Survival sanitation: disposing of garbage when collection stops

This is the third part of a short series on sanitation when public services fail, after handwashing and human waste. Keeping a family healthy through a long outage depends more on these unglamorous habits than on anything in a medical kit, especially when clinics and hospitals are stretched or out of reach.

Garbage is the service people forget. Most households put a can at the curb once a week and never think about it again. Take the truck away and the pile grows every day. Rotting food smells, and worse, it feeds flies, cockroaches and rats, all of which carry disease into the house. Disposable diapers add fecal matter to the mix.

How long before it matters

For an outage of a few days or even a couple of weeks, there is no need to change anything. Everyone has missed a pickup and survived. Keep bags tied, lids on, and the cans in the shade. The trouble starts when collection stops for a month or more. Then the household needs a system.

Step 1: Sort

Start separating all trash, the backlog as well as new waste, into four streams:

• Food and plant scraps that rot quickly
• Paper and cardboard
• Plastics and metals, flattened or crushed to save space
• Sanitary waste: diapers, menstrual products, bandages and anything else soiled with body fluids

Step 2: Dump the scraps on a compost pile

Plant scraps, coffee grounds and eggshells go on a compost heap or into a covered bin, placed well away from the house. They break down into garden compost within months. Keep meat, bones, fish, dairy and grease out of the heap, since they stink, attract dogs, raccoons and rats, and slow the composting; bury those instead, as in step 5.

Step 3: Drain the liquids

Empty every can, jar and carton before it goes into storage, because liquid is what makes stored trash rot and leak. Water-based liquids can go on the ground away from wells and gardens. Fats, oils and greasy liquids go into a small hole, about the size of a cat hole, dug for the purpose and covered with soil straight away so animals and insects are not drawn to it.

Step 4: Burn only what is safe to burn

Clean, dry paper and plain cardboard can be burned, in a stove, fire pit or burn barrel, where local rules and fire conditions allow. Newspaper and junk mail can also be soaked and pressed into paper logs for cooking and heating fuel.

Burn nothing else. Plastics, foam, coated or printed packaging, treated wood, diapers and mixed household trash burned in the open release dioxins and other toxic smoke, which is why the EPA identifies backyard trash burning as one of the largest sources of dioxin emissions. Many states and towns ban it outright.

Step 5: Store, then bury

Everything that is left, plastics, metals and sanitary waste, should be double-bagged and kept in a covered bin with a tight lid, as far from the living space as practical. Store it for as long as possible in the hope that collection resumes.

If it becomes clear that the outage will last many months, bury what cannot be kept:

• Dig a trench or pit deep enough to hold the waste under at least 1.5 feet (about half a meter) of firmly packed soil, which stops flies breeding and animals digging.
• Site it at least 100 feet from any well, stream, pond or spring, and farther if the ground slopes toward water. Sanitary waste in particular must stay well clear of water.
• Keep a record of where it is, and dig out and dispose of the contents properly once services come back.

Sheltering indoors

When people have to stay inside, as they might after a chemical, biological or radiological release, or in a fallout shelter, none of the outdoor methods are available. Bag everything and store it until it can safely go outside. Drain off any liquid first, then wrap wet waste in newspaper, old cloth or another absorbent before bagging. That cuts the smell and slows the rot. Tie each bag tightly, double it, and keep the bags in a sealed container in the room farthest from where people eat and sleep.