Composting Toilets - Home Water Conservation

Composting toilets are one way you can conserve more water at home (composting toilet systems have also been developed and successfully implemented in high traffic areas like schools and offices). There is lots of opportunity for you to conserve water in your home. Some of the options are more involved than others, but they are a small price to pay for the environment.

First, let me clarify the problem. We have clean, treated water pumped into our homes for our use. In some places, residents have to pay for the water (either by volume or a flat monthly fee) and in some places the water is still free. We use the clean, treated water in our showers and baths to clean ourselves, in our toilets to remove our waste, in our washing machines to clean our clothes, in our kitchen to clean our hands, our dishes and our food, and in the garden to water our plants and lawns. There are countless other ways we use clean water at home, but I want to keep this article manageable. The formerly clean water is then pumped to sewage treatment plants where we try to clean the water again.

The major waste is most often the shower. Hands up everyone who has stood in the cozy hot shower and just let the water run all over you just because it felt good. Pretty much everyone has at one point or another and it is a BIG waste. When you design your home and you can actually have the shower run-off (which is often called grey water because it is no longer clean) be used in your irrigation system. The water used in your sinks can be reused the same way. The water is run through a filter to remove chemicals like soap and hair conditioner before it is used for the irrigation. You may also want to install low flow fixtures in your showers and aerators in your faucets to further decrease water use.

Flush toilets are another major waster. A regular toilet uses about 4 to 6 gallons of clean water for one flush (which adds up to about 100,000 gallons of water being flushed by the average North American family every year). You can install low flow toilets to reduce the amount of water used and if you use composting toilets in your home you will be using zero gallons of water per year to flush. You can find composting toilets on the main stream market in North America, although most people do not know about them. They are very clean and hygienic when used properly and provide you with nutrient rich humus that you can add to your garden to make it healthier.

You can also do some work on the irrigation system itself. Drip irrigation systems are much more efficient that the traditional spray systems. With the drip system there is an outlet at the roots of every plant. The water slowly drips out and goes directly to the plant rather than being in accurately sprayed by spray irrigation.

Henry_Allpas

How to Make a Compost Pile & What to Compost

It's pretty basic really, make a pile of mixed up organic (in the it was once alive sense of the word) items. You can use a commercial compost bin or compost tumbler, a homemade compost box of old wood scraps or chicken-wire, or even just make a big pile of compost in a corner of the yard. The important bit is what goes into your compost pile not how expensive it was to construct.

What Can I Compost?

Nature is already showing us what we can compost. In its most basic sense anything that was once alive will break down into organic components. So if an item is comprised of 100% natural materials it can be composted. So your goal when composting should be if something was once alive it can be added to my compost pile to prevent its goodness being wasted. Anything once alive will add goodness to your garden when it has been composted.

Now we all have preconceived notions of what can be added to the compost pile and need to work with these. If there is something on the list you do not already compost try adding it. You'll reduce your household waste and increase your compost heap.

