You are on page 1of 34

[Biodigestion] [Week 1]

Methane Biodigestion – INDEX


Methane Biodigestion – INDEX............................................................................................................ ...........1
File Disclaimer................................................................................................................... ............................2
**** Affirmative Evidence ****.............................................................................................. .........................3
1AC [1/10]........................................................................................................................ .............................4
1AC [2/10]........................................................................................................................ .............................6
1AC [3/10]........................................................................................................................ .............................7
1AC [4/10]........................................................................................................................ .............................8
1AC [5/10]........................................................................................................................ .............................9
1AC [6/10]..................................................................................................................... ..............................10
1AC [7/10]..................................................................................................................... ..............................11
1AC [8/10]..................................................................................................................... ..............................12
1AC [9/10]..................................................................................................................... ..............................13
1AC [10/10]................................................................................................................... ..............................15
INH: Waste Now........................................................................................................................ ...................16
Pollution EXT : Landfills....................................................................................................................... .........17
SOLVE: Human Biodigestion Possible........................................................................................... ................18
SOLVE : Taboo Removal............................................................................................... ................................19
SOLVE: Scatology................................................................................................................................. ........20
SOLVE: Linguistic Focus.................................................................................................... ...........................21
Poo Taboo : Capital/Production............................................................................................................. ........22
Poo Taboo: Separation/Division Module.................................................................................................... ....24
Poo Taboo : Capitalism Extensions................................................................................................. ..............25
Poo Taboo : Statism Module.................................................................................................... .....................27
Statism Spillover................................................................................................................................... .......29
EXT: Statism............................................................................................................................................... ..30
Global Warming Solvency...................................................................................................... ......................31
**** Negative Evidence ****........................................................................................... .............................32
Methane Biodigestion BAD.......................................................................................................................... .33
No Stigma—Poo Acceptable............................................................................................................... ..........34

www.ksu.edu/debate

1
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
File Disclaimer
This file is not underlined. We highly recommend that you underline this for yourself, as the
argument is fairly complicated and requires a lot of thought to argue effectively.

Use at your own risk.

www.ksu.edu/debate

2
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]

**** Affirmative Evidence ****

www.ksu.edu/debate

3
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
1AC [1/10]
Contention One: Inherency

We’re currently experiencing catastrophic results of our inability to utilize waste as energy.
Organic waste, which could be reused as energy, now comprises two-thirds of the United
States’ solid waste pollution.

EPA 07. Organic Materials accessed 9/7/08 http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/organics/index.htm// nic

In 2005, 245.7 million tons of municipal solid waste or MSW (more commonly known as trash or garbage)
were generated in the United States.
Organic materials—comprised of yard trimmings, food scraps, wood waste, Bodily waste and paper and
paperboard products—are the largest component of our trash and make up more than two-thirds of the
solid waste stream. Reducing, reusing, recycling, and rebuying—the four "Rs"—is key to diverting organic
materials from landfills or incinerators and protecting human health and our land, air, and water. Waste
reduction and recycling prevents greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, reduces pollutants, saves energy,
conserves resources, and reduces the need for new disposal facilities.

And yet, instead of using this form of energy, we tend to view it as a contaminant, as the
abject – that which we cast off. This hatred of waste is rooted in a hatred of ourselves.

Laporte, 2000. [Dominique, Psychoanalyst, History of Shit, The MIT Press, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, p. xx].

Everything is contained in everything, each thing contains both the principle and its opposite; in time, what
is burned and dried up fertilizes and nourishes, rank odors turn into perfume and rot into gold. As for
human dung, Constantine Porphyrogenes writes: [I]t is recommended so as to mitigate its noxiousness to
mix it with other dungs. Above all else, one should carefully ensure that ploughmen not use any dung less
than a year old, for, it would be of no use, not to mention the damage it might cause, given that it is such
an excellent source of food for beasts and snakes. Three-to-four-year-old dung is best because the passage
of time will have dissipated its stench and whatever was hard in it will have softened. This enigmatic belief
can be discerned as early as the first-century writings of Columella, as well as in the Geoponiques, which
documents its currency in both the East and West. It reemerges at the beginning of the sixteenth century
in the work of Crescentius of Bologna and later in the same century in agronomic treatises and Royal
Ordinances. Its more recent repercussions can be found in nineteenth-century hygienic literature and its
agricultural applications. The necessity of this practice implies that the body’s legacy of original sin
contaminates even its waste. It would seem that human excrement, like the soul, carries the “noxious”
trace of the body it departs. There is a wickedness in shit that must be given to dissipate, or it will turn on
man, burn his fields, and nourish the malevolent snake, who, after all, is the incarnation of the Wicked One.
But if waste is decanted or purified with water, its noxious properties evaporate, leaving behind only
beneficial effects. Shit is not pernicious in and of itself—only through its recent association with the flesh.
Only time can release its fertilizing spirit, its subtle life principle, so volatile a substance and so susceptible
to transmutation.

Worse, our failure to reflect and reuse our waste is causing a direct impact on human life.

Ellen Szarleta 03 Professor at IUN environmental studies Landfills in Northwest Indiana accessed 7/10/08
http://www.iun.edu/~environw/landfills.html

Landfills present a clear and present potential threat to human health as well as a threat to our
environment. As noted even the best landfill liners will leak…”82% of surveyed landfill cells had leaks
while 41% had a leak area of more than 1 square feet, “ according to Leak Location Services, Inc. (LLSI)
website (March 15, 2000). This is an alarming statistic considering that in addition to leakage, landfills also
provide problems to our health and environment through hazardous contaminated air emissions. Over ten
www.ksu.edu/debate

4
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
toxic gases are released from landfills especially the toxic gas of methane gas. Methane gas is a naturally
occurring gas created by the decay of organic matter inside a landfill. As it is formed, it builds up pressure
and then begins to move through the soil. In a recent study of 288 landfills, off-site migration of gases,
including methane was detected at 83% of these sites. (REHM) When a new municipal landfill is
proposed, advocates of the project always emphasize that “no hazardous wastes will enter these landfill.”
Studies have shown that even though municipal landfills may not legally receive “hazardous” wastes, the
leachate they produce is as dangerous as the leachate from hazardous waste landfills.

www.ksu.edu/debate

5
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
1AC [2/10]
Additionally, society is afraid of poop, and this fear is rooted in the notion of identification
through division – we dissociate ourselves from poopers just like the early Victorians did, in an
effort to make ourselves feel superior.

Amanda Rotondo, M.A. in Media Studies, Ph.D student in Communications, 23 May 2008.
Poop Report, “The Toilet Paper<colon> Burke, Bahktin, and the Rhetoric of Poop,”
http://www.poopreport.com/Academic/the_toilet_paper.html, accessed 7/8/08// rjk

To fully understand the power (and hilarity) of the Victorians' attempt to distance them selves from the
masses, it is important to understand Burke's theory of identification through division more thoroughly.
First, identification through division is an inherent tool in socialization. Hence it is with people from the first
time they are told "no, don't do that." By stating what people, usually children, are not to do something,
the notion of socialization through the negative is established. This continues into the deeper notion of
moralization. Of the Ten Commandments from the Old Testament, eight of them are most commonly
written as "thou shalt not" (ex. Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain, Thou shalt not commit
adultery, etc.) People are taught morality based on what is not moral to do, moreso than what is moral to
do. From this comes the idea that we are who we are based on who we are not. Here the power of the
rhetorical construction of poop becomes apparent. Everyone poops. Everyone in the past, present, and
future has pooped and will poop. This is a basic medical fact, and is undeniable. Yet we spend millions of
dollars on products and infrastructure to create the illusion of pooplessness. Poop is the universal leveler. It
is one of the three things (the other two being eating and sleeping) that cannot be "divided out" through
Burke's theory of identification through division. No class of people can claim to be better than another
class because they have managed to find a way to not poop. The paranoia people have about getting
"found out" as poopers indicates just how strongly we have been socialized to distance ourselves from the
lowliness and dirtiness that is poop.

But here’s the good news-- Manure based biogas technology is powerful, but more research is
needed.

