Comments on: Reflections on Six Years of Relieving Oneself into a Bucket.

By: Ruth

Ruth — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 13:44:50 +0000

We have been using dry toilets since last autumn. It smells much less than when we had the septic tank. The compost which is eventually produced goes back to the garden.

The only real difficulty is with the urine as it is almost impossible to defecate without urinating. The wetter the sawdust gets, the smellier it gets and the bucket has to be emptied more frequently.

In general (in winter) the 20 litre bucket was good for a whole week (two adults and one teen) without being emptied but the

By: Lauretta Scalzo

Lauretta Scalzo — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 11:25:37 +0000

Really enjoyed the article. Want to get a copy of this book NOW.

By: Paul

Paul — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 00:31:58 +0000

Rob, How often did you need to empty the bucket ? I have been asked to set up a compost toilet,thanks to this article, it has given me the confidence and facts to set up the same system. Thanks !

By: Anna Zander

Anna Zander — Mon, 01 May 2006 17:16:17 +0000

You could get a permitted composting toilet installed. Or, just collect your urine with a container, a waterless urinal or a urine-diverting toilet, and put that in your composter or on a well-mulched garden bed or just around your shrubs. Let the septic system or wastewater treatment plant deal with the potential pathogens in the solids.

Urine usually contains 90% of the nitrogen in your excreta.

See http://www.liquidgoldbook.com

By: Rob

Rob — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 14:51:49 +0000

The figure came from an architect I spoke to after my meeting with the engineer. At that stage I had never heard of an Agrement Board Certificate, he told me that to do all the testing and so on required to get one would cost around €70,000. Clearly being unable to generate that kind of money to test my toilet I didn’t pursue it any further. If you have a more accurate figure I would love to hear it!
Thanks
Rob

By: John Byrne

John Byrne — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 14:45:20 +0000

I don’t know where you got your information about the costs for an Irish Agrement Certificate but the figure you have given is totally wrong. It might suggest that there is more Humanure in your article than meets the eye!

By: Bellini Conversa » Me cago en tu agua

Bellini Conversa » Me cago en tu agua — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 21:36:12 +0000

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By: ex_newport_beach_person

ex_newport_beach_person — Sun, 26 Feb 2006 03:56:51 +0000

OK I lived in Newport Beach for quite a while, of course being one of the most affluent areas in the Empire you’d expect the crapping facilities to be top-notch, right? HA! This is reality, I was in the poor area (every rich area has a poor area amazingly close for the maids, gardeners, and the ex-rich ppl who didn’t hang onto enough $$ to live in.) I rented a mobile home in a park, and I discovered the most amazing things when I pooped and peed. Well, peeing wasn’t much of a revelation, it was when I pooped. You see, the pipe leading to the sewer system, perhaps imaginary sewer system, had a hole in it and I learned this when I found one of my #2′s lying on the grass, getting a tan in the sun. Oops. For a while I restricted the toilet to #1′s and didn’t worry about where that went – that side lawn was the most lush in Newport though! As for #2′s I’d use the communal bathrooms in the shower house but that took planning, so eventually what I did was, (the toilet in my mobil was a shipboard type that didn’t hold standing water) I’d lay paper down in the toilet and do it on the paper, then wrap and deposit in the dumpster. OK not very ecological, but the point is, even in a warm maritime climate like Newport, the stuff would dry and not be too smelly. I wiped Mexican style (in Mexico the plumbing generally can’t handle toilet paper so it’s put in a trash recepticle, generally a paper bag, that stands next to the loo) and that was not smelly either. It was pretty amazing. So, without working plumbing I was able to get along fine.

If I’m ever a rich, bloated, landowner and have the luxury of building my own house, you can bet I’ll put in one of those humanure things.

