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Composting Toilets | (Read 555 times) |
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MJ Solaro
Administrator
Posts: 131
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March 26, 2008, 10:41:45 AM |
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Who has one? What brand do you recommend, or did you build it yourself?
Central unit or self-contained?
How has it worked for you? Does it produce good compost? Is the smell contained?
What kind of special care do you need to give it? Winterizing? Maintenance?
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MJ Solaro
Administrator
Posts: 131
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April 01, 2008, 04:43:28 PM |
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So nobody has these? In researching them on the web, the ones I found were enormously expensive. Sun-Mar's non-electric unit goes for $1500. The Biolet ones are north of $2100. The Blooloo are so expensive I can't find a price. There's got to be a better way to do this! 
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paul wheaton
Administrator
Posts: 1331
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April 01, 2008, 08:49:56 PM |
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Well, if you are out in the woods, a well designed outhouse can be just the ticket!
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rachael hamblin
Posts: 129
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April 01, 2008, 10:53:40 PM |
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I don't have one now but I lived for a few months in a place that had them as outhouses, there are two main styles if you want to build your own outdoors. Here's what I recall, there's a great article on it that I'll try to hunt down.
Option a) Build an outhouse with a raised toilet and platform to stand on, underneath is a bucket which you can remove by opening a door in back. Keep a bucket of wood shavings in the outhouse and throw in a scoop after you do your business. When the bucket is full you can either take it to a compost heap or dump it in a 55 gallon drum, which you can roll around on its side to mix.
Option b) Maintain a compost underneath a raised outhouse with a door you can open from the back. I don't remember why but you're supposed to keep urine and feces separate, so have a bucket with sawdust set into a seat that you can pee in, to be composted elsewhere, then feces drop below to the compost pile which is covered with a scoop of sawdust w/ each deposit and occasional lawn clippings, weeds, or other green matter to balance it out.
Neither of these arrangements smelled, and with the sawdust flies were fairly minimal. I can't comment first hand about the compost but I've heard it works great.
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paul wheaton
Administrator
Posts: 1331
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April 04, 2008, 11:00:56 AM |
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I think that for most systems ... both composting toilets and for outhouse systems, they like to be dry. The dryer the better. Usually, the request is to pee near your favorite trees, or to pee in a bucket of water (which dilutes the pee) and you can then pour the pee on your favorite plants.
I would advise that people not put the output of these systems into regular compost. Further, I wouldn't want to ever deal with moving this stuff. Hence, I really like a well designed outhouse. Once that can be moved to a new hole quickly. Once you have a full hole, plant some kind of tree there. A bunch of nettle and buckwheat would probably do really well there the first year or two.
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rachael hamblin
Posts: 129
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April 06, 2008, 11:18:37 PM |
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Are there any potential problems with putting uncomposted urine on plants? Or too much urine on plants?
Also, along those lines, has anyone experimented with the benefits of feeding menstrual blood to plants? I've heard this is really beneficial.
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alexisavoire
Posts: 120
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April 07, 2008, 12:40:08 PM |
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A hinged-lid wooden box with a hole cut in the lid and a standard plastic (tall feed) bucket under the hole. Another plastic bucket of sawdust and a souple of scoops of sawdust in the bottom of the user bucket. After every use cover the visible remains with sawdust. Empty about 1/2 to 2/3 full. Odor is contained quite well. Composting takes place outside. (Dig a large depression, line with sawdust, compost right into garden mving the depression around to equalize across garden space.) Odor outdoors also contained. Easiest way.
My complaints with composting toilets 1) often an illegal disposal of sewage in populated areas 2) sawdust comes from trees which must be cut down to and sawn up to produce the sawdust and the more people needing sawdust for composting toilets the more we feel the need to produce the necessary sawdust for marketing purposes 3) if you don't have your own trees to saw up you have to make regular rounds to collect scrap wood to saw up which takes a considerable amount of time both in collecting and sawing and uses gas (mostly) because doing it by foot or bike is almost impossible 4) the permits needed for legalizing group toilets for composting intentional communities are an annoying concept altogether (in some states) and help make intentional community unpopular because it is illegal and seemingly a dangerous health hazard (although we have no problem composting non-composting disposable poop-filled plastic diapers in land-fills and garbage dumps for some reason).
But these are all the same problems as using water, toilets, toilet paper and chemical sewage disposal plants so we are just trading one problem for another. Sewage and human waste are ongoing hassles in sustainability. About the only really reasonable solution is fewer people in sparser communities who use individual holes in the ground where a future garden might eventually be but that's all some centuries past.
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paul wheaton
Administrator
Posts: 1331
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April 07, 2008, 04:49:02 PM |
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It is possible to burn sensitive plants with pee. That's why some people dilute it first.
I think heavy N feeders will almost always be fine with it.
Menstrual blood: it is good for the soil. I know of women that use alternative ways to collect the blood and have a small ceremony while burying it. I would have some small concern about attracting varmints, but I've heard of no such reports.
As to point number 1 above: I agree. This is often illegal and for good reason. If you really want to travel this path, please don't do a half assed job. I've known of some people doing some completely illegal stuff down this road, but they did a really good job and I think everybody was/is perfectly safe.