Daniel Zitomer and Prasoon Adhikari, BioCycle writers, September 2005


Biocycle, “Extra methane production from municipal anaerobic digesters,” accessed ProQuest 7/8/08// rjk

A full-scale demonstration test was performed by feeding Southeastern Wisconsin Products and Pandl's
Restaurant wastes to the anaerobic digesters at the SSWWTP at the same time municipal wastewater
solids were also being fed. There was a 70 percent increase in biogas production when Southeastern
Wisconsin Products wastewater was codigested. The waste constituted one percent of the total COD
loading to the digesters. Therefore, the biogas production increase was not due to additional COD, but may
have been due to a synergistic effect resulting from the presence of bioavailable nutrients (e.g., iron)
required for microbial growth. The additional biogas can be employed to produce 16,300 kw-hr/day of
electricity worth over $200,000 per year using an existing biogas-powered electric generator set at the
treatment plant. It is recommended that treatment plant personnel consider periodic or continuous
codigestion of Southeastern Wisconsin Products wastewater and municipal wastewater solids; this may
lead to a sustained increase in biogas production. In addition, investigations regarding the use of
Southeastern Wisconsin Products and other similar yeast production/fermentation wastes as supplements
to increase biogas production at other anaerobic digestion facilities are recommended.

www.ksu.edu/debate

6
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]

1AC [3/10]
Thus we advocate the following plan:

The United States federal government should ban all forms of waste management in the
United States. Ask, we’ll clarify.

www.ksu.edu/debate

7
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
1AC [4/10]
Contention Two: The Production Machine

First, the sense of taboo surrounding poop began during the Victorian era – the upper class
Victorians had access the technology to “cover up” defecation, separating them from the
lower class. This caused pooping to be viewed as a crime committed by lower-class animals.

Amanda Rotondo, M.A. in Media Studies, Ph.D student in Communications, 23 May 2008.
Poop Report, “The Toilet Paper<colon> Burke, Bahktin, and the Rhetoric of Poop,”
http://www.poopreport.com/Academic/the_toilet_paper.html, accessed 7/8/08// rjk

A lasting outcome of the Victorian poop sensibilities is the flush-toilet and the private bathroom. Of course,
this is also a result of the realization that miasma theory is not reality and an increased awareness of the
need for a sewage system that keeps poop away from drinking water. Pragmatically, there are a myriad of
ways that sewer systems could have come into existence and into the home. Socially, the Victorian
dictated that they would enter the world as privately as possible. The flush toilet allowed Victorians to
enter a room alone, do their business, and flush away any evidence of the "crime." No poop, little or no
poop smell (compared to the chamber pot option,) and no evidence of the poop leaving the building at any
point in the future. It was all underground and out of sight. This allowed the elite Victorians (elite only, as
indoor flush toilets were quite expensive) to create the illusion that they did not poop (Praeger, 2007.)
This, by Burke's theory, separated them from the lower classes. If the lower classes revealed their base
animalness by pooping in public outhouses, using chamber pots which then needed to be disposed of, or
just going somewhere outdoors, the Victorian elite could consider this behavior "other" and proclaim them
selves more civilized and refined than the non-flush-poopers (Burke, 1969.)

The rich person associates the poor with the vile – with waste. The poor person associates the
rich person with corruption – with waste. This capitalist mindset unites the rich and the poor in
a racist hatred – the capitalist dynamic locks racism into place as a substitute for the hatred
between the classes.

Laporte, 2000. [Dominique, Psychoanalyst, History of Shit, The MIT Press, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, p. xx].

Since the sixteenth century, capitalism has persistently trapped the city in the Mobius strip of a discourse
whose very unity is predicated on a division that can only be dialectically related. On one side lies the rich
man’s discourse, which associates the poor with the vile, the vulgar, the corrupt—in other words, with shit.
On the other side lies the poor man’s law; which suspects corruption within luxury and wealth a the source
of stench. Needless to say, both the discourse of the master and that of the slave can smell the Jew a mile
away, and their olfactory sense is all the keener when it comes to the black man. If rich and poor cling to
similar racist views, it is because a capitalist dynamic locks each into place as the other’s filth. Pierre
Legendre superbly demonstrates how patriotic bureaucracy draws its power from a mythology of the State
as “the supreme guarantor of absolute power and virginal purity, the latter being put forth as the
antithesis of dirty money.” Power in its naked state is revolting, as are all those things tied to a vile and
earthly trade (money, blood, sex). Why to the hard links that shackle the subjects of Western institutions to
a centralist power perform so flawlessly? Why do they impede all fantasies of abolishing the State and
serve instead to prolong its grip? Because the State is understood as pure and inviolable, as capable of
purifying the most repulsive things—even money—through the touch of its divine hand.

www.ksu.edu/debate

8
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
1AC [5/10]
The concept that our own waste is disgusting and superfluous is the same notion upon which
capitalist domination is allowed to thrive.

Marisol Cortez, Sociology professor at UC Davis, 2002


The Poop Report, “Scatology: An Etiology, A Primer (or, Is It A Coincidence That "Theses" Rhymes With
"Feces"?), http://www.poopreport.com/Academic/Content/Scatology/scatology.html, accessed 7/8/2008// rjk

Speaking in the broadest and most general terms possible, my thinking is roughly this: from an ecological
standpoint, human beings have reached a crisis point. Pollution, global warming, deforestation, loss of
biodiversity, corporatization, and a growing gap between the powerful and the powerless have
demonstrated that any economic system based on wanton consumption of resources for short-term gain --
and any political system that affords, on the basis of this overconsumption, comfort and stability for some
at the violent expense of the majority -- is radically unsustainable and untenable. It is, then, the central
and tragic irony of Western civilization that "progress", every step ostensibly forward, has been purchased
at cost: the incredible standard of living in Western countries has been obtained through colonial economic
and political policy, and at the price of hunger and disease for millions of people worldwide. Economic
development has oftentimes meant the razing of native habitat and the relocation or decimation of
indigenous peoples. Technology, comfort, and convenience have been achieved in exchange for air
pollution, alienation, heart disease, nuclear bombs, and garbage with a half-life of centuries: shit. The
flipside of progress is shit. The concept of shit, in fact, of something both disgusting and superfluous -- and
disgusting precisely because superfluous -- is uniquely capitalist; is uniquely the product of a surplus-
producing economy. Only within an economic system predicated upon not only the possibility but the
exigency of excess, surplus, profit -- only within such an economic and cultural system can there be a
concept of uselessness, discardability, flushability

<<< INSERT CAPITALISM IMPACT >>

www.ksu.edu/debate

9
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
1AC [6/10]
Also, examining culture through scatology leads to a personal transformation, returning a
conception of agency that we have lost the capitalist production mindset.

Marisol Cortez, Sociology professor at UC Davis, 2002


The Poop Report, “Scatology: An Etiology, A Primer (or, Is It A Coincidence That "Theses" Rhymes With
"Feces"?), http://www.poopreport.com/Academic/Content/Scatology/scatology.html, accessed 7/8/2008// rjk

By putting waste at the forefront of theory, then, by forcing us to look at what we now throw away -- for
there is no away here; the system is closed, our notion of unlimited supply an illusion -- an examination of
culture through the lens of the scatological effectively transfigures and transvalues our understanding of
the scatological. When we are forced to view waste, we find that we are also forced to transform the
cultural conditions that allow for waste and for the idea of "shit". And when the idea of "waste" is no longer
conceptually operable, shit becomes, once more, something useful: something with which we fertilize
fields, something that bridges rather than cleaves decay and growth, death and life. And where there this
economic and cultural transformation occurs, a personal transformation occurs as well. For when we return
shit to public view we do more than restore a natural, sustainable form of human economic life: we also
restore, at the most basic and fundamental level, a conception of agency we have lost to capital. Allowing
us the luxury of flushing what we don't need, surplus effaces that vital link between our actions in the
world and their consequences, between cause and effect, consumption and elimination -- but there is
nothing that reinscribes this age-old link so quickly as a mindfulness of shit. There is, after all, no eating
without excreting: and no awareness of excretion without accompanying awareness that the self is a part,
and must act the part.

www.ksu.edu/debate

10
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
1AC [7/10]
And, wait for it—as methane gains incentives, more businesses will invest in this
environmentally friendly form of energy.

Ryan Stanton, staff writer for the Bay City Times, 06 February 2008.
The Bay City Times, “Methane from landfills seen as a viable, renewable source of energy,”
http://blog.mlive.com/watershedwatch/2008/02/methane_from_landfills_seen_as.html, 07/09/2008// rjk

