Good points OTG, but until I find a good source of saw dust, I think I'll try a different experiment: a worm composting toilet. I will use my Canada tire pail with seat, add worms & lots of ripped up cardboard for their bedding, then "food" and observe what happens... If there's enough worms and they aclimatize to the environment, they should be composting the contents quickly and thus keeping odors down. I'm going to get my worms on Monday.

Here is a link to a site on worm composting of human waste. I hope you find it useful. http://www.wormdigest.org/content/view/44/2/

Thanks JAB for a great worm info link. The author of that section on worm toilets lives in a moderate climate and has an outhouse, which wouldn't work for me being both in-town and much colder. I'm wondering if I could do it inside? But I'm not sure because when you use the humanure system, it is the sawdust cover that stops the odor, but with worms I think they need some aeration, so that would let some odors out. I'm also thinking that you need a pretty precise amount of worms to keep up to the amount of waste being deposited...

Also to keep in mind, the guy who runs the Redwormcomposting site says that worms raised in a particular environment adapt and thrive better than transplants. He therefore recommends that when starting out a worm composting toilet, you add a lot of cocoons to start. I'm thinking that this initial process might take a bit of time and thus not really the greatest indoor project to start with. I guess I'll wait til Monday to have a look at my new worms, see if there's lots of cocoons in with them and decide from there if I'll give it a go now or wait til spring then have the toilet bucket in the garage til I can ensure it operates without odor.

This is so weird, but as one guy somewhere in cyberspace put it, we need to "stop pooping in our water"! Are we crazy??

Martha

I grew up in small village in Europe and everybody had only outhouse and nobody died or was sick because of it.Just have a bag of lime inside and throw small cup of lime in after use .If you just worry about sitting on hard or cold that is just being spoiled.Do your job and leave.It is different story if you leave in a city I feel sorry for you.
I stayed in (Asia) in 30 room hotel where only two rooms had flashing toilets the rest had to use room on main floor with four holes in the floor .You had to aim and shoot strait.For toilet paper news paper works.Do not be sissy.
If that would be our biggest problem if disaster happen than I am looking forward.
Henry

Henry

Over the millenia poor hygeine has killed more people than poor religion! Now that's what I call serious, not sissyish!

Shredded phonebook pages work for the humanure as well. Many have gone to a plant based ink from what I have been told.

Just a side note, I have seen folks talking about using kitty litter, if its the paper or wood kind, that's fine but if its clay based, I just want to give a heads up that the clay based is very hard to compost out.

I may be wrong but I think there are 2 distinct targets here related to "toilet" issues. One is country based where there is adequate land to build an outhouse and/or to compost waste. The second is urban based where the land resources do not exist for that methodology. I think as well that it can also be divided into long term / permanent technologies and more shorter / mid term methods. In the urban situation how do you plan on dealing with your waste for a period of say 1 - 6 months? Thoughts?

I know where Henry is coming from. He over simplified it a bit, but he is still right for the most part. I even understand his statement about sissy behavior.

As long as an out house is a proper distance from water sources lime will do the trick. That is why you always sprinkle lime when burying a carcass ect. The rest is down to hand washing and not dumping the chamber pot out the nearest window. Humanure composting is a very effective and viable option; probably the best one for city dwellers. I would use it in place of an outhouse hole in the country as well if the water tables are high.

With sawdust, peatmoss, tree leaves, shredded damp paper and proper separation of #1 and #2, the brown waste will compost in a black gargage bag very quickly and it can then be discretely used to fertilize the neighborhood trees. Use a small rotating compost barrel, and you can be quite far along in the process in 2 weeks or so in the summer. Considering the # of people letting their dogs use kiddie playgrounds as a toilet and parents still letting their kids play in the sand, I would deem fertilizing trees to be an acceptable means of disposal.

The real culprit that will come back to bite us in the @$$ is population. That is a lot of poop overwhelming the environment when it starts moving out of the cities on two legs and/or the treatment plants go down the toilet. Anything, anyone has done, to help mitigate the problem is just plain good even if perfection has not been attained.

justABear you are 100% right.It is the urban situation that where we are talking about disease,rats,mouse.Even in Europe now in small hillsides villages still use outhouses and they definitely are healthier
than any North American cities with all the modern accessories.
Henry

What you say JAB, is very true.

There is also more that one has to think about as well.
How many ppl in said household that will be using it?

The ones I see with the biggest problem, is apartment dwellers.
No real answers there that I can see. Cause if a major SHTF episode has already happened and strong possibly of no garbage pick up.......

In town, ppl with a house and some land they can use and when the SHTF I am sure they will have to.

A little 4x4x4' compost unit will do for sometime.
Guesstamation would be around 8 months to a year for one person.
Thankfully in that time is does compost down a fair amount.
Again depending on how much and what kind of cover material is used and how many times it is used.
What kind compost the fastest?
Does the user(s) know how much to put on top after use or just toss in mega amounts thats not needed?
There again, how many ppl will be 'working' to fill this up?
Edited to add: Also your weather/climate will change the rates of composting.
Very varied on those topics alone.

Then if you have a little one still in diapers...the problem just got bigger.
I would hope they were to cloth diapers by then, so they are rinse out in a pail of water first, then that water poured over the compost pile.

I am assuming of course that the OP was referring to when/after the SHTF, seeing they stated health issues.
By then possibly by-laws, etc. will be much more lax, if they even exist by that time depending on what kind of SHTF happens.

So much to think about and now is the time to think about it, not after.

Farmgal, did I understand you right, are you planning to wash cloths for toilet paper when your "real" tp runs out?
Wilderness - thanks for the tp link, love your wash up suggestions with the windex type sprayers & garden sprayer.
JAB - yes, us townfolk have more of a challenge in this department, and apartment folk even moreso... Since you know about worms, have you considered worm composting toilet?
I've been wishy washy back & forth between humanure & worm composting. I need to experiment & figure the best system

OTG, you're right "So much to think about and now is the time to think about it, not after."

Hi Martha

Google, Family cloth and you will get a whole bunch of information about using cloth in place of toilet paper.. Its easy and works well and does wonders for your septic system to not have the toilet paper going into it, and it saves you alot of money per year on toilet paper.

I have done worm composting for a goodly number of years started back in the north when we had such a short summer composting time and lack of brown materal's but we did have newspaper and cardboard from the sealift shipments and it worked well, but where I live now, I would for sure do the humanure.

I may have gone overboard with my human waste plans. I bought a urine separating toilet and urnal. The urnal is because you can't stand up and pee in the separating toilet. The solid waste is kept below and emptied or changed when needed. That waste can be composted or whatever. The liquid waste isn't a hazard and can be dealt with easily. There's a guy in Kitchener that sells them. They are pretty cool, a lot of engineering went into them. I was told to go ahead and use toilet paper as it would help absorb moisture and provide air pockets for good composting. Who knows?

Can you provide a link to the system you have please. How much site modification is needed for this type of toilet? IE vent pipe, removal of waste etc. What do you add to the feces to keep smell down and to accelerate composting? Where do you dispose of the "finished product"? How do you dispose of the urine? Thanks for any info you can provide.

JAB

Here's the link: http://www.separett.ca/