compost toilet
I've started a separate thread from fiamma's original 'How do you save water' thread for those who are interested in going down the compost toilet route.
I would wholeheartedly recommend a compost toilet for those who garden and have enough space for two or three large compost 'bins'.
I have to admit to not liking the few 'outside shed' compost loos I've visited. They can be a bit icky. One problem is there's often quite a smell. Another is damp. Another is, often, the inability to accurately cover excreta with cover materials, hence leading to the smell. My solution is clean, neat and comfortable.*live*&*let*live
Umm do you go outside in a hole?with a shed built round you? Like an outside loo but not?!
Sorry if that sounds hilarious not too sure how this works?!
It's in the ordinary toilet/bathroom, alongside the 'decommissioned' water closet. It is simply a bucket system, the bucket being enclosed in a white painted, well-made box with a normal toilet seat. It's actually more comfortable than a common toilet and takes up little room and no plumbing.
Next to the toilet is a bin, with a scoop, for the sawdust. There are printed instructions for visitors to read too, as follows:
There is no smell from this toilet apart from any 'normal' air-borne ones you get after any visit to any toilet! The sawdust masks everything and has its own pleasant smell. There's no splashing, no 'if it's yellow let it mellow' etc, it's very quiet, calm even.The compost toilet
After using the toilet, sprinkle in an appropriate amount of cover material from the bin, using the scoop provided
Gentlemen, please sit down or visit a compost heap in the garden if convenient
Please deposit only biodegradable materials in this toilet
As always, please wash your hands afterwards
Thank you for using our compost toilet
All material is returned to the soil after two years of composting; by using this toilet, you have saved water and its contamination, electricity and waste disposal costs and have enhanced the health of the land
The bucket requires emptying around twice a week for two people; it goes into a heap made of straw bales (the bales make a wall) held in place with old pallets, along with any other biodegradable material such as kitchen scraps. It's then covered with a layer of fresh straw, again a good smell protector, and the entire heap was built surrounded in chicken wire to prevent any attacking by rodents.
Occasionally grass clippings and rooted-up nettles go on too.
The temperature of the heap is monitored as it can get too hot and/or too dry. It is used for a year and then let rest for another year or longer. The temperature reached around 59 degrees Celsius recently, which is good in one way - pathogens are dead, definitely - but in another way, it drives out beneficial creatures.
The heap stayed around 48 degrees all winter.
I would highly recommend The Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins. An entertaining read which lays to rest many myths about human, errrm, 'waste'.
We have only used a compost toilet since June 2008 so we have no compost yet. We do intend using the finished product on the garden. For anyone a bit squeamish about that idea, the humanure book is available for download or reading on-line and makes fascinating reading. Jenkins has used his compost on his garden for years (as have many others) and he's raised a family on his garden's produce.
There are also various videos on YouTube about successful compost systems.
Another method, possibly neater than the straw bale system, is to use 80 litre lidded bins with small holes drilled in the base for access by compost-loving organisms and for drainage. This has the advantage of not requiring much space and the bins can be moved.
The bins never get full - the compost seems to stay at roughly the same level! Less cover material is required compared with the straw bale system though it's advisable to surround the bins in bales during the winter.
That's about it, really. If you've more questions, ask!
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What, you mean cooking a corpse doesn't make everything suddenly inert? And, Chicken is food... surely we don't need to worry about poisoning ourselves by touching food. You mean we do? Quick, what chemicals can I apply to everything in my house that are sufficiently strong as to kill something that has lived through being frozen for six months... I mean, strong enough to (very selectively) kill the evil bacteria, but not cause me or the good bacteria from my expencive probiotic yoghurt the slightest health problem. Oh, and if you could be sure to squirt some of it in bunny rabbits eyes first, that would be great.
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