Get a whiff of this: Methane gas from landfills actually can be harnessed as a source of renewable energy.
It's not a new technology, but it's an idea that's been gaining popularity since the 1980s. Now it's catching
on in a big way as waste companies search for so-called "greener" ways to do business and utilities look to
boost their alternative energy portfolios. "It's going to change things within our lifetime for sure," said Tom
Horton, a spokesman for Waste Management Inc., operator of 275 landfills nationwide. "I think it's really
going to be remarkable when you dial ahead to the year 2020 and see where we're getting our power
from." Landfill gas is the natural byproduct of the decomposition of solid waste and is comprised primarily
of methane and carbon dioxide. Since 1994, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has had a federal
program to promote the reuse of landfill gas as renewable energy. Preventing emissions of powerful
greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere helps protect the environment, according to the EPA. "Whether
you agree with the theories about global warming, the idea that we're going to move to more sustainable
energy sources is a great thing," Horton asserted. Horton's firm oversees the People's Landfill in Saginaw
County, where a four-engine plant produces about 3,200 kilowatts of power each hour by converting
landfill gas into electricity. Horton points out that that's enough to meet the energy needs of 2,500 homes,
and it's an alternative to burning coal and consuming fossil fuels. Waste Management has 13 landfills in
Michigan, eight of which are using gas in an energy-related way. At about half of those, pipelines carry the
gas to some kind of industrial facility, such as an automotive plant, to meet that company's thermal needs.
One landfill in Ottawa County has a pipeline that runs six miles to Zeeland Farm Services Inc., which uses
the gas byproduct in its soybean processing operations to make biodiesel. In 2006, landfill gas energy
projects in the U.S. prevented the release of more than 20 million metric tons of carbon equivalent,
according to the EPA. Experts claim that has the same environmental impact as eliminating the emissions
of 14 million cars, planting 20 million acres of forest, or preventing the use of more than 169 million barrels
of oil. The Whitefeather Landfill in Bay County's Pinconning Township hasn't gotten into the business of
harnessing landfill gas yet, but its operator, Republic Services Inc., claims it has hopes for the future.
Landfill officials currently are focusing on controlling gas odors by collecting the gas and burning it onsite,
said Brian Ezyk, area engineer for Republic. Two other Republic landfills in Michigan are recycling landfill
gas for electricity in Montrose and New Boston. The hope is to add Pinconning to the list, Ezyk said, but
there are no concrete plans in the works just yet. "There's not enough landfill gas being produced that
would make it economically efficient," he explained, pointing out the high costs of constructing an
electrical generating plant and the power lines to connect it to the Consumers Energy power grid.
"Hopefully, someday, it will be economically viable to construct a power plant, but I don't know if it will
happen or not," he said, though he says he can't deny the environmental benefits. "It's true recycling:
You're taking waste and converting it into electricity." Horton said Waste Management got in the business
of harnessing landfill gas nearly 20 years ago and now uses that gas to provide energy to 1 million homes
nationwide. He said the company's goal is to double that by 2020. "It's a big part of what we do, and it's a
big part of what we want to do more of in the future," Horton said. Waste Management has 104 landfills
nationwide that produce commercial quantities of gas, about 76 of which are parlaying that asset into
electricity. Another 23 capture gas and send it into a direct pipeline to heat homes or to be used by
businesses. As the value of renewable energy rises, and more incentives are provided, Horton said,
landfills where harnessing gas might not be commercially viable now could be the hub of such activity in
the future.

www.ksu.edu/debate

11
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
1AC [8/10]
Contention Three: Solvency

The struggle to embrace our waste starts in this round. Your ballot is a tool to expand research
and acceptance of the subject of poop. By even talking about using our own waste as energy,
we begin a movement to spread the subject of waste.

Amanda Rotondo, M.A. in Media Studies, Ph.D student in Communications, 23 May 2008.
Poop Report, “The Toilet Paper<colon> Burke, Bahktin, and the Rhetoric of Poop,”
http://www.poopreport.com/Academic/the_toilet_paper.html, accessed 7/8/08// rjk

Despite the fact that every human in every culture for all time has pooped, a shockingly miniscule body of
research exists on the practices surrounding poop. Is it really possible that a cultural taboo has kept the
academic world away from a topic so fertile as this? Amazingly, this does seem to be the case. Then what
does the future hold for poop? Mary Douglas famously stated "Waste is matter out of place." If poop's
unacceptability comes from its position as waste, poop could possibly have a renaissance if the realms in
which it is considered out of place become fewer. Poop in art museums has become somewhat acceptable,
when considering the evolution of reactions to "fountain" (really about pee, the less evil of the pee/poo
dyad) through the admiration of Cloaca. Poop may infiltrate more and more domains and soon be only
rarely out of place. Then again, poop may remain stunted at the museum. In fifty years if this paper is
found by another slightly wacky grad student, I hope she is shocked by how much of a transgression it
must have been to talk about poop back in 2008.

Furthermore, we must take all steps to use our poop. The plan’s use of our “waste” makes
waste useful, and all of the society’s “waste” – everything and everyone would be useful, a
fecal utopia.

Marisol Cortez, Sociology professor at UC Davis, 2002


The Poop Report, “Scatology: An Etiology, A Primer (or, Is It A Coincidence That "Theses" Rhymes With
"Feces"?), http://www.poopreport.com/Academic/Content/Scatology/scatology.html, accessed 7/8/2008// rjk

It's useful, as well, as a metaphor for the scatological project. Like permanently striking garbage collectors,
we must voluntarily refuse to refuse our own refuse: refuse to flush our shit from public view. For if we turn
our garbage out instead of throwing it away, we will be forced to look at and hold ourselves accountable
for what we have produced. Under these circumstances, our two options would be to produce less garbage
or to use garbage to make something else (or both). And if our courageously abstemious state of affairs
continued, it seems likely that we would cease to produce garbage -- in the sense that all the "garbage" we
did produce would be turned into something we needed, something for which we had use. In this case,
waste would not have gone away, but "waste" -- the idea of waste, the luxury and privilege of waste --
would have passed from our vocabulary, and hence from our conceptual schema. Having disappeared from
material reality, there could be no conception of waste, as everything, by virtue of necessity, would be
useful.

www.ksu.edu/debate

12
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
1AC [9/10]
And, your ballot has power. It is possible to change society’s conception of waste. The more
poop is represented not only as a human “waste” product, but as a normal part of the
digestion process experienced by everyone, the more likely it is to become acceptable.

Amanda Rotondo, M.A. in Media Studies, Ph.D student in Communications, 23 May 2008.
Poop Report, “The Toilet Paper<colon> Burke, Bahktin, and the Rhetoric of Poop,”
http://www.poopreport.com/Academic/the_toilet_paper.html, accessed 7/8/08// rjk

One interesting variation on poop's role in art is Wim Delvoye's series called "Cloaca." Of which there have
been several iterations since the late 1990's. All of the Cloaca pieces share the same goal. They are
chemical reproductions of what occurs in the human digestive system, with the end product of the piece's
efforts being nothing other than a perfect piece of poop, indistinguishable from one that would come out of
a human being. People stand in a room with this large machine made up of jars of acid, tubes and siphons,
and watch as Cloaca takes a standard meal, often delivered by some of the finest restaurants in New York,
and churns and fizzles it into poop, perhaps one of the most mundane (see meaning number seven)
substances imaginable. Yet for years and many iterations of the piece, crowds have come and marveled
(Delvoye, 2000.) There are several reasons why people might be so fascinated by Cloaca. First, it
represents a transgression. Poop is supposed to be disgusting, and yet here in an art museum resides a
massive machine designed to do one thing only: Poop. Second, it is intriguing that a process that occurs all
the time in the grand space of a belly requires such a large space to be put into effect outside the human
body. A process that we take so for granted and are so horrified by is actually quite an amazing feat of
evolution (or creation, whatever you fancy.) It forces the viewer to offer a second of reverence to the
digestive tract. Third, the final product of Cloaca, the poop itself, is regarded as art. It is scooped up and
vacuum sealed, dated and numbered, and marked with precisely what foods Cloaca "ate" in order to
produce this particular piece of art-poop. These packages are sold to collectors, much like Manzoni's Merde
d'Artiste and are collectible even now. Fourth, the modern age has a certain respect for the machine.
Because observing Cloaca can be justified not as exercising curiosity about poop but rather curiosity about
the workings of an amazing machine, it gives observers an "out" for letting people know what they went to
the museum to see. While going to a museum watch something poop could be embarrassing to admit,
going to a museum to admire a work of mechanistic genius is surely an acceptable pursuit. Fifth and
perhaps most interestingly, Cloaca takes what is usually a by-product and makes it the main event. In a
standard day, poop is what happens as a result of eating. Food and drink are the main focus of the
digestive process. However, Cloaca makes a Carnivalesque run at the notion of poop as byproduct by
turning poop into the event itself. The food is secondary and is merely serving as the fuel for the machine.
When observers watch Cloaca being "fed" they are seeing the food as "eventual poop" instead of in
everyday life when poop is seen as "former food." The people are not there to see anything other than the
creation of poop. This turns the notion of poop as waste upside down and brings Rabelais' notions into a
new forum.

Don’t be afraid to laugh at poo in this round. Laughter is the first step to breaking down the
abject.

