Clivus Composting Toilet: A device that uses composting to make human body products "safe for recycling" to the landscape. See Clivus Multrum, Inc.

Clivus Liquid Fertilizer: The liquid end-product from a "Clivus composting toilet". Both the compost and the liquid fertilizer from a certified and properly maintained Clivus are odor-free and safe-to-handle and should be recycled to the landscape in accordance with the Guidelines for Nutrient Recycling.

Composting Toilet/Graywater System: A generic description of the "NutriCycle System".

Direct Nutrient Recycling: Recycling the treated nutrients from human body products directly to agriculture (food crops). This is the best "nutrient recycling" practice. 

Disposal: A "sewage practice" that causes health hazards and pollution by allowing nutrients to go to bodies of water, i.e., "one-way nutrient flows".

Flooding Dose: The way "graywater" is evenly distributed in the "irrigation troughs", that eliminates the need for filters, septic tanks, or perforated distribution pipes.

Graywater: Washwater from domestic life, i.e., water from sinks, bathing, and laundry, excluding the toilet and industrial processes.

Graywater Dosing Station: Equipment, including pumps, a pump basin, and a controller, that is designed to deliver the correct "flooding dose" of "graywater" to the "irrigation troughs". See Pump Basin Detail.

Graywater System: A system of any design that handles "graywater" only.

Indirect Nutrient Recycling: Recycling "nutrients" first to non-food vegetation (ornamentals, lawn, wildlife pasture, and forest) and then relying on natural processes to eventually return the "nutrients" to farm soil.

Irrigation Trough: A long, narrow, open bottomed box, installed level in topsoil so as to provide a space to receive a "flooding dose" of graywater. The lid serves as a walkway. See Irrigation Trough Detail.

NutriCycle Graywater Flower Bed: A specific "graywater system", designed by John Hanson, that uses a root zone to make graywater safe for recycling to groundwater, while at the same time beautifying the landscape. Major components are the "graywater dosing station", the "irrigation trough", and the root zone area (growing area of flowerbed) around the irrigation trough. See Installations, Graywater

NutriCycle System: A system designed by John Hanson, that uses a specific composting toilet/graywater system to recycle the "nutrients" generated by domestic life back to the land based food chain. See System Components

Nutrient: An element whose presence is required in agriculture (human food) but when over abundant in bodies of water can break the human food chain and devastate ecosystems. In the NutriCycle system, "nutrient" means all forms of nitrogen (the main form is nitrate), although other elements are also nutrients, such as potassium and phosphorous. About 80% of all nutrients generated by domestic life are in urine.

Nutrient Pollution: Nutrients in the wrong place; the same as "one-way nutrient flows", "Disposal", and "Nutrient Removal".

Nutrient Recycling: Closing the "nutrient" loop by capturing the "nutrients" in human body products, "treating" them to make them safe-to-handle, and returning them to the land based food chain. The opposite of "sewage practice" and "one-way nutrient flows." See Benefits of Nutrient Recycling.

Nutrient Removal: A "sewage practice" that removes "nutrients" from sewage and puts them into the air and landfills, where they still cause health hazards and pollution from "one-way nutrient flows". Similar to "disposal".

One-Way Nutrient Flows: A "sewage practice" that allows the flow of "nutrients" from farm soils into food, through our bodies, through septic systems and sewers, and into bodies of water, without ever returning, causing serious ecological imbalance on both ends.

Safe For Recycling: For "Clivus Composting Toilet" end-products, involving incidental body contact, this means National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) approved. The Clivus website (www.Clivus.com ) has a link to the NSF website for more information on the standards that Clivus systems meet. The "NutriCycle Graywater Flower bed" makes graywater safe for recycling because there is no point of incidental contact by humans, and because the root zone is known to be a superior "treatment" medium than subsoils.

Sewage: Water containing human body products.

Sewage Practice: Common methods of making and handling "sewage" including the use of sewage toilets, septic tanks, leach fields, sewage treatment plants, and chemical sanitation, ALL of which cause health hazards and pollution, and NONE of which involve safe recycling. There are NO sewage practices in a "NutriCycle System".

Treatment (treated, treating): Making "safe for recycling". With the "NutriCycle System", treatment of body products (making them "safe for recycling" to agriculture or the landscape) is by composting, and treatment of "graywater" (making "safe for recycling" to the ground water) is by passing through a root zone. Treatment generally does NOT occur with "sewage practices" because recycling does not occur.