An Introduction to Composting Toilets.

There are different types of composting toilets commercially available on the market today, or you have your homemade options. There are the toilets that compost human manure inside the toilet itself, under the toilet on a separate floor, or toilets where you move the manure to a separate composting area. The commercially available composting toilets usually compost at low temperatures, though there are some that do thermophilic composting.

The cheapest and most easily attainable of composting toilets for any culture and people of low-income is simply to collect your manure in a toilet and add it to your compost pile. This also makes it rather easier to create proper and thriving thermophilic composting conditions.

To have an odorless, waterless and environmentally friendly toilet for one person for two weeks, all you need is two 5 gallon buckets and a large bag of either peat moss, sawdust, or just shredded junk mail (the junk mail should be shredded to facilitate decomposition). Add in a compost bin and a steady supply of peat moss, sawdust, etc, and that toilet would last for decades. While the cheapest, this type of toilet requires more work than most commercial composting toilets as you need to regularly empty buckets of your compost onto your pile and manage the pile to prevent unpleasant odours and promote thermophilic conditions.

A homemade composting toilet would be a more costly, but a usually cheaper alternative to the commercially available composting toilets. Homemade toilets usually have the compost bin under the toilet and require proper management, like the addition of sawdust, peat moss, straw, hay, or weeds to ensure a good carbon/nitrogen balance. A homemade toilet also allows for personal creativity and usually requires no water or electricity. It is usually a permanent fixture in the home, or can be built as a free-standing outhouse.

Homemade composting toilets usually have two chambers underneath. One is used until it is full and then the other is used while the first matures for at least two years. After two years of nothing being added, the first chamber can be emptied. Some of these toilets collect manure and urine separately to cut down on the amount of moisture and nitrogen being gathered in the chamber. This is unnecessary so long as one adds enough clean organic material that is high in carbon in order to balance out the nitrogen, which also promotes thermophilic composting.

Commercial composting toilets sometimes require water or electricity, both or neither. They are usually made of plastic or fibreglass and come in many different shapes and sizes, different types and are available in different price ranges. Commercial composting toilets commonly use a fan located near the top of the system and a vent located near the bottom of the system to aerate the compost. This will suck out any unpleasant smell if the compost isn't properly thermophilic, although it will run the risk of drying out your compost, further promoting anaerobic decomposition. Another common problem with improperly managed commercial composting toilets is that the compost becomes drowned in liquid, which drowns the aerobic bacteria and promotes the growth of anaerobic bacteria. This last should be no problem if the toilet's management instructions are followed. It would probably be helpful for a member of the household to take the responsibility to ensure proper management, especially if there are young children around.

All of these different composting toilets need proper management in order to be successful and not breed problems. The level of management needed depends on the toilet you use. Instead of creating pollution and paying someone to take care of the waste you flush down a toilet with clean drinking water every single time you go to the bathroom, you can get useful compost with a little bit of effort. Most composting toilets will only require that you add clean organic material after every use, instead of flushing, to avoid unpleasant smells and make sure that the compost has all the oxygen it needs along with enough carbon to balance out the nitrogen. You must also make sure that you are not using the toilet beyond its capacity.

Composting toilets can be on the costly side; commercial toilets ranging from $850-1,995. A homemade composting toilet is more flexible, the costs depending on the materials used to make it and whether or not you hire a contractor to build it, etc. If you are really economical and resourceful about it, you could easily build one for under $50. Other costs would be the organic material needed in order to eliminate smell. In comparison, flush toilets start off at $150, with septic tanks ranging from $5,000-$20,000. Then you have maintenance costs, the cost of having the sewage you produce treated and the cost of the drinking water that toilet uses.

You can pay someone else to take care of your waste, or you can put in a little more effort than it takes to flush a toilet and get rich fertilizer in return. If you aren't going to use it in your own garden, someone else will and maybe they will pay you for it. Instead of creating more waste and paying for that waste, why not get paid yourself for using a valuable resource? And why waste the world's precious supply of good, clean, not to mention safer, drinking water?

This page has a list of commercial composting toilets along with contact information, listed by country. It also includes Owner built toilets and many other informational tools. In a later post, I will talk about some of the more well-known commercial composting toilets.