On Composting Toilets and Humanure

March 24, 2010 By 62 Comments

Of all the things to get excited about here, the composting toilet  and humanure system probably certifies me as crazy.

I’d never used anything but a flush toilet, although I’d heard about alternatives. And much like beekeeping, it retained a place in my mind as intriguing but way beyond my comfort level.

Composting Toilet

After my first experience with their composting toilet and humanure system, I was pretty impressed. It definitely seemed a more sustainable option. But after getting my hands on Chris’ copy of The Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure*, I’m so fully sold on the idea that I cannot imagine ever going back!

The world is divided into two categories: those who shit in drinking
water and those who don’t. We in the Western world are in the former class. We defecate in water, usually purified drinking water. After polluting the water withour body’s excrement, we flush the once pure but now polluted water “away”, meaning we probably don’t know where it goes, nor do we care. – The Humanure Handbook

This paragraph gave me an imagine of a snobbish, over-privileged society opening up a bottle of Perrier to take a piss. Except it’s a 3-7 gallon bottle of Perrier. Yes, this was the paragraph within the two chapters of disturbing and eye-opening citations that clenched it for me: Flush toilets are weird.

On the other hand, the benefits of a composting toilet are amazing. Some of them include:

  • No water. Zero. Zilch. When you consider that, at best, you are flushing 3 gallons of clean water down the drain several times per day and when the lack of such sanitary water is attributable to 25 million deaths a year, 60% of whom are children…well, flush toilets seem pretty pompous.
  • No smell. Seriously. If done properly, there will be no discernible odor. Which is more than I can say for some flush toilets.
  • Less cleaning, which means less harmful chemicals. How many environmentally-conscious people out there still resort to something nasty to clean their stained toilet bowls? Especially if you “let it mellow”, the ring around the toilet can be disgusting to look at and impossible to remove without bleach.
  • No splash back. Because could there be anything worse?
  • No flush. The composting toilet is quiet when you’re worried about waking a household…or alerting guests as to what you’re doing.
  • Compost. After proper, easy composting you’re left with rich humus for the garden.

Why Humanure

The reasons are pretty amazing and cover a broad spectrum. Rather than quote the entire book for you (and oh man, it is good stuff), let me run down a few of the book’s citations:

  • We are the only species on Earth to create waste. Other species create resources. Manure – from any creature – is a resource. Would we throw money away? Then why throw away good water and good compost?
  • The foods that animals eat help to nourish the land that provided it in the form of manure. Food grows > Food nourishes > Bodily excrements are left behind > Those excrements grow more food. We are the only part of nature that does not work within that cycle of life and growth, choosing instead to create a broken cycle of mostly synthetic inputs and wasting important outputs.
  • Half of the 250 million+ tons of waste per year is valuable as an agricultural resource. Instead of composting it ends up in landfills, creating an excess of methane. Landfills are considered “‘among the single greatest contributors of global methane emissions’, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.”
  • When considering that 1 in 3 people on every continent do not have access to clean water it makes it utterly ridiculous to crap in ours.
  • Composting humanure by impoverished areas gives sparse or stripped land an ability to flourish, thereby feeding and sustaining life.
  • Compost, including humanure compost, has the ability to degrade toxic chemicals. The book cites an Austrian farmer who owned the only farm not affected by the radiation from Chernobyl, believed to be due to the abundance of microorganisms in his soil. Also, the Umatilla Army Depot munitions site heavily contaminated with TNT and RDX restored the soil to “a better condition than before it was contaminated” after composting the soil. This also saved approx $2.6 million in incineration costs. (It’s estimated that if all such sites were composted it would save $200 million of taxpayers money. Hmm…) Could compost – something we could potentially have an abundance of, help restore other polluted areas?

But most of all, it’s sustainable. In a world of rising oil prices and depletion, we need to find alternatives to doing the things that simply don’t make sense. As food, sanitation and sewage costs continue to sky-rocket, I foresee more and more of us needing to “return to the land”, grow our own food without endless synthetic inputs and put an end to waste of any kind. Animal and human manure are a valuable resource that we will not be able to afford to lose in the future.

What About Germs?