Orion Intellectual thinker and activist 07 Political Fecology In Practice accessed 7/8/08
http://www.poopreport.com/Academic/political_fecology_in_practice.html

I sat next to an old woman whose life story deeply affected me. Her experiences in violent and oppressive
relationships spoke to me. It would be unfair to reproduce her story here without consent, but I will say
that she had been through the worst of times. She shared a deeply emotional story with me that changed
my perspective on the world. In that brief plane ride, she taught me acceptance and forgiveness in dealing
with the past and helped me more than she knew. Right after this transformative discussion, she pooped
herself. She shat her pants on the airplane. The flight attendant came and got her, took her into the
lavatory, and for forty-five minutes helped her clean up the mess. Meanwhile, I sprayed air freshener and
wiped up her seat, while every other person on the plane inhaled fecal particles. She came back to her
seat right before we landed, silently sitting down. After a few seconds of silence, she said, "Well... that was
www.ksu.edu/debate

13
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
awkward." I looked at her. "Honestly, ma'am, of all of the people to be sitting next to when something like
this happens, I am the RIGHT person. After everything I've been through this week, I understand that this is
definitely not something to be ashamed of." My ability to comfort this old woman about poop after she had
comforted me about my own issues was the most fulfilling moment of the entire trip. I see PoopReport as
a constant deconstruction of the abject. When we laugh at something, we take the "ick" factor out of it;
and once we do that with poop, the possibilities are endless. Nothing should just be thrown away. We are
too sophisticated for that these days. Fun leads to sophistication.

www.ksu.edu/debate

14
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
1AC [10/10]
And, we really aren’t kidding. Changing society’s view of poop is paramount. The status quo
view of poop as a contaminating agent justifies viewing groups of people as contamination.
The same logic we use to define poop was used by Hitler to justify the “cleaning up” of Jews
during the Holocaust.

Amanda Rotondo, M.A. in Media Studies, Ph.D student in Communications, 23 May 2008.
Poop Report, “The Toilet Paper<colon> Burke, Bahktin, and the Rhetoric of Poop,”
http://www.poopreport.com/Academic/the_toilet_paper.html, accessed 7/8/08// rjk

Poop also represents contamination. Having poop in the streets indicated that the neighborhood is dirty.
While there are others, poop is a prime indicator of that which must be purified from society. In "The
Rhetoric of Hitler's Battle," Burke discusses the notion of rhetorical purification. For Hitler, the Jews were a
contaminating force to the German people. By "cleaning" Germany of Jews, Germans would have less
"filth" to contend with and a higher level of purity in their country (Burke, 1939.) Here, the framing of
Hitler's anti-Semitic argument bears resemblance to ideas about poop. Wanting to rid a place of poop,
wanting to better people's lives by keeping them far away from the contaminating force of poop: these are
the arguments made for many poop-related rituals and norms. Hence while the comparison is itself
disturbing to make, Hitler's rhetoric encouraging the genocide of the Jews uses the same rhetorical devices
and notions of purification as do arguments for keeping poop closeted and hidden.

Confronting our own waste is the key to destroying societies ability to throw things away

Marisol Cortez Sociology professor at UC Davis 02 Scatology: An Etiology, A Primer (or, Is It A Coincidence
That "Theses" Rhymes With "Feces"?) accessed 7/8/08
http://www.poopreport.com/Academic/Content/Scatology/scatology.html

At this point, it might help to think of these ideas in more practical, literal terms. Imagine, for example,
that the cadre of hired professionals who now collect our garbage went on permanent strike (as in the
Simpsons episode from a few seasons back). Instead of tying up our garbage in airtight bags that we leave
on the curbside for effortless whisking away, all of our waste products would now surround us, spilling out
of our houses and into our front yards. It is, admittedly, a far-fetched scenario, but one that is useful in
terms of understanding what it means to "put shit at the forefront of theory" and thus "transvalue it". It's
useful, as well, as a metaphor for the scatological project. Like permanently striking garbage collectors, we
must voluntarily refuse to refuse our own refuse: refuse to flush our shit from public view. For if we turn our
garbage out instead of throwing it away, we will be forced to look at and hold ourselves accountable for
what we have produced. Under these circumstances, our two options would be to produce less garbage or
to use garbage to make something else (or both). And if our courageously abstemious state of affairs
continued, it seems likely that we would cease to produce garbage -- in the sense that all the "garbage" we
did produce would be turned into something we needed, something for which we had use. In this case,
waste would not have gone away, but "waste" -- the idea of waste, the luxury and privilege of waste --
would have passed from our vocabulary, and hence from our conceptual schema. Having disappeared from
material reality, there could be no conception of waste, as everything, by virtue of necessity, would be
useful.

www.ksu.edu/debate

15
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
INH: Waste Now
Organic waste makes up two thirds of the solid waste stream

EPA, (environmental protection agency) 07 Organic Materials accessed 9/7/08


http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/organics/index.htm

In 2005, 245.7 million tons of municipal solid waste or MSW (more commonly known as trash or garbage)
were generated in the United States. Organic materials—comprised of yard trimmings, food scraps, wood
waste, Bodily waste and paper and paperboard products—are the largest component of our trash and
make up more than two-thirds of the solid waste stream. Reducing, reusing, recycling, and rebuying—the
four "Rs"—is key to diverting organic materials from landfills or incinerators and protecting human health
and our land, air, and water. Waste reduction and recycling prevents greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions,
reduces pollutants, saves energy, conserves resources, and reduces the need for new disposal facilities.

www.ksu.edu/debate

16
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
Pollution EXT : Landfills
All landfills leak and contaminate water supplies

Ellen Szarleta 03 Professor at IUN environmental studies Landfills in Northwest Indiana accessed 7/10/08
http://www.iun.edu/~environw/landfills.html

Unfortunately, starting in the 1970’s and continuing throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s, the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) funded research, which showed that burying household garbage in
the ground poisons the groundwater. EPA has spelled out in detail the reason why all landfills leak. (Dr.
Peter Montague, REHN). Even with the state of art double liners, EPA officials still expect landfills to fail and
eventually poison the groundwater. (Dr. Peter Montague, REHN) There is just inadequate known data
relating to contamination due to landfills leaking; however, there were ground wells tested in the Wheeler
area surrounding the Wheeler Landfill. These ground wells were found to be contaminated and the water
unsafe to drink. As a result, Waste Management negotiated a settlement with the affected citizens, and
paid for city water to be brought to their homes. Unfortunately, the problem of the contaminated water still
remains in the ground, and the potential for groundwater contamination in Wheeler is very real. (Lynch)
Groundwater contamination may result from leakage of very small amounts of leachate. TCE is a
carcinogen and one of the volatile organic compounds typically found in landfill leachate. It would take less
than 4 drops of TCE mixed with the water in an average sized swimming pool (20,000 gallons) to render
the water undrinkable. (Landfills Leak)

www.ksu.edu/debate

17
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
SOLVE: Human Biodigestion Possible
Success in individual communities proves that human fecal matter via methane digesters is a
usable form of alternative energy Methane digesters can solve and are beneficial – reduces
odor, pathogens, and greenhouse gases

Michel Hendrickson, professor at Portland State University, no date cited*


“Biomass Energy: A Source for Energy Independence,”
http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~lusignan/Biomass%20Energy%20-
%20A%20SOurce%20for%20Energy%20Independence.doc, accessed 07/07/2008// rjk

In the city Renton, Washington human waste is being turned into a source of electricity. The methane
digestion is the same idea as the Tillamook MEAD, Five Star Dairy, and the GNF project in Costa Rica.
However, the power generation is using a fuel cell. In the area of Renton, some 700,000 people send 86
million gallons of sewage to the waste water treatment plant. 30 million gallons are used in the methane
digesters to make electricity. The fuel cell produces 1 megawatt, which is about 1/7th of the power that the
sewer treatment plant needs. “Most treatment plants flare off the methane, and a few burn it to get
electricity for their sites. But the Renton plant captures the gas and sends it to a fuel cell system, where
the methane is broken down into hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide is recirculated to
produce carbonate. The carbonate then combines with the hydrogen to produce electricity, water, carbon
dioxide and heat.”[7] At a cost of $22 million, most sewage treatment plants cannot afford this kind of
hardware. This is the first of its kind; the hope of this project is that it can be scaled to fit the needs of
other waste water treatment plants. While this does not completely power the sewer treatment plant
completely, it is a step in the right direction.
*This card cites sources from 2006, so it must be at least from 2k6.

www.ksu.edu/debate

18
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
SOLVE : Taboo Removal
Poo is taboo—we must use poop in order to remove the taboo from the subject.

Amanda Rotondo, M.A. in Media Studies, Ph.D student in Communications, 23 May 2008.
Poop Report, “The Toilet Paper<colon> Burke, Bahktin, and the Rhetoric of Poop,”
http://www.poopreport.com/Academic/the_toilet_paper.html, accessed 7/8/08// rjk

Despite the fact that every human in every culture for all time has pooped, a shockingly miniscule body of
research exists on the practices surrounding poop. Is it really possible that a cultural taboo has kept the
academic world away from a topic so fertile as this? Amazingly, this does seem to be the case. Then what
does the future hold for poop? Mary Douglas famously stated "Waste is matter out of place." If poop's
unacceptability comes from its position as waste, poop could possibly have a renaissance if the realms in
which it is considered out of place become fewer. Poop in art museums has become somewhat acceptable,
when considering the evolution of reactions to "fountain" (really about pee, the less evil of the pee/poo
dyad) through the admiration of Cloaca. Poop may infiltrate more and more domains and soon be only
rarely out of place. Then again, poop may remain stunted at the museum. In fifty years if this paper is
found by another slightly wacky grad student, I hope she is shocked by how much of a transgression it
must have been to talk about poop back in 2008.