• Compost your garden prunings, lawn clippings and weeds. Just make sure the prunings are shredded or broken up into small pieces and lawn clippings are mixed throughout the compost heap. Prolific weeds may be soaked in a bucket of water for a few weeks so they turn into mush which definitely won't survive the heat of your compost pile. Seriously diseased plants such as brassicas infected with clubroot may be burnt first and the ashes added to the plot to prevent the clubroot disease reinfecting your soil later on.
• Compost your vegetable peelings. All your vegetable waste from the kitchen can go straight onto your compost pile.
• Compost your paper and cardboard. All your uncoated paper and card should be shredded / ripped up and added to the compost heap. Don't forget to remove plastic windows from envelopes and plastic tape from cardboard packaging. Laminated papers and cards cannot be added as they'll leave a plastic film which won't break down so keep an eye on what kind of paper and card products you purchase.
• Compost your kitchen scraps even meat and fish. Meat and fish was once alive so will compost down into lovely goodness for your soil too. Just ensure your compost pile is pet proof and put these items deep into the pile, not just left on top for the local wildlife to feast on! Raw or cooked kitchen scraps will break down but if there is any issue with dogs trying to break into your heap cooked bones may be a problem as they are brittle and could be dangerous if swallowed.
• Compost dog waste. Again make sure the composting dog poop is always buried within the compost heap and it will break down fine. Poo (manure) is full of bacteria who love to break down organic items. Introducing manure to your compost pile will bring in these useful bacteria to help speed up the composting process.
• Compost manure. If you have other livestock or access to farmyard manure the addition of small quantities throughout the compost heap will heat things up and speed things along. Commercial organic compost activators are often primarily dried manure.
• Compost urine. This is probably best left to the boys. Urine is full of nutrients which will help activate your compost pile. Asking a gentleman to occasionally wee on the compost pile will do nothing but good.
• Compost human manure. It's no different to any other manure and can be composted very successfully. So if you have space for a dry composting toilet you can reduce your water usage and improve your compost creation in one step.
• Compost wood ash and sawdust. Wood ash from a wood burning fire is excellent added to the heap providing potash and other nutrients. Sawdust added in small quantities through the pile will improve bulk but may slow down the composting action if added too liberally.
• Compost pet or livestock bedding. Whether it be bedding from a gerbil cage or the contents of a hen coop, these natural materials (straw / hay / sawdust etc) will be covered in animal manure and urine and therefore fantastic additions to the compost heap. N.B. most commercial cat litters are not natural and thus not suitable for the compost heap - make sure you read the packet to see if the product is natural and was 'once alive'.
• Other natural fibers. So old woolen sweaters, cotton socks, hair (if you cut your own) or pet fur (if you trim theirs) will break down too. Don't forget to check for synthetic additions to clothing including buttons, zippers or just man-made fibers such as lycra.

Remember! Anything which was once alive, will break down into compost.

How to Compost

Unless you're using a commercial container for composting, a rough guide is to aim for a finished heap at around 1m (or 1 yard) cubed. Once you reach your finished size cover your pile with carpet or plastic sheeting to keep the worst of the weather off and leave your heap to do its stuff for six months to a year.

If you're using any kind of manure leave the heap for at least a year before putting it onto your soil. If the heap is working well all pathogens contained in the manure will have been long gone in around three months but its easier to wait longer and not have to worry!

Ensure your compost heap is pet-proof.

Make sure the heap is built with a mixture of items so it remains aerated throughout due to the different sizes and types of particles within it. If you're likely to have a surplus of one item such as grass clippings make a separate pile of this which you can then add at intervals onto the heap. Try to aim for a layered approach to the compost heap such as some kitchen scraps followed by lawn clippings, paper, dog waste, ash etc.

If you live in a dry climate add water / urine / washing up water to the heap. The compost heap is full of living organisms so it needs to be moist. Likewise if you live in a wet climate cover the heap to prevent all those living organisms drowning.

Be sensible. You're adding things that are starting to break down - food scraps, animal waste, so observe basic hygiene at all times - keep the kids occupied somewhere else and wash your hands!

It is good practice to cover anything animals might find interesting within the heap. So either dig a small hole whenever adding kitchen waste etc or keep a batch of weeds / law clippings / straw etc to cover the interesting stuff whenever you add it. This will deter animal and insect pests. If you leave a piece of leftover roast chicken breast on the top of your compost heap you would expect a few birds, flies, cats and dogs to take an interest so cover up the interesting stuff! This will also keep the smells in.

Your finished compost will smell like rich woodland soil, crumbly and dark. But obviously if you're adding poo to your pile you don't want the smell of poo around before the composting action gets going. So cover up or bury within the heap, all the smelly stuff!

