Composting How To’s

Composting toilets are a modern day version of an outhouse. Outhouses have been used for hundreds (possibly) thousands of years, and in their simplest forms they are just a hole in the ground.

Composting toilets put a more modern and appealing face on the “hole in the ground” approach, and there are even more aesthetic approaches and alternatives to using an actual hole for the bathroom waste too.

The concept of a composting toilet is nothing new. All organic waste will decompose and turn into a rich compost which can be used for any type of gardening. Whether you like to grow flowers and bushes or you have a large organic food garden and fruit trees to help provide for your family, compost will enrich the soil and help everything to grow better, faster, and healthier.

Compost made from manure tends to be the very best kind, and this is true whether the manure comes from farm animals or humans. And it’s that human manure compost which can be gotten by using composting toilets.

Instead of flushing human urine and feces into a sewer system far away from your home, a composting toilet allows it to simply drop into a specially made tank or container. Composting toilets are usually dry toilets, meaning you do not flush the waste down the toilet with water. Sometimes small amounts of water are used to rinse the inside of the toilet bowl, but for the most part a composting toilet is also known as a dry toilet.

The waste drops down a pipe, hole or chute of some kind into a holding container where it can start decomposing over time. As the waste decomposes, it turns into a rich compost which can be used for trees, bushes, gardens and farmland as noted previously. The breakdown process does take time of course, and how long it will take to turn human waste into usable compost will depend on a variety of things.

And that’s one of the downsides to the modern compost toilet design trends. They use a very attractive and “normal” looking toilet in the bathroom, and that toilet is connected to a compost tank via a tube of some sort. The holding tanks aren’t overly large though, so these must be emptied out as they become full.

The most popular types of toilets and tank systems like this have been used in camper trailers and RVs for years. These smaller portable toilets have very small tanks on them and they don’t look any more attractive than the ugly chemical toilets do.

Composting toilets are being made for general homes and houses now too though, because they are an excellent environmentally friendly, “green construction” technique that has many positive benefits. By using dry toilets like these, you no longer waste 3-5 gallons of water each and every time you go to the bathroom. You’re also creating a valuable resource in the form of rich compost that will help enrich the soil around your home.

The house sized composting toilet systems come with a larger compost tank. These tanks are usually installed in the basement, or underneath the floor of a raised home. The toilets themselves are installed in a regular bathroom, and some of them look just like a standard toilet these days too. The main difference is that your urine and feces drops down a tube to the compost bin under your home. And on a regular basis - how often will depend on how many people use the bathroom daily in your home - you’ll go down to the bin and shovel out some of the finished compost to make more room for new deposits.

I personally don’t like the chute and bin concept for composting toilets. I love the way the toilets themselves look, but since they’re made to look like regular bathroom flush toilets they have the curved neck. And anyone who has ever cleaned a standard water toilet can tell you: That “neck” section can get pretty nasty from feces “skid”.

On top of that problem is the flexible tubes many of these toilet systems are using. I can’t imagine how disgusting those will become over time with regular use. And last but not least, despite the improvements made in the compost holding tanks over the last several years, I personally do not feel these tanks are made larger enough for everyday use by a small family of 2-4 people.

You see, human waste compost is best left to “percolate” for at least a year or two. Giving it plenty of time to decompose allows any potentially harmful germs and bacteria to be fully burned off and neutralized. If you’re using a compost tank which isn’t really large enough though, then you may find yourself scooping out compost every 2-3 months. And I personally feel that is too soon to start using it.

If you were to simply empty the compost from the toilet’s holding tank and move it to another compost pile or bin for further development, then that’s a perfectly workable solution. Many people are impatient though, and they tend to want to start using their compost as quickly as they can.

Now, because of the various reasons stated above, my personal preference is to use the old-fashioned hole in the ground outhouse approach. By digging a hole at least 4-5 feet deep and 3-4 feet in diameter, you are likely to be able to continue using that “compost bin” for a full year. You can then have a second hole ready to switch to after the first year, and you can simply cover the first to allow it to fully mature for a year before using it. By the time your second compost hole is about ready to be put to rest, you can shovel out the first and move your toilet and bathroom back over to the first hole.

Many modern day composting toilets can be used in this way, so you’d be able to have your modern day “attractive” looking toilet used in combination with a more natural, less expensive, and appropriately sized hole for the compost toilet to deposit waste in to.

Using a composting toilet over a simple dug hole is against the laws in many areas though, so you’d need to check whether or not your local laws will allow it before putting a system like this into place.

Link To This: What Is A Composting Toilet