning more poo, I suppose....I've got a bit of a backlog'. Of course we laughed a lot, but the reality is that someone has to deal with it at Rothera (the plumber, Dale) and unfortunately in the field, new regulations mean we are not allowed just to dig a hole and cover it over afterwards. At Rothera there is a sewage treatment plant, and I understand that liquid waste is pumped into the sea after treatment, whilst poo is burned. If there are 80 people on station in the summer, that's a lot of poo!

Jo demonstrating use of the poo bin

Roger has been packing more of our equipment today, and I got to see BAS's answer to poo for the first time (we didn't have this back in 2003 and 2004 when I last camped in Antarctica). Basically it's called a 'poo bin', and is a large tub with a lid that you have to crouch over. Apparently one of these will do 2 people for 20 days, so we will have to take two. The really revolting thing about this is that we will have to transport our poo bins around with us on the sledges, so I hope it is cold because otherwise 6 week-old poo in a container is going to be very unpleasant. When we get back to Rothera at the end of the field season, the poo bin and all its contents will be incinerated. To me this does not seem very environmentally friendly, because the bin is made of very heavy duty plastic. Sometimes I don't understand why we have to go to such great lengths to preserve the environment whilst undoing a lot of the good work in the process. And apparently you mustn't wee in the poo bin, so that will take some practice in the mornings!

I hope this is not too crude for you all, but I thought it is worth a mention because after all, everybody poos (and it has been a boring day...).

The latest forecast for our departure is Monday...bring it on!