We’re probably hard-wired to be disgusted by human waste. This mechanism helps keep us away from harmful pathogens and stay healthy. Not necessarily a bad thing. But those of us who wouldn’t bat an eyelash at using composted animal manures would be more than a bit concerned about using composted human manure in the same manner.

Properly composted human manure is free of pathogens or bacteria. It’s a process and not at all difficult, but describing how is worthy of its own book. And thankfully The Humanure Handbook* fills that void. It covers a broad spectrum of information from microorganisms to maintenance and even some philosophy. I dare you to read it and not reconsider your habits.

The Ironwood System

It’s pretty simple: A wooden box with a lid that lifts and a toilet seat on top. Inside is a five gallon bucket. Chris also has a fan installed inside the box that vents outside but we’ve yet to really need it. Beside the composting toilet is a bucket of wood chips. (You can also use straw or sawdust.) When someone uses the bathroom, they simple sprinkle material over the top. When the bucket gets full it is dumped into a humanure composting bin, which sits for a year before use. Chris has been using a composting toilet and humanure for about 8 years without issue. And it’s been feeding his gardens and his family for just as long.

I Won’t Go Back

I’m thankful that in the RV we use a measly cup or two of water to flush. If it’s just for #1 and the water pump is off, we can actually get by without using any water (by opening the hatch while we go, we don’t even need to rinse the bowl). If we had the room and a place to compost it, I’d set up a humanure system in a heartbeat. (I have heard of RVers using composting toilets with a trash bag that can be tied up and dumped normally, as well. It’s really not much worse than throwing away disposable diapers, just in larger quantities.)

But when we settle back into a home, I will not be using a flush toilet. I’m a convert, I love it and I’m not going back.

What about you? Have you used a composting toilet? Or would you try it?

*This is an affiliate link to Amazon. If you are considering buying this book, please consider purchasing it (and any other books) using this link. All earnings go toward supporting our family.
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Five Reasons Not To Use Straw

May 29, 2009 By 7 Comments

Because of our extremes summer temps, mulching is a must. (And with our ridiculously low water levels in Lake Mead, I’m shocked the city doesn’t encourage it more.)

We were nervous about introducing more insects into our yard with the free mulch, so we opted for straw instead. I’d heard of the use of straw for soil moisture in many places and rather than doing a bit more research, we jumped the gun. We needed something and we needed it fast, since temps were already reaching 100 degrees by that point.

Talk about buyer’s remorse. If you’re wondering whether or not to try it, let me tell you my four five reasons I’ll never use straw in the garden again.

Reason #1 It’s ugly. Really, this was reason enough. About 30 minutes after we started laying it down, I looked up and visibly grimaced. All that pale yellow constrasting against our soil made things look bleak. And as practical as I am, I want to see some (natural) beauty in my yard.

Reason #2 It’s messy. Somehow it ended up everywhere we didn’t want it and nowhere we did. The wind blows it around. The birds toss it (and likely steal it). The walkways were sprinkled with it but the melon patch was bare. It’s even dragged in on our shoes. Not cool.

May 25th front yard

Pictured above is one “zone” where the straw has been removed and
compost and mulch is being laid down. You can see the straw still in
other areas. And in the paths. Not pictured is the straw in my hair.
Or on my living room rug.

Okay, those two things may not bother most people, but the following two reasons were the clinchers for me:

Reason #3 Straw adds little value to the soil. It’s not “alive”. Adding something like compost or mulch to retain water adds many more nutrients, healthy microbes and bacteria and amends the soil. It feeds the insect life crucial to creating a thriving habitat, helps to create a lighter loam and feeds your plants while preventing evaporation. Even for garden paths I want to be adding to my soil, not taking away from it. Which leads me to my next point:

Reason #4 The carbon to nitrogen ratio of oat straw is 74:1; wheat straw has an 80:1 ratio. As only a mulch this isn’t an issue. But it’s nearly impossible to keep the straw on top of the soil, instead of in it. Once the straw gets into the soil, it begins to break down. Because decomposer organisms need a 20-30:1 balance of carbon and nitrogen, they begin to burning through your nitrogen too quickly to balance their high-carbon diet. Thus, our nitrogen-depleted soil would struggle even more and I only have so many beans (nitrogen fixers) left to plant!