Once you add your own made compost to your garden you'll never want to buy another bag of the shop bought stuff again and you'll love have less household waste to dispose of elsewhere. So go on get composting. It is the most basic method of reducing waste and recycling. Mother Nature's always done it and now, so should we.

Lec_Watkins

Human Waste As an Alternative Energy Source

With all of the news buzz these days around renewable energies such as solar and wind power, even harnessing the energy of ocean waves, one often neglected energy source is right under our noses, so to speak: human waste. It may not be as appealing or pleasant as the alternatives, but energy generation from human waste could be the most important of all. World population increases every day along with demand for energy and resources, and resources become scarcer and more coveted. The only potential resource that will increase proportionate to population is our own waste. Feces and urine are abundant and readily available wherever there are humans. Currently vast quantities of energy made from fossil fuel combustion and (often potable) water are used to process said waste products. New projects in composting toilets, biogas harvesting, biofuels creation and even microbial fuel cells could allow us to reverse the cycle and take advantage of this untapped resource.

Though skeptics believe that composting toilets will never be successful in the Western world, new technologies as well as old are being used to solve two problems: how to treat our waste, and how to produce enough food without poisoning ourselves and our environment with expensive chemical fertilizers. The next generation of composting toilets, such as that made by Clivus Multrum, are solving these problems and making the system more appealing to consumers. The low-flow composting toilets that they produce contain a basement level compost bin and service is included with the product. A much more low-tech version of the composting toilet is being used by the NGO Estamos in Africa. Although the organization's aims are to improve sanitation and reduce illness, their programs are also helping small-scale farmers make a living. The organization provides composting toilets at no charge, and has greatly improved the quality of life for many poor families. The organization's director, Feliciano dos Santos, just won the 2008 Goldman Environmental Prize in Ecological Sanitation for this work.

Many countries have well-established methane-capture programs that use animal waste, such as pig farms in Australia and cattle ranches in the United States. But what of the gas creation potential of human waste? Developing countries are pioneering this technology as a way to save money and create renewable energy. With the help of the Heifer International Foundation, rural farmers in Uganda's Mukono district are mixing human feces and urine with other biological waste such as water hyacinth and banana peels to create biogas, and using the byproduct to fertilize their fields. The biogas produced contains 60-90% methane, and is being used for lighting, cooking and some engines, and many residents are improving their quality of life and rising above the poverty level. Likewise, Cyangugu prison in Rwanda is creating biogas from the excrement of its prisoners. The Kigali Institute of Science and Technology built the digester for the prison, which is using the resulting product to cook 50% of the prisoner's meals, and saving $22,000 annually -- a great deal of money in Rwanda. But developing countries aren't the only ones taking advantage of human generated biogas. The Lions Gate Wastewater Treatment Plant in Vancouver, British Columbia, once the subject of a lawsuit regarding a violation of federal pollution laws, has piloted a $1.1 million project to harvest methane from the city's sewage and feed it directly into the natural gas distribution system. The project, which is expected to be operational in 2009, projects a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 500 tonnes annually, and enough energy production to power 100 homes. A similar project is underway in San Antonio, Texas.

Current debates surrounding plant-based biofuels focus on competition between food crops and biofuels crops, and many experts worry that high demand for biofuels will exacerbate current food shortage problems. Several projects have tackled this issue by creating biofuels from algae grown on human waste. One of these is Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation, which harvests the algae used in the sewage treatment ponds in Malborough, New Zealand. The "green crude" they create from the algae can be used for all crude-oil applications such as gasoline, diesel and plastics. In a more direct process, a Canadian company called Dynamotive Energy Systems Corporation is feeding human waste directly into a biofuels generation system using a "fast pyrolysis process". The system achieves 80% efficiency by recuperating waste gasses and heat from the process, and the end product, BioOil®, can be used as a substitute for a variety of petroleum products. One of the most high-tech, cutting-edge technologies for energy creation from human waste is the development of microbial fuel cells. Developed by Dr. Bruce Logan of Penn State's engineering department, the system has been suggested as a way to take waste treatment plants off the grid. The fuel cell, still being refined to produce an acceptable energy output, uses wastewater to generate hydrogen fuel, and clean water is produced as a by-product. While the technology is not practical for other fuel-cell applications such as hydrogen-powered cars, it can be used anywhere there is a large supply of biological waste.