The time the water was off (water’s often off there and not worth drinking when it’s on) and I washed my face and brushed my teeth with cold tea will have to wait for another blog.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 15:45:58 +0000

Great article! It’s one of the things I worry about going back to a farming lifestyle. How on earth did we allow ourselves to create this consumer lifestyle? The more I learn, the more upset I am that I have been socialized and brainwashed away from everything that was ever good for us. The only thing I’m thankful for from technology is contact lenses. Though, I perhaps wouldn’t need those if I hadn’t been forced to read under artifical light for many years of my life. Thanks for making me breathe easier about living without a “sewer” system. You should be making a fortune with this idea. God bless you!

By: Pat Murphy

Pat Murphy — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 14:11:31 +0000

Thanks for beginning to address this important subject. I hope you will also address the loss of the nutrients when we don’t return this material to the natural world.

By: E. G. Bryant

E. G. Bryant — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 04:32:45 +0000

We’ve been doing the “bucket thing” here for a few years…everyone loves it, even the neighbor kids. My conversations with the neighbor kids’ parents are always interesting.

By: Rob

Rob — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 21:54:42 +0000

Yes, I can see the headlines in the Irish Times about the Government ‘taking the piss’…

By: Nicholas Harvey

Nicholas Harvey — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 21:29:32 +0000

This is brilliant and makes so much sense. Rob, you say that urine contains nitrogen equivalent to the amount used in agriculture to grow food. In Ireland there is currently a debate raging in the agriculture sector about the (over)use of nitrates on the land. This is such an obvious solution but who in the Department of Agriculture or the Irish Farmers’ Association would be radical enough to support it. I can just see the reaction to such a suggestion and its dismissal as lunacy. Yet in a few years’ time when nitrates and artificial fertilisers, so dependent on oil for production, transport etc., become scarce, it may be seen as the sensible option.

By: Graham Strouts

Graham Strouts — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 13:33:13 +0000

Yes I am also a long-standing (squatting?) humanure practitioner and I truly believ it is one of the most satisfying and easy things you will learn in Permaculture- it is actually much easier to get successful compost with this method than ordinary garden compost. The “bucket- and- chuck-it” method is simplicity itself and I always feel great on emptying the bucket and feeling I was doing my bit to build up soil. I produced approx. 80 litres of top notch compost from my poo system last year, although the humanure itself from an adult in one year will compost down to only about 1 cubic foot. I add in all my kitchen scraps, have a pile of rotting straw by the barrel to cover the stuff from the bucket with, and put in some weeds also through the year. I use large plastic barrels with screw-top lids that we get for 5 euros each from a local olive trader and I drill holes all the way around the top and bottom for ventilation.
Another aspect of this whole topic is the idea that Earnet Becker wrote about in the 60s or 70s in his book “The Denial of Death” in which he argued that the psychology behind rampant consumerism and industrial growth is the fear and denial of our own bodily decay and the waste our bodies produce. We would rather flush it away and forget about it and keep watching the TV with its promise of eternal youth and beauty and buy the next flashy shiny chrome thing that makes us feel we can live forever.
Making Humanure allows us to feel once again part of the natural cycle and can help bring peace and harmony to the soul.

By: Andy Collins

Andy Collins — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 21:17:04 +0000

I too was inspired by Jenkin’s book and operated his method right here in English suburbia with a family of four! Not wanting to permanently replace our flush loo for this experiment, I built a compost toilet into a large cupboard in a bedroom. Not ideal, by any means, but we had no odour problems at all (… and this is not something I would have believed without first hand evidence!)

We found the most effective and convenient cover material for the loo to be crumbled leaf mould (aged 2-3 years), but there are loads of different possibilities.

I recommend both Jenkin’s book and the message board on his website. They contain the informative (and often hilarious) accounts of a growing band of humanure composting enthusiasts worldwide who offer advice on how best to make humanure in all kinds of situations (rural, suburban and even urban) and how they have overcome with varying degrees of success our extreme cultural prejudice in this area.

The bottom line… (..sorry!)…it’s the simplest and cheapest method for composting human waste, and if you manage the system properly it won’t smell … and, of course, you get fantastic compost!