_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
COMPOST TOILETS
Many people now know about composting toilets,
particularly those in the alternative movement
who are quite familiar with composting in their gardens, and who understand the
advantages of
recycling and simplification of our needs.
But to the many others who have not really thought
about where their sewage goes after flushing,
the thought of composting their own waste is a little uncomfortable.
Objectionable questions are fired at you when you
first introduce the concept to someone, and many
persons leave the subject still thinking that a composting toilets is a old pit
(outhouse) toilet, remembered
unpleasantly from camping trips.
Well, composting toilets are far from being pit
toilets! They range from simple twin chamber designs
through to advanced systems with rotating tines, temperature and moisture probes
and electronic
control systems.
They are effective biological converters of human and
household “waste,” saving money and energy for
the person and community. They start the regeneration of the Earth’s
precious environment that is
long overdue.
Composting toilets are toilet systems which treat
human waste by composting and dehydration to
produce a useable end-product that is a valuable soil additive.
They come in a variety of models and brand names as
well as different shapes and designs to enhance
the natural composting process.
They use little or no water, are not connected to
expensive sewage systems, cause no environmental
damage and produce a valuable resource for gardening.
The systems can be broadly divided into two different types:
With the batch systems, a container is filled and
then replaced with an empty container. The composting
process is completed inside the sealed container. The system may have a
single, replaceable container.
Or it may be a carousel system where 3 or 4 containers are mounted on a
carousel and a new container
is spun into the toilet area when the other is full. After a full cycle is
complete, the first container is fully
composted and ready for emptying.
These systems are in a constant state of composting.
Waste enters the system, composting reduces
the volume and moves it downward where it is harvested after 6-12 months as
fully composted material.
All systems are designed to treat the waste material
by composting, worm processing, micro- and
macro-organism breakdown, and by dehydration and evaporation of moisture.
There are a wide variety of systems including:
• Owner-built, two chamber moldering systems that
are basic, but effective.
• Owner-built from concrete blocks and concrete inclined base. Constructed
in with the house foundations.
• Manufactured, small, self-contained and remote systems suitable for
vacation and full-time home use.
• Manufactured, large tank, inclined base models suitable for heavy
loadings.
• Wide variety of small units which fit into existing bathrooms. Many have
dehydration fans and heaters.
• Vacuum flush unit for production of worm castings.
• Full flush systems with centrifugal action to deposit wastes into
composting chamber.
New technologies and products, as well as
over 30 years experience is now setting the scene for a
major expansion of composting toilets throughout the world.
The advantages of natural waste treatment systems are many and varied.
The following section shows the benefits of the
system in comparison to existing waterborne waste treatment
systems. These benefits improve conditions for the individual, the community
and the environment.
An understanding of how your system benefits the
individual and the community will help you to maintain it
and confidently explain it to others.
There are many great reasons to use a composting toilet!
Water Use Reduction (20-50%)
A significant savings in water storage will result if the household is not on
reticulated water supply. Combine
this with wastewater re-utilization in irrigation and other household water
reduction techniques and water
storage costs can be cut by up to 60%.
Shock Loading Capacity
Loading shock for large gatherings is achieved easily with correctly sized
composting toilet systems.
Odor Problems Reduced
The suction air flow in most composting toilets takes toilet and bathroom odor
out of the room and acts like
a constant extraction fan.
Lower Household Maintenance Costs
Sewage rates and water rates (metered) can be in the order of $500 per year, a
significant cost. This will
only increase if the demand for sewage system upgrading increases. Other
on-site systems have annual
maintenance costs that are obligatory. Local authorities will be increasingly
paying rebates to households
who own composting toilets.
End Product Recycled
While only small in amount, the solid end product is a valuable humic fertilizer
that can be utilized around
trees and gardens.
Reduced Greywater Loading
Where composting toilets are installed instead of septic and mini-treatment
systems, there is a large reduction
in the “loading” on the effluent treatment system by the removal of “blackwater.”
Smaller, less maintenance,
greywater systems are possible.
Independence
A household with a composting system is independent from potential problems of
the waterborne sewage system.
If future water shortage or system backup problems occur with conventional
systems, there is not much that
you can do personally about it. On-site composting systems are much more
flexible, they are easier to fix and
have less damage potential if operated incorrectly.
Recycling
The composting toilet possesses the ability to recycle much of your household
waste. Food scraps, paper, lawn
clippings and grease from you grease traps and greywater systems can be
composted back through the toilet.
If you choose to put in a reed bed greywater systems, the annual clippings can
also be composted. There is no
wastage in this system.