Many people cringe at the thought of human waste based energy systems, and would rather not think about what happens down the pipeline, but as humanity becomes increasingly demanding of energy we must begin to embrace unconventional methods of producing it. With the increasing success of the projects mentioned exists the possibility of eliminating human waste pollution worldwide. One day our sewage may be referred to as "brown gold", and could be more valuable than even crude oil.

For more information on alternative energies, including renewable energy solutions for your home and business, please visit the Alternative Energy Weblog

Samuel_Lewis

A Look At Composting and Composting Toilets

Sometimes known as biological toilets and waterless toilets, composting toilet systems are useful when there is an urgent necessity to control the composting of toilet paper, food wastes and excrement. Composting toilet is different from the septic system because a composting toilet system is depended on conditions of unsaturated level such as the materials cannot be immersed completely in water. When operating to its full capacity, composting toilet is competent to easily break down the waste into somewhere about 10 to 30 percent of its actual volume.

Humus is the resulting end-product. Known for being a stable soil-like material, humus is required to be either buried or it has to be properly removed by a licensed seepage hauler who is familiar with the state as well as the prevailing local regulations in the U.S. but in several other countries, humus can be used as an effective soil conditioner on edible crops.

When we discuss the primary objective underlying the composting toilet system, the answer is simple: to destroy or immobilize any and every organism that is capable of causing pathogens or any kind of human disease. Composting is a savior of sorts because it ensures that the waste products don't contaminate the immediate or distant environment or harm the human inhabitants in any way.

The system should naturally be consistent with proper as well as good sanitation so that it minimizes effectively any possibility of human contact with the kind of unprocessed excrement that is being treated, Minimizing odor and producing a dry end product that doesn't pose any kind of exposure to disease vectors like flies is a matter of importance as well.

The secondary objective, as we all know, is to transform the nutrients that are present in human excrement into forms that are stable because these are then fully oxidized and can therefore, be used effectively as a kind of soil conditioner for plants as well as trees.

Here are some of the main components of a composting toilet:

-a composting reactor that gets connected to one or more of the dry or the micro-flush toilets;

-a screened exhaust system so that odors, water vapors, carbon dioxide, and so on can be minimized;

-some type of ventilation so that oxygen is provided to the aerobic organisms that are present in the composter;

• a proper way to drain and manage whatever turns out to be leachate or excess liquid;
• process controls, like mixers and
• an access door that ensures the removal of the final end-product.

With these tips, you have now understood what composting toilet is all about.

Tanner_Larsson

Eco-Toilet - Portable Composting Toilet

I have been out in the woods many times while getting the urge to empty my bowels. So, I had to find a place to do the deed and I had to find some leaves to help with the clean up. Then, out came the shovel to dig a nice little hole for my personal composting pile; small price to pay for enjoying the great outdoors. Now there is something even better.

It is an Eco-toilet, also called environmentally friendly toilets. Eco-toilets are a portable version of composting toilets. It comes in the shape of a toilet seat, a shape which we have all grown accustomed to. You put a biodegradable bag into the eco-toilet, do your deed (hopefully you remember toilet paper) and you save the bag until you get home where you put it into your compost pile. It takes about 40 days for the bag to decompose.

These eco-toilets can be taken along for long road trips through areas where rest stops are few and far between. I am willing to bet that it will cut down on speeding. I have often noticed that the speed I drive is proportional to how badly I have to visit the little boy's room. Now, I take the washroom along for the trip and my driving is much comfortable. Also, eco-toilets are often recommended as part of a disaster preparedness kit.

