Living with a Compost Toilet

      Anyone who owns a house, farms, or raises a garden faces numerous seasonal chores that must be done when the weather is right.

      One task on our list is found on few others: cleaning out the compost toilet. It's an onerous task because of the design of our house as much as for the task itself, a flaw we can blame on no one but ourselves. Most other households with a year-round compost toilet (c.t.) have a basement, making access to the heart of the operation much easier. Since we don't have a basement, one of us must slither down into a pit under the bathroom floor we dug just big enough to hold the big c.t. “container” and an anorexic elf. My tall, slender husband assumes that acrobatic task while I hover above hooking hoses and running “honey buckets” to the outdoor finishing compost hole.

Downstairs c.t.

     It's outdoors where, in one last frenetic orgy, fat worms who've traveled in said buckets gorge themselves into oblivion, expiring in their own castings (a.k.a. “poop”). The final result the following year is a rich compost my flowers and ornamental plants love.

      The worms end up serving a much higher purpose than we larger mortals do. Upon death they are recycled into soil and nutrients, then are absorbed into flowers and plants. The seasonal process is repeated ad infinitum. It begs the question: why don't humans do the same? We are beginning to through “green burials” - a fascinating topic, but for another blog.

      Human waste, once used as fertilizer (called night soil, and still is used in some places) is treated in the U.S. as something from which we must be protected. In fact, the more advanced the culture, the more its human waste is likely to be managed right out of usefulness. There are, of course, good reasons for caution – fatal infectious diseases not being the least of them. As often happens, though, in our attempt to control the nature that sustains us, we go overboard and squeeze a link in the chain too tight. We fail to see ourselves as part of the greater cycle.

Upstairs c.t.

    Flush toilets and municipal sanitation systems are one example. That's not to say I think they should be done away with altogether. Compost toilets would be impractical, and probably unhealthy, in hospitals or large public or commercial buildings. But, as more people recycle their own kitchen, yard and garden waste through compost piles, those who wish to take their household cycle a step further should be encouraged to do so through compost toilets.

      In fact, the current drought may encourage more people to consider them. When we built our house and installed our c.t. about 35 years ago, they were very rare, though I've heard of at least a couple of others in our community. Today, you can find them at big box stores or via the internet, from little ones intended for occasional use in summer cabins to permanent year-round ones like ours. The better ones are fashioned after the Clivus Multrum . Ours was designed and built by a fellow in Cottage Grove and I remember heads turning in vehicles passing me and seeing people pointing and mouthing “What's that??” as I brought it home in the back of our pick-up. It looked like a little tugboat.

      An old-fashioned flush toilet can use anywhere from 5 to 7 gallons of water per flush (gpf). And when the plug doesn't descend correctly, water can run continuously, especially when no one is around to hear it. Newer ones, especially those with EPA WaterSense certification sip as little as 1.6 gpf. Some of the newer models I've experienced work well, especially those where you can choose a lighter or heavier flush, and others not so much. In fact, it often requires more than one flush to complete the task. Not very efficient.

      Compost toilets are not for everyone. I knew that even before we installed ours. Guests' reactions range from carefully avoiding the need to use it (perhaps thinking we race in as soon as they leave to see what they “did”) to thinking out-loud how they could include one in their own house.

     I used to worry what people would think of it. Now, I wonder if they worry what I think when pressed to employ the flush version in their homes.

     Yes, the c.t. can be odoriferous on occasion. A fan solves the problem. A solar-activated one serves during daylight, otherwise we start it with a manual switch when needed. Also, we sprinkle peat moss in regularly, especially when a “flush” would be appropriate.

     The greatest smell comes during the clean-out, naturally. People who wrinkle their noses at the thought might do well to consider that their own”waste” stinks too, but they make it disappear by flushing it. Rarely do we give thought to where it goes from there. A visit to the municipal water treatment plant would be enlightening.

     Toilet compost is supposed to be safe for use on your vegetable garden, but even I am reluctant to do so. Besides, we have enough kitchen/garden compost for that. Instead, the c.t. compost feeds our abundant landscape.

Some of the flowers and ornamentals that love c.t. compost

If you've considered installing one, you have far more information and choices available than we did way back when and I encourage you to at least read about them. For years, I had a nagging feeling we were a bit “backward” having an indoor-outhouse and have heard all the jokes, thank you. Now, with people more aware of resources and our environment, it feels like we might have been ahead of our time. Who knows. At least we can feel good about the bazillion gallons of water we've not used over three and a half decades.