A cleaner environment on the way with the compost shower

The more committed type of environmentalist has traditionally been associated - no doubt unfairly - with a reluctance to wash.

But a technology demonstrated in Leitrim over the weekend could go some way to dispelling this image. And if the uses can be developed, it points the way towards a cleaner environment in more ways than one.

The concept behind Mr Phillip Allen's "compost shower" is, put simply, a load of rubbish. Several loads of it, in fact, comprising "newspapers, cardboard and human sewage" among other things.

In the prototype Mr Allen built for display at the Organic Centre in Rossinver, the compost heap is contained within walls of rotting hay bales, but this is optional.

The only non-organic element involved is a coiled pipe carrying cold water into the compost heap and out the other side in the form of a piping hot shower.

If you don't believe this you should have been in Rossinver over the weekend. The technology works so well that after demonstrating it personally on Thursday, when the water was a mere 45 degrees Celsius, Mr Allen has not been able to have a shower since - at least of the compost kind.

The problem is that the temperature in the heap climbs by 10 degrees a day, to a high of about 75 degrees, so that without further plumbing the shower is unusable until the water cools down, a process which takes months.

Speaking from the centre, which was hosting its annual "environmental day" yesterday, Mr Allen was quick to allay concerns that a person using such a facility might emerge from it smelling worse than before.

The compost heap "smells very nice - like herbs", he said. "Everybody who visits says how nice the smell is."

He also stressed that the water was carried in a "sealed" pipe so that nothing comes out in the wash that shouldn't.

While most ordinary organic waste can go into the heap, the key to its success is the use of woody materials such as privet, twigs and small branches. These have to be put through a wood-chipper - not an environmentally-friendly machine, Mr Allen admits - but then no technology is perfect.

An "ecological gardener" from Belfast, he says the process can equally be used to heat radiators.

The beauty of it is that the release of heat through the water in turn preserves the health of the compost heap. "If you didn't take the heat out, it would kill itself."

And the end of the process, after numerous free showers, is "perfect, high-quality compost, as good as anything you'd buy in a gardening centre".