If used properly, eco-toilets help lower your impact on the environment by decreasing your need to use traditional flush toilets, which use four to six gallons of clean water for every flush.

Henry_Allpas

Composting Toilets - How They Work

Most people in Western Society would be surprised to find out that there are a variety of composting toilets on the mainstream market. I am pretty sure most people have never even heard of composting toilets; however that may soon change. Composting toilets have the potential to save North Americans up to 100,000 gallons of toilet flush water per year and if you live in an area where you have to pay for your water by the gallon or cubic foot, you'll be saving a lot of money by using composting toilets.

You may have guessed it already, composting toilets compost human waste. You may be a little disgusted by that, but keep in mind that before the very recent invention of sewer treatment plants every human on earth composted their waste one way or another; either by leaving it in the woods so that nature could compost it or by composting it on their property so that their gardens could benefit. A properly functioning composting toilet is very hygienic and it will destroy all pathogenic microbes in the human waste during the composting process.

Composting toilets have four main components:

1. To minimize the release of water vapour, odor and carbon dioxide there is a screened exhaust system
2. To let the excess liquid (leachate) drain out of the compost there is a drainage system
3. A composting reactor is where the composting takes place
4. To remove the finished product (or humus) there is an access door

There are usually two composting reactors. One is used until it is full and then the second is used while the first one is allowed to compost. After the first one is emptied it can be used again while the second one composts.

If there are regulations in your area which do not allow you to use the humus from composting toilets in your garden then you will have to call a licensed seepage hauler to empty your composting toilet. It is a small price to pay for enormous water savings. We all have to do our part.

Henry_Allpas

Composting Toilets to the Rescue

Too many people and not enough toilets.

With a large and very roomy house, 6 bedrooms, plus a finished attic and a finished basement, you would think they would have more than two bathrooms with toilets.

For most of the year it is just the two of them and they put off building more bathrooms.

This year they were to have 9 adults and 16 children as holiday guests.

It was in the middle of November when the couple was telling me their problem. They did not have the money to pay for permits and to have the bathrooms built to code.

I suggested they buy 6 of the fancy electric composting toilets. Put in vent pipes and plug them in to the electric for the heater to evaporate the liquids. And to forget the permits costs since as long as raw sewage never left the unit's the officials could not cause problems.

For less than $11,000 they had 8 working "stink free" toilets.

The couple asked me to "come see!"

They had built enclosures around each composting toilet.

1. 2 bedrooms had full bathrooms.
2. 4 more bedrooms had composting toilets.
3. There was one composting toilet in the attic and one in the basement.

They planned to leave the toilets hooked up to the electricity for 7 days after their company left. This would finish the composting. Then they would unplug the units until they were needed the next holiday.

You can buy the non-electric composting toilets but you need a drainpipe to drain of the liquids and you also need vent pipes for each unit.

It is handy to have several 5 gallon buckets with lids, a bag of pine shavings (animal bedding) and a potty chair...

Note: You have probably seen the potty chairs for adult invalids. They have 4 legs, a toilet seat with lid, a back bar to hold the lid upright and sturdy arm rests to raise and lower yourself off and on the toilet. You can get them really cheap.

...in the garage or storage shed for when your regular toilet backs up or 'breaks' and for when you need an extra toilet.

I know several people, with camper shells on their pick ups, who use the potty chair, buckets and pine shavings while traveling and even going to town.

1. They always have a toilet when they need one.
2. They do not have to walk long distances to use a toilet.
3. They do not have to use a filthy' restroom.
4. They can use their brand of toilet paper.
5. They have absolute privacy.
6. They can take all of the time they need to go potty.
7. They never have to hear "Yes we have toilets but they are for our employees ONLY'

Using composting toilets in new home construction means no septic tank or leech field. All you have is gray water from the sinks, showers or tubs. With a simple filter you can use that water for the landscaping.

Rhondalyn Teel