By changing our relationship to our waste, we can change our relationship with the way we
view society. ** We do not endorse the gendered language in this card. **

Laporte, 2000. [Dominique, Psychoanalyst, History of Shit, The MIT Press, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, p. xx].

It is apparent that socialization is regularly subverted by the politics of waste. To touch, even lightly, on the
relationship of a subject to his shit, is to modify not only that subject’s relationship to the totality of his
body, but his very relationship to the world and to those representations that he constructs of his situation
in society. The 1539 Decree, requiring that every individual or individual family hold on to personal waste
before carrying it out of the city—together with the following ruling from 1536—cast the discursive genesis
of modern intimacy and individuality in an altogether unprecedented light: Every innkeeper….owner, or
tenant….whatever his circumstance or condition may be, and without a single exception, on any street,
alley or other part of this city and its outskirts, will every day at six o’clock in the morning and at
consecutive three hour intervals clean in front of his house and heap his refuse against he wall, or place it
in a basket or some other receptacle until such time as the garbage collectors make their rounds, or face a
fine of 10 sols. Two persons in possession of a collection cart will be allocated to each neighborhood to
undertake a daily round at a fixed hour with a well-sealed, sturdy, and long container…announced by a
small attached bell….expressly for the loading of all manner of muck….along with the prohibition of tossing
dishwater or any other refuse from their houses….rather, retrieving those in baskets…If the so-called muck
cleansers fail to report on each and every morning and evening, they will be subjected to a fine of 100
sols…and even to incarceration. Each is bound to “clean in front of his house.” The pronouncement is
hardly a negligible step in a process already underway to individualize social practices, thereby reducing
and condensing the links of contiguity to a familial space.

www.ksu.edu/debate

19
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
SOLVE: Scatology
Accepting scatology is the only way to end this unhealthy relationship between the individual
and the society

Marisol Cortez Sociology professor at UC Davis 02 Scatology: An Etiology, A Primer (or, Is It A Coincidence
That "Theses" Rhymes With "Feces"?) accessed 7/8/08
http://www.poopreport.com/Academic/Content/Scatology/scatology.html

“The parents of human civilization" (53), envisioning humans as fundamentally caught between their
individual, animal desires and urges and a circumscribing social order (culture, language, law). According
to this formulation, desire is always desire to transgress the restraints of civilization, to escape the societal
limitations placed around instinctual behavior. Assuming for our purposes that Freud is accurate in his
description of this antagonism between individual and society, we might say that, where the Western
philosophical tradition has historically posited transcendence of the immanent as the ideal solution to the
problem of confinement within society, Scatology diverges from this philosophical tradition by advocating,
rather, an utter surrender to the limit: a swooning, a diving into, a rejection of rejection, a radical yes! The
scatological project embraces necessity, viewing Love as love of the limit.) By putting waste at the
forefront of theory, then, by forcing us to look at what we now throw away -- for there is no away here; the
system is closed, our notion of unlimited supply an illusion -- an examination of culture through the lens of
the scatological effectively transfigures and transvalues our understanding of the scatological. When we
are forced to view waste, we find that we are also forced to transform the cultural conditions that allow for
waste and for the idea of "shit". And when the idea of "waste" is no longer conceptually operable, shit
becomes, once more, something useful: something with which we fertilize fields, something that bridges
rather than cleaves decay and growth, death and life. And where there this economic and cultural
transformation occurs, a personal transformation occurs as well. For when we return shit to public view we
do more than restore a natural, sustainable form of human economic life: we also restore, at the most
basic and fundamental level, a conception of agency we have lost to capital. Allowing us the luxury of
flushing what we don't need, surplus effaces that vital link between our actions in the world and their
consequences, between cause and effect, consumption and elimination -- but there is nothing that
reinscribes this age-old link so quickly as a mindfulness of shit. There is, after all, no eating without
excreting: and no awareness of excretion without accompanying awareness that the self is a part, and
must act the part.

www.ksu.edu/debate

20
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
SOLVE: Linguistic Focus
A linguistic focus is key in the politics of waste – avoiding discussion about waste is an
attempt to domesticate and purify language, rooted in the capitalist notion that only the
monetarily valuable matters.

Laporte, 2000. [Dominique, Psychoanalyst, History of Shit, The MIT Press, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, p. xx].

Strictly speaking, the cleansing of language is less a political act than an economic one. Language is
liberated from excess, from a corrupting mass that cannot be said to amount simply to the opposite of the
beautiful. When the master excises is ornament: the calligraphy that enlightens the eye; the things in
language that go beyond articulation; that which encumbers its flow and makes it unwieldy; that which
fattens language without enriching it. All that derives from the primacy of the line and the gaze. “When
writing French,” Says Sebilet in his Ars Poetica, “do not set down letters which you do not speak,” those
letters that “serve only to fill up paper.” One must return to La Deffence et illustration de la langue
francaise, written by Joachim du Bellay in 1549, a mere ten years after the Ordinance of Villers—Cotterets
and the edict that came to settle the score between the subject and his filth. Reading La Defence by way
of its metaphors reveals that in both the policing of language and the politics of shit, it is a matter of
uprooting oneself from that clinging “remnant of earth,” that “Erdenrest” to which Goethe refers at the end
of the second Faust. We might well say that the poet proposes himself as the ploughman of language, the
cultivator who prunes language and transmutes it from “a savage place to a domesticated one,” ridding it
of waste, saving it from rot, giving it its weight in gold.

Discussing poop is the first steps to utilizing it

Orion Intellectual thinker and activist 07 Political Fecology In Practice accessed 7/8/08
http://www.poopreport.com/Academic/political_fecology_in_practice.html

Poop is a renewable source of energy that can be harvested from every living mammal, whereas oil is finite
and harmful to our environment. It is unfortunate that our culture cannot see past the "ick" factor and
understand that poop need not be disposed at any cost. Making fun of poop, sharing poop narratives, and
laughing at our preoccupation with disgust is the first step in realizing poop's possibilities.

Attempts at purifying language is an attempt to negate the language used to describe our
waste – this perpetuates the stigmatization of human waste.

Laporte, 2000. [Dominique, Psychoanalyst, History of Shit, The MIT Press, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, p. xx].

We have known since Barthes that “when written, shit does not smell.” But, to ensure that readers are
spared all trace of odor, language must first purge itself of a certain lingering stink. No doubt beautiful
language has more than a little to do with shit, and style itself grows more precious the more exquisitely
motivated by waste. Proof of this lies in the pedantry of the countless anonymous poems found even in
today’s latrines, or in the obscene syntactic contortions of those marginal literatures that elevate the
excremental to a form of art. And certainly the sign, as such, exercises a function of negation in relation to
the real it designates. We thus readily agree with Adeodat when he writes that “filth in name is far nobler
than the thing it signifies; we much prefer to hear it than to smell it.” Nonetheless, beautiful language
cannot be reduced to the clever juxtaposition of signs that keeps things at an equal and permanent
distance. A certain Puritanism is needed if language is to dispel odor through syntax as well as through
words.

www.ksu.edu/debate

21
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
Poo Taboo : Capital/Production
In order for us to recognize the value of our waste, we must realize its relationship to capital –
waste is portrayed to be the opposite of the bourgeois, but in reality, all gold was created with
our own waste.

Laporte, 2000. [Dominique, Psychoanalyst, History of Shit, The MIT Press, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, p. xx].

As historians are well aware, a history of the senses here finds its turning point: the passage from
promiscuity to modesty cannot occur without a refinement of the sense of smell that entails a lowering of
the threshold of tolerance for certain odors. Nonetheless, the primacy of the visible still requires the
kitchen as its backdrop. That which smells muddles vision. But when withdrawn from vision, assigned to
the register of the hidden, relegated to the junk room, far from simply disappearing, odor remains
affirmatively inscribed in an economy of the visible. Suppression triggers a return of the repressed. That
which is banished from the town takes up residence in the country, nourishing a process of production that
is known conversely as corruption. If, as rural doxa claims, the earth is lowly, it is not just because it makes
back-breaking demands, but because it is inseparable from its vile composition. After all, La Terre is Zola’s
most persistent exhibit of shit. Nonetheless, those things expelled from the city that fatten the country
eventually return in an odorless form. Take, for example, the chrysagyre, the tax on excrement instituted
by the Emperors Vesparian and Constantine. The return of the repressed provides a framework for
understanding the operation that establishes an irreducible equivalence between money and shit—the
operation that renders money, so to speak, odorless. The creation and acceleration of the divison between
town and country—a dichotomy that enfolds the fundamental head/tail reciprocity of shit and gold—is an
effect of what is thus aptly known as primitive accumulation. The town, as opposed to the country,
becomes the site of the rot-proof and advances a new space of the visible. Where shit was, so gold shall
be. And with its entrance, gold proclaims its implicit and ambivalent relation to excrement. Beautified,
ordered, aggrandized, and sublimated, the town opposes itself to the mud of the countryside. But in so
doing, it also exposes itself, in the notoriously virginal face of nature, as a place of corruption. “The
bourgeois reeks!” “He stinks of money!” So says the citoyen, fresh from the dryer of the discourse of the
Etat Vierge and the washing machine of the Communale. If the shit that glows in the fields becomes the
lasting gold of city streets, the stench of shit lingers where gold sleeps.