As to points numbered 2 and 3: This one is riddled with mixed thoughts/emotions for me. Everything in the statement is true. And, at the same time, I seem to have frequently found myself in line for a lot of free sawdust in the past. One time from a neighbor with a woodshop. Another time, from just doing a lot of my own sawing/construction. No gas involved in getting it! I think this is one of those things where it is good to just know that having sawdust around has a lot of uses. If you happen to score some free sawdust, it's good to take it home! It will probably be of use eventually!
Point 4: There are laws. And there are people that are doing things right even though they might be slightly outside of the law. I suspect that it will be one of those things where it will be better to ask forgiveness than permission, and I suspect there is a 90% chance that forgiveness will never be required.
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rachael hamblin
Posts: 129
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April 07, 2008, 09:03:01 PM |
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Thanks for the info Paul.
Alexisavoire, I think you have some really good points. One thing I would add is that current systems of sewage disposal involve dumping it into oceans where the nutrients cause overenrichment (bad) whereas composting toilets ultimately involve the nutrients going into a garden (good). So even though they both have their problems I would argue that composting toilets are ultimately better for the land base.
Regarding point number 2, I believe you can get free sawdust from mills as it is a byproduct of manufacturing tree carcasses into lumber. So I don't know that it would necessarily contribute to the drain on our forests. However I can see that if everyone converted to composting toilets, as with so many other things, what was once a "waste product" would become sellable and we might start to have trees being "harvested" for this purpose.
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paul wheaton
Administrator
Posts: 1331
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April 07, 2008, 09:22:16 PM |
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I just wanna make some ammendments .... just my own thoughts on some things brought up here ...
I know lots of folks are concerned about trees getting wasted. But trees are a renewable resource. The problem isn't that trees are being used, but that they are harvested in a less-than-sustainable fashion. Most modern forestry practices are quite sustainable now. Or, I should say, we now know how to do it right, and I think most folks in the forestry industry are either doing it right, or something much closer to right than in years past.
As for where the nutrients go: the grass is always greener over the septic tank! For most places where outhouses are being considered, they already use a septic tank. Which is a much smarter way to do an outhouse. (a whole new thread could be started about the inappropriate use of anti-bacterial soaps with septic systems)
As for putting the "nutrients" in the garden. I suppose some do. I wouldn't put these particular nutrients in a vegetable garden. Although a flower garden would be great.
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permaculture.dave
Posts: 113
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April 22, 2008, 03:02:47 PM |
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With regards to earlier comments about composting toilets vs. outhouses. I think they are applicable in different scenarios mostly dependent on water table. If you are in an area with a high water table outhouses are inappropriate as you will be polluting groundwater. That's where I think composting toilets are applicable. If water table is not an issue, there are definite benefits to outhouses 3-4 feet deep (not the least of which is that there is little room for error on the product management side since the product stays right where you deposit it.
The other caveat to the use of composting toilets is that I personally wouldn't recommend them for institutional level waste processing. To me they are best suited to small-scale (single family) use. The more people using the system (especially the more uninitiated people) the greater the chance that the process will be screwed up. The less tightly controlled the management of the product the more likely people are to pollute or get sick.
Essentially, for me the composting toilet issue comes down to two parameters: scale and water table.
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SueinWA
Posts: 303
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October 14, 2008, 01:25:48 PM |
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One of the best designs I've seen for a composting toilet was in the Mother Earth archives. See what you think: http://www.motherearthnews.com/UnCategorized/1984-01-01/Mothers-Compost-Commode.aspx
Some people seem to think there is a really big difference between hole-in-the-ground privies and septic tanks, and there isn't. Both will break down the solids and the liquids run out into the leach field. Then the liquid heads for the nearest water source with its high load of nitrogen. Ever wondered what causes wetlands to have so much algae? It's the nitrogen, from both septic and other ecologically unsound waste systems, and from agricultural runoff (chemicals and livestock feedlots).
I always smile when people say they don't want "that" kind of compost near their food crops, but they're perfectly happy piling on the uncomposted animal manure. So use it under your fruit trees; pathogens don't travel through plants.
As backwards as the state of Washington is, I'm surprised that they're pretty accommodating with composting toilets.
Sue
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SueinWA
Posts: 303
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October 14, 2008, 01:38:23 PM |
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p.s.
Trees are not a renewable resource at the rate they're being shipped out of the country. Drive over the Alaskan Way Viaduct while some of those enormous ocean barges are being loaded, or watch the trainloads of lumber being sent to Tacoma or Aberdeen, with the millions of board-feet of lumber headed for the ships.
Right now, there is a shortage of sawdust, which started last winter. The price of stove pellets, pelleted animal litter and raw sawdust is going up, and not just because of the price of delivery fuel.
Sawdust has always been a cheap, easily-available option for bucket toilets in the PNW, but sawdust is not your only choice.
If you do any chipping/shredding of fallen branches or trees on your property, use that handy material. Got neighbors who take everything to the transfer station? They can deliver it to you for free! Got a wood shed? Got a bunch of woody dust and chips on the floor? Sweep up that stuff and use it.
Partly-finished compost is fine to use in a bucket (or other), and so are shredded newspapers and the proceeds from the office shredder at work. Your cats don't like the five bags of paper-based pellets you bought? Well, they're good for that HUMAN litter box, too!
If it's compostable, it's probably fine to use in your bucket or composting toilet. It doesn't stop at sawdust.
Sue
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