Douglass Oster, Post-Gazette Joe Jenkins of Grove City sits in the kitchen of his home. Jenkins is the author of "The Humanure Handbook." Click photo for larger image.

There is a certain look people give you when you mention gardening with human waste. My family asked me not to talk about it at the dinner table, and my editor needed a year's worth of convincing until he agreed to run a column on it.

I was just like all the rest until I met Joe Jenkins while shooting photos of his Grove City property for a national gardening magazine. His gruff, affable manner and wicked sense of humor help soften the shock of discovering what he composts in his garden. Jenkins, author of "The Humanure Handbook," has composted his family's waste for more than 20 years.

His funny, informative book, published in 1999, has sold more than 25,000 copies in 50 countries. It's a fascinating read on a subject most people don't feel comfortable thinking about, much less discussing.

"They may be appalled at the very concept. But it may pique their interest to find out what the truth of the matter is," Jenkins said.

This is one "truth" the Allegheny County Health Department is apparently not interested in spreading.

"This is not a practice that we would like to encourage here in Allegheny County," said public information officer Guillermo Cole. "Human waste must be disposed of in a public sewer system or in an approved on-lot disposal system such as a septic tank. There can be bacteria and virus in human manure. People should avoid contact with human waste, feces."

Jenkins, who lives in Mercer County, obviously disagrees. He thinks of himself as a pioneer, on a mission to teach people the difference between waste disposal and waste recycling. His biggest hurdle is the fear of diseases carried by human waste.

"The solution is to not allow fecal material to come in contact with the environment," he said.

Jenkins has three rules of sanitation:

Fecal material should never come in contact with water.

Feces should never come in direct contact with soil.

Everyone must wash his or her hands after going to the bathroom.

He says that research has shown over and over again that the composting process destroys pathogens.

"As far as I can tell, the only natural method of destroying human pathogens is through composting."

The first step in the process is what the Jenkins family calls their sawdust toilet. It's basically a five-gallon bucket under a toilet seat with a can of sawdust next to it. After each use, a layer of sawdust is thrown on to cover what Jenkins calls "odorous excretions."

The Jenkins' bathroom is not much different from anyone else's, except there's no flushing. And it's papered with articles and pictures of sawdust toilets from around the world. Some of the pictures sent to the author show ornate toilets that truly deserve the title of "the throne." Others are more utilitarian.

What's most amazing about the bathroom is that it doesn't exude the fragrance of an outhouse. In fact, there is no foul smell at all.

"I could put a five-gallon container of humanure right here on this table, and there would be no odor emanating from it," Jenkins boasted.

Each week, he takes the bucket out to the compost pile, where an area is dug from the center of the pile. The material is added and covered with a thick layer of straw, and the bucket is cleaned and returned to the house.

Jenkins stressed that other elements must be combined with the waste to produce good compost. Everything else the family produces that's organic goes into the same composting system -- all the kitchen scraps, garden refuse, grass clippings and leaves. Humanure, which is high in moisture and nitrogen, will not break down on its own. It needs to be balanced with high-carbon materials, preferably ones that are absorbent.

The pile is constructed over a year and then composts for another year. When the process is done correctly, thermophilic composting creates enough heat to destroy any pathogens that might be present.

When it's ready, the compost is used in the family's vegetable garden.

"We're doing as a single family what large groups -- all of humanity -- could be doing: viewing organic material as a resource to be recycled," Jenkins said. "Not only does it work, to me it's inevitably the way of the future."

But he knows it will be an uphill battle convincing mainstream America that human waste is the next logical thing to recycle. It's one thing to save paper, plastic and cans for pickup; it's a whole other thing to drag to the curb a five-gallon bucket filled with what normally is flushed down the drain.

"It's a big jump psychologically, and it's that psychological barrier right now that has to be pierced," he said.

Cole of the Allegheny County Health Department said that in addition to the possible health risks, all the maintenance involved in Jenkins' system is clearly not for the casual composter. Jenkins agreed that only people who are willing to properly take care of the system should use it.

Some others who compost human waste let technology take the place of Jenkins' labor. Fritz Mitnick, first-place winner of the Post-Gazette's Great Gardens contest, had a composting toilet installed in a cute little outhouse amid her Indiana Township garden. It's a luxury all gardeners would love, not to have to take off their muddy boots to use the facilities.

"I think it was Margaret Mead who said, 'Using good drinkable water to flush away human waste is a big waste of a precious resource.' Of course, I don't water my plants either," she said with a laugh.

Composting toilets dehydrate or in some cases incinerate waste instead of actually composting it. They can be used on a larger scale, as any visitor to Beechwood Farms Nature Reserve in Fox Chapel can attest. In its "green" building, which utilizes solar and wind energy, a commercial composting toilet is used by tens of thousands of people each year.

Called a continual flow vertical system, it uses a system of baffles to slowly break down waste into smaller particles. New material is added to the top, and the floor of the toilet is lined with untreated wood chips and peat moss. Automatic watering and ventilation systems keep the material composting and odor-free. By the time the compost reaches the bottom, which takes several years, it is ready for use.

Brian Sheema, director of sanctuaries for the Audubon Societies of Western Pennsylvania, said the resulting compost is fine for the garden.

"It's very safe to handle, safe for vegetable gardens and flower gardens and has a very high nutrient level," he said, adding that he's never heard a complaint from visitors about the composting toilet.

Jenkins doesn't expect most people to accept the idea of composting human waste.

"Probably my realistic dream is that the issue become commonly understood and accepted as a legitimate issue. I don't expect anything more than that."

"The Humanure Handbook," $19, is available online from Jenkins Publishing at www.jenkins-publishing.com. To learn more about composting toilets, go to www.compostingtoilet.com.