Failing to use our own poop opens up capitalistic repression and seperation of the world into
those who despose of their poop and those who use it

Amanda Rotondo, M.A. in Media Studies, Ph.D student in Communications, 23 May 2008.
Poop Report, “The Toilet Paper<colon> Burke, Bahktin, and the Rhetoric of Poop,”
http://www.poopreport.com/Academic/the_toilet_paper.html, accessed 7/8/08// rjk

Poop is dirty. Poop makes you sick. Touching poop makes you sick. The smell of poop makes you sick.
These are all ideas that have been widely held in Western culture since the Industrial Revolution (Johnson,
2006.) Miasma theory, which states that sicknesses are smell-borne, was the standard belief in Europe up
until the cholera outbreaks in 1854. When cholera hit London, killing over ten thousand people, the public
reaction was to do anything possible to get rid of the smell of poop. People believed that cholera came
from the smell of sewage, and the pre-sanitation-system city was ripe with the smell. Ironically people
were panicking, throwing all their sewage into the river where it would cease to smell and hence cease to
make people sick. Of course this is ironic because cholera is a water-borne disease and throwing poop into
the water supply only made the epidemic intensify (Johnson, 2006.) Miasma theory spurred the idea that
poop needs to just disappear. Any indication of poop, mention of poop, smell of poop, sight of poop, were
all contaminating. Poop was the universal point of disgust and the revealer of the reality that people are
animals. This was a horrifying notion to the elite of the time (LaPorte, 1978.) Victorian British were facing
the reality of the rise of the middle class. In order to stay the elite, they needed to differentiate themselves
more and more from the rising bourgeoisie. This is in keeping with Burke's theory of identification through
division, which states that to present what they are, people must identify what they are not. This drove the
Victorian elite to come up with a bizarrely contrived set of social etiquette rules. Knowledge of the rules
www.ksu.edu/debate

22
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
was one's passkey into the upper echelons. Ignorance of the rules outted a person as low-born and crass.
Among the "rules" were a set about bodily functions and poop. For instance, ladies did not poop anywhere
but in their own homes. If a lady was at a party and had to poop, she would have to go home to do so. It
was so extreme that ladies would sometimes take solutions to make them selves poop before parties, and
then not eat again in order to avoid having to poop before arriving home (Praeger, 2007.)

www.ksu.edu/debate

23
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
Poo Taboo: Separation/Division Module
Society’s fear of poop is rooted in the notion of identification through division – we dissociate
ourselves from poopers just like the Victorians did, in an effort to make ourselves feel
superior.

Amanda Rotondo, M.A. in Media Studies, Ph.D student in Communications, 23 May 2008.
Poop Report, “The Toilet Paper<colon> Burke, Bahktin, and the Rhetoric of Poop,”
http://www.poopreport.com/Academic/the_toilet_paper.html, accessed 7/8/08// rjk

To fully understand the power (and hilarity) of the Victorians' attempt to distance them selves from the
masses, it is important to understand Burke's theory of identification through division more thoroughly.
First, identification through division is an inherent tool in socialization. Hence it is with people from the first
time they are told "no, don't do that." By stating what people, usually children, are not to do something,
the notion of socialization through the negative is established. This continues into the deeper notion of
moralization. Of the Ten Commandments from the Old Testament, eight of them are most commonly
written as "thou shalt not" (ex. Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain, Thou shalt not commit
adultery, etc.) People are taught morality based on what is not moral to do, moreso than what is moral to
do. From this comes the idea that we are who we are based on who we are not. Here the power of the
rhetorical construction of poop becomes apparent. Everyone poops. Everyone in the past, present, and
future has pooped and will poop. This is a basic medical fact, and is undeniable. Yet we spend millions of
dollars on products and infrastructure to create the illusion of pooplessness. Poop is the universal leveler. It
is one of the three things (the other two being eating and sleeping) that cannot be "divided out" through
Burke's theory of identification through division. No class of people can claim to be better than another
class because they have managed to find a way to not poop. The paranoia people have about getting
"found out" as poopers indicates just how strongly we have been socialized to distance ourselves from the
lowliness and dirtiness that is poop.

This view of poop as a contaminating agent inherently dividing and separating people justifies
viewing groups of people as contamination. The same logic we use to define poop was used by
Hitler to justify the “cleaning up” of Jews during the Holocaust.

Amanda Rotondo, M.A. in Media Studies, Ph.D student in Communications, 23 May 2008.
Poop Report, “The Toilet Paper<colon> Burke, Bahktin, and the Rhetoric of Poop,”
http://www.poopreport.com/Academic/the_toilet_paper.html, accessed 7/8/08// rjk

Poop also represents contamination. Having poop in the streets indicated that the neighborhood is dirty.
While there are others, poop is a prime indicator of that which must be purified from society. In "The
Rhetoric of Hitler's Battle," Burke discusses the notion of rhetorical purification. For Hitler, the Jews were a
contaminating force to the German people. By "cleaning" Germany of Jews, Germans would have less
"filth" to contend with and a higher level of purity in their country (Burke, 1939.) Here, the framing of
Hitler's anti-Semitic argument bears resemblance to ideas about poop. Wanting to rid a place of poop,
wanting to better people's lives by keeping them far away from the contaminating force of poop: these are
the arguments made for many poop-related rituals and norms. Hence while the comparison is itself
disturbing to make, Hitler's rhetoric encouraging the genocide of the Jews uses the same rhetorical devices
and notions of purification as do arguments for keeping poop closeted and hidden.

www.ksu.edu/debate

24
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
Poo Taboo : Capitalism Extensions
The concept that shit is disgusting and superfluous is the same notion that allows capitalism
to exist.

Marisol Cortez, Sociology professor at UC Davis, 2002


The Poop Report, “Scatology: An Etiology, A Primer (or, Is It A Coincidence That "Theses" Rhymes With
"Feces"?), http://www.poopreport.com/Academic/Content/Scatology/scatology.html, accessed 7/8/2008// rjk

Speaking in the broadest and most general terms possible, my thinking is roughly this: from an ecological
standpoint, human beings have reached a crisis point. Pollution, global warming, deforestation, loss of
biodiversity, corporatization, and a growing gap between the powerful and the powerless have
demonstrated that any economic system based on wanton consumption of resources for short-term gain --
and any political system that affords, on the basis of this overconsumption, comfort and stability for some
at the violent expense of the majority -- is radically unsustainable and untenable. It is, then, the central
and tragic irony of Western civilization that "progress", every step ostensibly forward, has been purchased
at cost: the incredible standard of living in Western countries has been obtained through colonial economic
and political policy, and at the price of hunger and disease for millions of people worldwide. Economic
development has oftentimes meant the razing of native habitat and the relocation or decimation of
indigenous peoples. Technology, comfort, and convenience have been achieved in exchange for air
pollution, alienation, heart disease, nuclear bombs, and garbage with a half-life of centuries: shit. The
flipside of progress is shit. The concept of shit, in fact, of something both disgusting and superfluous -- and
disgusting precisely because superfluous -- is uniquely capitalist; is uniquely the product of a surplus-
producing economy. Only within an economic system predicated upon not only the possibility but the
exigency of excess, surplus, profit -- only within such an economic and cultural system can there be a
concept of uselessness, discardability, flushability.

We must embrace our shit – using our “waste” makes it useful, and the concept of waste
would no longer be a reality.

Marisol Cortez, Sociology professor at UC Davis, 2002


The Poop Report, “Scatology: An Etiology, A Primer (or, Is It A Coincidence That "Theses" Rhymes With
"Feces"?), http://www.poopreport.com/Academic/Content/Scatology/scatology.html, accessed 7/8/2008// rjk

It's useful, as well, as a metaphor for the scatological project. Like permanently striking garbage collectors,
we must voluntarily refuse to refuse our own refuse: refuse to flush our shit from public view. For if we turn
our garbage out instead of throwing it away, we will be forced to look at and hold ourselves accountable
for what we have produced. Under these circumstances, our two options would be to produce less garbage
or to use garbage to make something else (or both). And if our courageously abstemious state of affairs
continued, it seems likely that we would cease to produce garbage -- in the sense that all the "garbage" we
did produce would be turned into something we needed, something for which we had use. In this case,
waste would not have gone away, but "waste" -- the idea of waste, the luxury and privilege of waste --
would have passed from our vocabulary, and hence from our conceptual schema. Having disappeared from
material reality, there could be no conception of waste, as everything, by virtue of necessity, would be
useful.