Reason #5 It’s very hard to remove it all. Given Reason #4, we wanted to get as much as possible out of the soil before adding compost and mulch. But it’s nearly impossible to get it all out, leaving me very apprehensive about our already low nitrogen levels.

When to use straw:

Animal bedding! Miranda mentioned this to me and I researched it a bit more. The nitrogen in the animal’s manure is a great balance to the high amounts of carbon. The heat from the breakdown should also help to keep your animals warm in cooler climates (would it be too warm in our summers?).

Compost, but only a little! Again, because of the large amounts of carbon, straw should be used sparingly in your compost or the same depletion could occur.

Which leaves me with one question: Do any locals have a need for a whole lotta free straw? :)

(Click here for the what’s, why’s and how’s of mulching.)

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More lawn conversion…and other stuff

June 3, 2008 By 1 Comment

We’ve been working…more…on our front lawn conversion. The sheet mulching we were told was not enough, so we went back to work adding more.

My ever-clever self called up a local golf course and finagled my way into their trash bins for truckloads of grass clippings and yard waste. These I mixed with shredded newspaper and spread 4-8 inches thick over the entire yard. Here’s a mid-way picture:

That’s about where it started. Attack of the Killer Flies. Giant Killer Flies. As big as my head.

I’m assuming it’s the grass clippings, since I’ve never used this much grass in a compost/mulch before and the flies don’t seem to be on the manure at all. But you know you have a fly problem when you hang fly tape in your garage (not the yard mind you, the garage) and within an hour the entire two and a half foot strip looks like this:

And it got worse. We tried adding micro-organisms, we tried adding lime. The pile wasn’t getting hot enough or staying moist enough (with our high temps) to start decomposing and the flies continued to proliferate. So we decided to solarize it. We laid plastic painters tarp over the entire yard in hopes of keeping the moisture in and the flies out. (Oh we also dug up some garden beams that were in our backyard and placed them in our front yard to terrace the slope…see?)

Except I managed to trap a few thousand flies under the tarps. I’m pretending the fly that had the audacity to land on my eyelash is under there. If you put your ear close to the plastic you can hear their little voices…”Heeellllppp meeee, heeeellllppp meeee.” And that my friend, is an immensely satisfying sound.

Another immensely satisfying sound is that of my son adding up the dimes he’s earned for each fly he’s managed to swat in the house. Unfortunately our fly swatter wore out before the flies did! So he got up to nearly $5.00 before he had to call it quits.

On the other hand, it’s been a learning experience. I’ve learned that flies have cannibalistic tendencies and will go after their dead brethren (or maybe that one was in mourning?). I also learned that water excites them. I don’t know if it’s a happy excitement or a infuriated excitement but whenever one of us would go out to water the lawn, we would get dive-bombed by hundreds of the little bastards. Dive-bombed I tell ya!! So they either didn’t like it, or they mistook us for a water park.

We plan to mix in more manure to the compost/mulching if we feel it needs more nitrogen in breaking down. We’re going to wait and see how the decomposition goes. We’re also going to avoid pulling up those tarps if there are still flies around. After the ants, I’m starting to feel like the Girl Who Fought Nature Without Pesticides and Lost. And my woes are not convincing my family members to go chem-free in their own homes.

Changing the subject before I yak…

Oh, remember that tree in my back yard that I thought was a cherry tree? It’s not. It’s a plum tree. A plum tree with plums the size of a cherry, with the sweetest innards you’ll ever taste but the skins more bitter than you can tolerate. I’m still working on that one.

And as for my tomatoes, some of them have blossom end rot which I found was from inconsistent watering. Hmph. So, we rigged a drip system for them over the weekend, because if it’s not working now, just wait until it gets to be 115 outside!

One of our neighbors approached Justin yesterday and said (rather triumphantly, like she’d be Googling for a solution and finally found it) “I know what you’re doing! You’re going to plant strawberries!” Uh, yeah…and pumpkins, watermelon, squash, zucchini, carrots, artichoke….Why she just thought “strawberries” was beyond me. Do strawberries like flies?

But at least the cat’s out of the bag with one of our neighbors and they no longer think we’re totally crazy. Can’t vouch for the rest of them. But the house next door and across the street both sold while we were in the midst of this smelly debacle, so we must not look too kooky.

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