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.

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.