The rich person associates the poor with the vile – with waste. The poor person associates
corruption with waste. This capitalist mindset unites the rich and the poor in a racist hatred –
the capitalist dynamic locks racism into place as a substitute for the hatred between the
classes.

Laporte, 2000. [Dominique, Psychoanalyst, History of Shit, The MIT Press, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, p. xx].

Since the sixteenth century, capitalism has persistently trapped the city in the Mobius strip of a discourse
whose very unity is predicated on a division that can only be dialectically related. On one side lies the rich
www.ksu.edu/debate

25
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
man’s discourse, which associates the poor with the vile, the vulgar, the corrupt—in other words, with shit.
On the other side lies the poor man’s law; which suspects corruption within luxury and wealth a the source
of stench. Needless to say, both the discourse of the master and that of the slave can smell the Jew a mile
away, and their olfactory sense is all the keener when it comes to the black man. If rich and poor cling to
similar racist views, it is because a capitalist dynamic locks each into place as the other’s filth. Pierre
Legendre superbly demonstrates how patriotic bureaucracy draws its power from a mythology of the State
as “the supreme guarantor of absolute power and virginal purity, the latter being put forth as the
antithesis of dirty money.” Power in its naked state is revolting, as are all those things tied to a vile and
earthly trade (money, blood, sex). Why to the hard links that shackle the subjects of Western institutions to
a centralist power perform so flawlessly? Why do they impede all fantasies of abolishing the State and
serve instead to prolong its grip? Because the State is understood as pure and inviolable, as capable of
purifying the most repulsive things—even money—through the touch of its divine hand

www.ksu.edu/debate

26
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
Poo Taboo : Statism Module
Our need to dispose of waste products is rooted in statist domination – the all-controlling state
exhibits power upon us by declaring waste unclean.

Laporte, 2000. [Dominique, Psychoanalyst, History of Shit, The MIT Press, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, p. xx].

At issue here is not whether the Edict of 1539 produced results, or if Paris, city of shit, emerged from the
muck. Two and a half centuries later, Louis Sebastien Mercier painted an equally apocalyptic picture of a
polis still mired in filth. Zola arrived on the scene long after positivist science had embraced modern
hygiene as one of nature’s fundamental laws. But the Paris he conjured was no less a sewer than the
tenebrous city described in queasy medieval accounts. From the very outset, there is a manifest
disproportion between punishment and crime in a royal edict that, after demanding that cesspools be built
in every house, immediately confiscates those lacking them in merely three moths time. “Hold on to your
shit,” declares the monarch. “Dispose of it only in the dark of night. Remove your pigs from sigh beyond
the city’s walls, or I will seize your person and your goods, engulf your home in my capacious purse, and
lock your body in my jail.”

Our relationship to our waste is representative of our relationship to the state – we are the
state’s waste, dangling and dependent.

Laporte, 2000. [Dominique, Psychoanalyst, History of Shit, The MIT Press, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, p. xx].

The true cleanliness of the city’s streets is not at stake here. The practice of tossing one’s garbage through
windows continued throughout the seventeenth century. On the eve of the Revolution it was said of Paris
that “it is impossible to live in this big city without being splattered by the shovel of the garbage collector
or by the foul language of the streets.” This only confirms that hygiene’s true drive is located far from its
purported aim. The goals of the waste police are directed elsewhere; and, even at the level of discourse,
we cannot identify goals per se. If something like a goal can be said to be achieved, it is always at the
price of a certain loss of the object (in this case, shit), which is bypassed in favor of its symbolic substitute.
Furthermore, it is less the object in question that counts than the subject’s relationship to his shit, a
relationship that now includes his dangling and dependent position vis-à-vis the absolute State.

Only a personal reflection on waste can retrieve our agency from the state.

Marisol Cortez, Sociology professor at UC Davis, 2002


The Poop Report, “Scatology: An Etiology, A Primer (or, Is It A Coincidence That "Theses" Rhymes With
"Feces"?), http://www.poopreport.com/Academic/Content/Scatology/scatology.html, accessed 7/8/2008// rjk

By putting waste at the forefront of theory, then, by forcing us to look at what we now throw away -- for
there is no away here; the system is closed, our notion of unlimited supply an illusion -- an examination of
culture through the lens of the scatological effectively transfigures and transvalues our understanding of
the scatological. When we are forced to view waste, we find that we are also forced to transform the
cultural conditions that allow for waste and for the idea of "shit". And when the idea of "waste" is no longer
conceptually operable, shit becomes, once more, something useful: something with which we fertilize
fields, something that bridges rather than cleaves decay and growth, death and life. And where there this
economic and cultural transformation occurs, a personal transformation occurs as well. For when we return
shit to public view we do more than restore a natural, sustainable form of human economic life: we also
restore, at the most basic and fundamental level, a conception of agency we have lost to capital. Allowing
us the luxury of flushing what we don't need, surplus effaces that vital link between our actions in the
world and their consequences, between cause and effect, consumption and elimination -- but there is
nothing that reinscribes this age-old link so quickly as a mindfulness of shit. There is, after all, no eating
without excreting: and no awareness of excretion without accompanying awareness that the self is a part,
www.ksu.edu/debate

27
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
and must act the part.

www.ksu.edu/debate

28
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
Statism Spillover
The impact of the state’s control is the capitalist distinction between civilian and slave,
between good and bad money – between the clean and the unclean, routing through our
waste.

Laporte, 2000. [Dominique, Psychoanalyst, History of Shit, The MIT Press, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, p. xx].

Legendre’s thoughts on this point could be developed to show that, from the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries onward, economic theory and practice are completely severed from the kinds of ethical
considerations that dominate earlier eras. Never before did economy so unreservedly occupy the place of
shit, the place of a corruption devoid of all moral concern. Economists have shown how the Renaissance
abandoned the medieval rule of moderation-in-gain to develop mercantile theories, ranging from a
primitive form of Bullionism to French industrialism and British mercantilism, all defined by the single-
minded goal of enriching the Nation. We are, it seems, prone to forget that economics was not always the
province of mercantilists and physiocrats: In the Middle Ages, for example, economic thought was also
developed by theologians –Thomas Aquinas, Nicole Oresme, and other Fathers of the Church. Via the
Doctrine of Commutative Justice and the condemnation of interest-accruing loans, canonical thought
imposed an ethics of mercantile exchange and of production proper. The Modern State thus casts itself as
heir to canonical thought and to the Greco-Roman tradition: It abides by a Platonic and Aristotelian division
of human labor into the lowly tasks of the slave and the elevated tasks of the citizen; and it relies on
Roman Law to justify its novel forms of private property and contractual freedom. It is entirely legitimate to
talk of a Romano—canonical tradition of the State (especially in France), which inscribes itself in the
process of production and circulation by establishing a distinction between public and private realms,
through which the division between good and bad money, lustrous and whorish gold con circulate. This
division permits the State to act as an alchemical still that rids the Nation’s riches of all trace of corrupt
dealing. It is essential that the private be absolutely and unequivocally aligned with shit. Shit can only
enter the public realm as gold. This is what allows the State, as the embodiment of the public good, to rout
through its citizens’ waste to unearth the treasure of sedition.

www.ksu.edu/debate

29
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
EXT: Statism
The state is portrayed as all that is pure and clean – the state retains power by separating
itself from the masses and their filth.

Laporte, 2000. [Dominique, Psychoanalyst, History of Shit, The MIT Press, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, p. xx].

Insofar as the State signifies clean money, it immediately becomes the sine qua non condition of
reproduction. In theory, business dealings are conducted outside its arena, and if merchants dabble in shit,
they do so from the wings of the State’s stage. The State increasingly came to occupy center state in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but only because—in order to perpetuate itself and pursue the
process of primitive accumulation—the site of power must distance itself from the site of shit. So as not to
stall the accumulation of wealth, mercantilism must be consigned to the private sphere—not just to ensure
the expansion of its activities but, more importantly, to allow for their untrammeled and autonomous
development in the absence of an internal, regulating ethic.

The way the state views waste is the same way capitalism is allowed to thrive: encouragement
to become richer while casting aside our waste.

Laporte, 2000. [Dominique, Psychoanalyst, History of Shit, The MIT Press, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, p. xx].

Thus, as a “private” thing—each subject’s business, each proprietor’s responsibility—shit becomes a


political object through its constitution as the dialectical other of the “public.” From the sixteenth century
on, the State initiates a contradictory discourse on waste that is nonetheless consistent with its definition
as a state of capitalism: a discourse that urges proprietors to become ever richer, while casting a withering
eye on the foul odor of their accumulations.

www.ksu.edu/debate

30
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
Global Warming Solvency
Biodigesters reduce green house gasses by trapping them and burning them off in a less
harmful way.

