Fred Pearce describes the role of "honey-suckers" in recycling
human waste as fertiliser in contemporary India (16 February, p
48). Less than a hundred years ago, this was a not-uncommon
practice in the urban UK. Houses built in central Gateshead in
the 1890s, and still standing, typically have two hatches in the
wall separating them from the back lane. The upper was for
deliveries of coal, the lower for taking out human faeces, to
which ash from the coal fire had been added. Those doing the
removal were called "honey-pot men"; the euphemism has clearly
travelled and lasted. In the mining town of Ashington,
Northumberland, a narrow-gauge railway ran down the back lanes
between rows of houses, to take the closet contents for use as
fertiliser on the mine company's farm. Pearce does not mention
pharmaceuticals and the risks they pose when using human
effluent as fertiliser. There are, ... To continue reading this
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