On disposing of human waste

We take the flush toilet as the norm in our society. I ask myself how we would dispose of our waste if the electrically pumped water supply was cut off. We have and are using composting toilets here at Woodhenge. Our home has flush toilets, the rest of the buildings here have toilets designed after the models presented in Joe Jenkins' "The Humanure Handbook". I actually had cocktails with Joe several years back on a temporary escape from a natural builder's colloquium (just so much herbal tea and tofu we could stand...don't get me wrong the food at this particular seminar was restaurant
quality+, but the drumming and other things made a small group of us need a few hour break- it was a week long meeting).

Joe would rather be known for his books and work on slate roofs, but his humanure book is fantastic. The basics involve building a composter specifically designed for human waste. There are several different techniques described in his book. We chose a modified version that used recycled truck tires with the sidewalls partially removed (to ease emptying). You stack 4 or 5 tires on top of each other and the top tire doesn't have it's upper sidewall removed. You place one of the cut out sidewall pieces from one of the other tires upside down on top of the top tire and cover the hole with a garbage pail lid with a rock or concrete block on top to hold it in place.

Inside the home or outhouse you have a throne made as fancy as you'd like, but using a 5-gallon plastic pail to catch your 'business'. Start with a layer of organic material in the bottom- we use about 2" of peat moss, but have used saw dust, wood ashes, and other easily available absorbent materials. After making your deposit you cover it, paper and all, with another layer of material.
When the bucket is 3/4 full you swap it for a clean bucket and dump the full bucket into the composter. I tend to rotate the buckets; leaving the just emptied bucket outside next to the composter to air out, or wash out with rain water naturally...keeping 2 or three buckets in rotation will eliminate any odor that the polyethylene takes on from the urine.

If you have a higher female population in your home you might have to empty the bucket more often due to the build up of liquids in the bucket. Urea converts to ammonia and begins to stink after a couple of days. Gentlemen it is recommended to just use the nearest tree and this will reduce the amount of liquid going into the bucket.

I do a lecture about sustainability that describes the system...there is always a person in the crowd that gets the 'ugly' face on when I mention this topic. I ask them where their 'stuff' goes.
Most of the time the answer is "away" and they have no clue where. I then describe both the septic tan/leach field/drilled or dug well cycle and the municipal waste water treatment plant and water supply system and explain how fecal bacteria get into the drinking water supply and how they are toxically treated with chemicals and sometimes there is a glimmer of understanding.

What really clinches the usability of this system is in weather over 55*F the last added contents to one set of composter tires is reduced to soil and earth worms in about 10 days. We recommend 4 sets of composters be built for a small family. The resultant compost is odorless, or as odorless as any other well digested compost. It can be used anywhere...we're reluctant to use it directly on root vegetables and other things growing close to the ground, but don't hesitate to use it around fruit and nut trees and berry bushes.

Compared to whatever direct dumping I suspect will take place in urban and suburban localities this is an easy, safe and good use of a 'dangerous' material. I can't imagine the stench of a city that doesn't have a system like this in place prior to a water crisis.

e-mail me for more details at: jsjuczak@gisco.net