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| Our Composting Toilets | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Check out the first video tour of our composting outhouse and be sure to read the description! (No Sound) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| ...then, feel free to take our second video tour and check out the new paint job and other fancy additions. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| This is the Composting toilet outhouse that Sarah and I built in Maryland. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The system we use to compost our bodily "waste" (urine and feces) is taken directly from "The Humanure Handbook" by Joseph Jenkins. This system uses a 5 gallon bucket as the "toilet". Sawdust or other fine cover material is spread in the bottom of the clean bucket and sawdust is used to cover everything left in the bucket, this way it does not smell any more than a flushing toilet. When the bucket is full we dump it into a compost bin that has 18" of coarse packed cover material (straw or brush) in the bottom (to prevent leaching), rinse the bucket out with 1/2 gallon of water which is also dumped on the compost pile, then cover the fresh deposit with clean coarse cover material (straw). The bulky straw allows oxygen into the compost pile which creates a perfect atmosphere for aerobic bacteria. Oxygen is necessary to these helpful thermophilic microorganisms who create so much heat with all their activity that while composting, all pathogens present are destroyed by high temperatures in the pile (122 degrees F for 24 hours or 115 degrees F for one week). We can make sure our pile is safe to use by tracking the temperatures and when it's finished we can use it in our vegetable garden or anywhere else. This very simple and safe system makes it easy to save thousands of gallons of drinking water while returning very valuable nutrients to our soil... and best of all, it is practically free, as the best things in life usually are. We highly recommend "The Humanure Handbook" to everyone. It is intelligently written with a great sense of humor and the science to back it all up. You may be able to find it at your local library - that's where we discovered it! |
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| Outhouse doorstep and interior. Sawdust is kept in the silver trash can, the toilet (bucket) is to the right. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| This is the inside. It has a spot for a bucket (toilet) on the right, extra bucket storage in the back, sawdust storage in between them, and solar shower on the left. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| This is the triple bin compost system. Made of pallets (gaps stuffed with straw), we use the left side until full, then use the right side while the left side composts. The middle bin is used for cover material. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Check out the first video tour of our composting outhouse and be sure to read the description! (No Sound) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ...then, feel free to take our second video tour and check out the new paint job and other fancy additions. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Home | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||