Allison Hatchett, BA candidate at William & Mary, B.A. in Psychology and Cognitive Studies, Spring 2005.
William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review, “NOTE: BOVINES AND GLOBAL WARMING: HOW THE
COWS ARE HEATING THINGS UP AND WHAT CAN BE DONE TO COOL THEM DOWN,” accessed l/n// rjk

In addition to the enormous amounts of methane that cows expel through belching and flatulence,
decomposing animal waste emits thirty-five million tons of the harmful greenhouse gas annually. n284 This
additional methane, however, can be converted into electricity, creating benefits to both the economy and
the environment. n285 By implementing anaerobic digesters, livestock producers can use the abundance
of animal waste to provide enough energy to power their entire farms. n286 In 1999, the Government's
AgSTAR program n287 established one of thirteen anaerobic digesters on a 1000 acre farm owned by
Dennis Haubenschild in Minnesota. n288 Haubenschild's dairy cows produce roughly 22,000 gallons of
manure daily, which can be converted into 3000 kilowatt hours of electricity. n289 The anaerobic digestion
process seems quite simple: The Haubenschild digester converts enough methane to fully power his farm,
as well as seventy-eight other homes, rendering the process extremely profitable. n291 Instead of paying
utility bills, he actually receives money from the power company for the surplus energy. n292 Although
constructing a digester can be costly, Haubenschild is confident that the digester will pay for itself within
five years because of the money saved and earned. n293 This so-called "cow power" n294 is also
environmentally friendly. n295 The digesting process reduces odor, pathogens, and greenhouse gas
emissions and creates a nitrogen-rich fertilizer. n296 [*802] Odor reduction is perhaps the most
noticeable benefit associated with anaerobic digesters. n297 The putrid smell of undigested manure can
drift up to three miles away from the field on which it is spread and can linger for days. n298 After
digestion, however, the nitrogen-rich manure remains have a considerably milder smell that disappears
overnight. n299 These remains are used as a fertilizer, which contains more usable nutrients and may be
more effective than regular manure and commercial fertilizers. n300 Using the digested remains to fertilize
the soil saves the thirty-four gallons of propane per acre required to produce the ammonia contained in
petroleum-based fertilizers. n301 Anaerobic digesters also substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
n302 Studies estimate that for every 125,000 cows living on farms with anaerobic digesters, 100 million
fewer pounds of methane enters the atmosphere. n303

By reducing air pollutants that contribute to global warming and providing energy, methane
digesters provide twice the benefits to the environment

Sarah Beth Lardie, BioCycle writer, August 2002.


Biocycle, “California turns to daires for energy,” accessed 7/8/08 ProQuest// rjk

California has the biggest dairy industry in the country, with more cows than any other state. Statewide,
dairy cows create more than 65 billion pounds of manure per year. Two years ago, a San Francisco-based
organization called Sustainable Conservation (SusCon) put together several initiatives aimed at getting
dairy farmers to improve manure management practices that reduce pollution. Projects were implemented,
including methane digesters which have both economic and environmental benefits. Producing electricity
from manure is an especially attractive option given the state's energy crisis. In addition, digesters reduce
emission of air pollutants including those that contribute to global warming. Sustainable Conservation has
joined efforts to get legislative and regulatory initiatives passed (such as bill, AB 2228, in the California
legislature) that provide incentives for digester construction.

www.ksu.edu/debate

31
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]

**** Negative Evidence ****

www.ksu.edu/debate

32
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
Methane Biodigestion BAD
Methane digesters are of mixed benefit to the environment and will cause inevitable pollution.

Joseph Hart, freelance writer, 2007


Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, “Manure digesters-a sound solution?,” accessed ProQuest// rjk

Like many "green" technologies, methane digesters are of mixed benefit to the environment. At present,
their size and expense means that only the largest animal confinement operations can afford to install
them, even with government subsidies to improve affordability. Digesters reduce greenhouse emissions
(methane contributes more greenhouse emissions than carbon dioxide), and when its burned, harmful
airborne toxins like ammonia and hydrogen sulfide are burned with it. Still, environmentalists caution that
when it comes to animal confinement pollution, methane digesters could prove to be a bandaid. "Our
concern is that methane digesters could accelerate the trend toward concentration in the livestock and
poultry industry," says Ed Hopkins, the director of the environmental quality program at Sierra Club.
"Concentration is not good for the environment." Hopkins points out that while digesters reduce
greenhouse and airborne emissions, they do little to mitigate the problems of ground and surface-water
contamination. Digester systems don't address manure handling-and the inevitable spills, leaks, and
pollution that come with it. "We uncovered at least one manure spill at a farm with a methane digester,"
says Hopkins. And while the liquid, inorganic residue leftover from the process is easier to apply than raw
manure, it still contains high levels of nutrients. "It may not solve the problem of over-application of
phosphorous and nitrogen." The more sustainable approach to handling the environmental problems
associated with animal confinement is to loosen the hold of the corporations who control animal
agriculture and encourage a return to a more moderate, decentralized system of small farms, Hopkins
says. "If I were living near a confinement operation, I would be very appreciative of the benefits of a
digester," he says, "but we have not reconciled ourselves to the permanent existence of confinement
operations."

Methane digestion technology require highly specialized training, making its use both highly
dangerous and accident prone.

Bob Luitweiler engineer 02 Biodigester accessed 7/10/08 http://www.nas.com/owl/library/data/biogas-4.htm


Entering a digester which has methane can be very dangerous and emptying it must be a laborious
process. However, if the bottom were properly designed with a depression to accumulate this sludge at a
point where it could be scooped out at regular intervals with a long handled tool it would never have to be
cleaned or opened. Leaking is also a danger. If the concrete cast dome is painted with a bitumen it should
produce a tight lasting surface that needs no attention for years if ever

www.ksu.edu/debate

33
[Biodigestion] [Week 1]
No Stigma—Poo Acceptable
ART PROVES—When food and drink are the main focus of digestion this leads to the
stigmatization of our own defications, yet when viewed and discussed in art it becomes
acceptable.

Amanda Rotondo, M.A. in Media Studies, Ph.D student in Communications, 23 May 2008.
Poop Report, “The Toilet Paper<colon> Burke, Bahktin, and the Rhetoric of Poop,”
http://www.poopreport.com/Academic/the_toilet_paper.html, accessed 7/8/08// rjk

One interesting variation on poop's role in art is Wim Delvoye's series called "Cloaca." Of which there have
been several iterations since the late 1990's. All of the Cloaca pieces share the same goal. They are
chemical reproductions of what occurs in the human digestive system, with the end product of the piece's
efforts being nothing other than a perfect piece of poop, indistinguishable from one that would come out of
a human being. People stand in a room with this large machine made up of jars of acid, tubes and siphons,
and watch as Cloaca takes a standard meal, often delivered by some of the finest restaurants in New York,
and churns and fizzles it into poop, perhaps one of the most mundane (see meaning number seven)
substances imaginable. Yet for years and many iterations of the piece, crowds have come and marveled
(Delvoye, 2000.) There are several reasons why people might be so fascinated by Cloaca. First, it
represents a transgression. Poop is supposed to be disgusting, and yet here in an art museum resides a
massive machine designed to do one thing only: Poop. Second, it is intriguing that a process that occurs all
the time in the grand space of a belly requires such a large space to be put into effect outside the human
body. A process that we take so for granted and are so horrified by is actually quite an amazing feat of
evolution (or creation, whatever you fancy.) It forces the viewer to offer a second of reverence to the
digestive tract. Third, the final product of Cloaca, the poop itself, is regarded as art. It is scooped up and
vacuum sealed, dated and numbered, and marked with precisely what foods Cloaca "ate" in order to
produce this particular piece of art-poop. These packages are sold to collectors, much like Manzoni's Merde
d'Artiste and are collectible even now. Fourth, the modern age has a certain respect for the machine.
Because observing Cloaca can be justified not as exercising curiosity about poop but rather curiosity about
the workings of an amazing machine, it gives observers an "out" for letting people know what they went to
the museum to see. While going to a museum watch something poop could be embarrassing to admit,
going to a museum to admire a work of mechanistic genius is surely an acceptable pursuit. Fifth and
perhaps most interestingly, Cloaca takes what is usually a by-product and makes it the main event. In a
standard day, poop is what happens as a result of eating. Food and drink are the main focus of the
digestive process. However, Cloaca makes a Carnivalesque run at the notion of poop as byproduct by
turning poop into the event itself. The food is secondary and is merely serving as the fuel for the machine.
When observers watch Cloaca being "fed" they are seeing the food as "eventual poop" instead of in
everyday life when poop is seen as "former food." The people are not there to see anything other than the
creation of poop. This turns the notion of poop as waste upside down and brings Rabelais' notions into a
new forum.

www.ksu.edu/debate

34

You might also like