The Economics of Shit in SoHum
I found myself thinking about the recent controversy around the port a-pottie at the Veterans Park in Garberville, while stuck, at Dazey’s Garden Center, behind a 20 something kid who was getting 60 bags of chicken manure packed into his late model SUV (60 bags of chicken shit: $300, the aroma that lingers for the life of the vehicle: priceless). This prompted me to look at the problem economically.
People around here spend a lot of money on shit. A 5 gallon bucket of bat guano sells for over $80 retail, and and we import it, by the semi-truck load, almost daily. There’s serious money in manure around here. So, if SoHum gardeners spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars on shit, why is it so hard to find a place to take a dump around here?
We have at least a dozen locations in SoHum to buy shit, but no place you can deposit it without spending money there. We should have pay toilets. That is, toilets that pay you by the pound for your poop. All of the garden shops should have them, at least. Do you think we would have a problem with shit in inappropriate places, if we provided receptacles, and paid people what it was worth?
With fuel prices rising, the cost of importing tons of manure rises as well, making our homegrown (and homelessgrown) shit, that much more valuable. Can we afford not to take advantage this resource? In the competitive, and highly dynamic, marijuana industry, the high cost of importing manure into our rugged and remote community, puts SoHum at a competitive disadvantage, compared to more traditional agricultural areas. We desperately need this resource right now! If SoHum hopes to remain competitive in the marijuana industry, and we want our community to remain prosperous, we need to take steps immediately.
Yes, its time we face the fact that the economic survival of our community hangs in the balance. Unless we provide the facilities to collect this valuable natural resource, it will be wasted, and our community’s economic future will be left in the shitter.