Unusual Sites
Composting toilets can be installed in many different situations which would
not accommodate other systems.
Rocky sites, high water table, no water storage, environmentally sensitive,
close to running watercourses, and
swampy ground. All these difficult site situations can be accommodated with a
small amount of alteration to the
basic system design.
Together with the personal benefits of the
composting toilet there are overall benefits to the society and the
environment.
Water Use
A reduction in water use allows the large capital costs of dams and reservoirs
to be spread over a greater population.
It also enables decentralized water sources to be used.
Reduced Marine Pollution
Nutrient load on streams and rivers is almost negligible. This results in more
oxygen being available in the water and
a return to improved activity of marine life.
Pollution Detected Quickly
Without sewage systems to flush away wastes, It would be easier to ascertain
where toxic wastes are being leaked
into watercourses. Industry would be more willing to rectify these problems if
it were easier to identify the sources.
Damage Limited
Miscalculation in individual composting systems has a much smaller impact than
the same mistake in a large
centralized system. It is also easier to rectify and return to normal
operation.
Flexibility of Planning
Composting toilet systems are built only when the need arises. The high
headwork and treatment costs of
conventional sewage systems must be borne by the community ahead of
development. If development does
not go as planned, then money is wasted.
Less Environmental Impact
Compared to sewage systems, on-site composting and greywater treatment has
less impact on the environment:
• Large effluent releases into watercourses and oceans are avoided.
• Disruption to soils systems through pipeline installation is eliminated.
• Leakage of raw sewage into groundwater through pipe deterioration and
breakage is eliminated.
Flexibility in Estate Planning
By eliminating the planning constraints of the sewage system underground
piping and infrastructure, housing
developments can be designed with more emphasis on environmental and social
considerations, rather than
how best to situate the blocks to make pipes run straighter.
For such a simple technology, the benefits to the individual and to the community are quite amazing!
Besides pit toilets, present toilet systems are
either “sewered systems” or on-site “septic or mini-treatment
systems.”
Both are based on the principle of using water to
transfer the “wastes” to a treatment system. Whether this
is a septic tank just outside the house, or a sewage treatment plant 10 miles
away, both must treat a large
volume of raw effluent.
This historical use of water to “cleanse” away the toilet wastes is where the first problem occurs.
Raw sewage starts to break down by a process that utilizes oxygen within the water.
Once this oxygen has been used up, the breakdown of
sewage is changed to microorganisms that perform
anaerobic (non-oxygen) respiration.
The byproducts of anaerobic respiration are
nutrient-rich effluent and flammable methane and other foul
smelling gases. This is the traditional smell associated with septic tanks and
sewage treatment plants.
In many cases around the world, untreated effluent
is left to run down natural streams and rivers into lakes
and oceans. The high nutrient value of the effluent causes algal blooms in
these waterways, which as they die
and are decomposed by microbes which use up the dissolved oxygen in the water.
This in turn reduces dissolved
oxygen levels which kills marine animals. The effects can be quite devastating
up the marine food chain.
The production of effluent brings us to our second
major problem. This is the mixing of industrial and agricultural
effluents with human effluent. Human effluent could be treated and reused as
agricultural sludge and liquid fertilizer,
but the addition of toxic byproducts from industry produces questionable
quality effluents and sludge’s. This wastes
valuable nutrient resources.
A third problem is associated with these nutrient
“Resources”. There is a massive nutrient leak occurring at
present in our societies. Fertilizer nutrients are mined from fossil and guano
reserves and manufactured into
fertilizers which are applied on agricultural lands. From here it leaks in two
ways. Firstly, unused fertilizers run
down into streams and river and are lost into lakes and oceans. Secondly, food
crops and animal farming takes
nutrients away as farm products. These are transferred to us as the food we
eat. From there they become
sewage wastes and ultimately end up causing pollution in lakes and oceans. In
the future, we will find that are
reserves of natural fertilizers will diminish, and we have to start recycling
the nutrients that we have in the
systems at present.
The waste of another natural resource, clean water,
is our fourth problem. Building expensive dams, piping water
hundreds of miles, treating it with expensive processes, and then using 40% of
this treated water to flush away a
small quantity of human byproducts is utter madness. The massive costs of
infrastructures such as dams and
sewage systems is causing financial burdens for many families, particularly in
cities, where the money would be
better spent on solving social problems.
Overall, the present system of treating
“humanure” is a wasteful and expensive burden on our communities and
the environment. To reverse this system, and build a sustainable systems of
“waste” re-utilization is possible using
systems such as composting toilets.