Allotments 4 All

I would like to hear from anyone who has experience of composting toilets as we are thinking of getting one.

Advice or reccomendations would be appreciated

Erm....didn't think toilets composted....... ;) Sorry, Nathan, nope, haven't tried one, but someone's bound to have done! Good luck. Lottie
PS I've heard that milk can help.......Not sure which type though........ ;D

I never knew there was such a thing, must keep up to date ... ???
We use as much 'household activator' on the compost heap as we can, ferried down to the plot in coke bottles from home 8) or discreetly 'filled' in the shrubbery on the plot. My gran had an earth closet years ago, which had a wooden seat with a hole in it and a very long drop (long silence .... longer silence ..... splat) :P I don't think she ever excavated it for the compost and it never seemed to fill up ... ::) When I was about 12, I remember my Dad explaining EXACTLY how dried sludge was made :P, he covered his veg patch in it and we enjoyed the veg anyway ;D so it must be good stuff!

Try googling eco friendly sites there should be some info on there. :)

Nathan, this subject was raised under Ecological Toilets (in the Shed) way back in May 2004 and a post from (the missing) Gavin might be helpful
Re:"ecological" toilet
« Reply #15 on: May 16, 2004, 08:47:42 »   

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Resurrecting (probably too late? - sorry, I only just found this on another board) - a link with some cheap and simple ideas.  http://www.jenkinspublishing.com/sawdustoilet.html

And very generously, they offer a link to the on-line version of the Humanure Handbook at the bottom of the page - http://www.weblife.org/humanure/default.html

All best - Gavin

On that thread I said we had just had a very expensive composting toilet installed on our site (by the Council) but had not used it myself - still haven't and on checkign the other day I see it is very cobwebby so not many others can be using it either  :-\

Nathe    Have a look on here re toilets as there is an awful lot of info posted  :)

Read somewhere that in China they used to call the human waste "night soil" and grew everything with it!!

Where I live (not china  :))  we had a night soil collection via a tramline which went round the model village and a night soil man who's job it was to collect it

Night soil is definitely the UNcomposted 'waste' - which they use on arable land in China and have epidemics of disease related to it...

Composting human waste is well-covered here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0964425890/qid=1128103039/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_10_1/026-9907007-0654026

 :o :o :o

Eeeeeek!!!!!! Wasnt suggesting actually using it!!!! Just one of those useless facts that may win me a pub quiz one day!!

;D

No experience of these but there is a good diagram in the book "Self Sufficiency" by John Seymour (latest edition) if you want to build your own in an outhouse.

Thanks all.  Much useful stuff in the links.

My lotty neighbour has just emptied her little shed and suggests my husband turn it into a composting lav.  It all sounds pretty straightforward but I think peeing into a hay bail via a toilet pan etc is a waste of compost activator  ;D

I was thinking about getting one of those myself...I would love to have a toilet at my allotment! Any toilet! Don't care what its like or if its full of cobwebs! Oh the hours I have held on until I got home! Not really any discreet places for a lady to go! Think I might construct a very big compost bin and go there. ;)

If you have a shed, it's worth thnking about one of the old-fashioned chemical toilets; I've got two, and one day I'll get things civilised enough to use them. They're just a seat and a container, which you put a bit if Jeye's fluid into to stop the smell. At the moment I pee in a bucket.

RB   I have studied lavs on allotments in great detail  ;D  This is in the course of research for our communal plot and not because I have a fixation you understand  :)  We pooh pooed (sorry) the idea of caravan loos because of the chemicals which have to be used in  conjunction with them.  There is a fanastic toilet available from the US which is a complete job but costs about £800 but looks the business (sorry, again) this uses as 12 v battery to drive a turbine which sits on the toilet or shed roof which drives a fan which eliminates smell by drawing them up a pipe into the fresh air.  All the waste is contained in the base of the toilet unit and apparently it only needs emptying once a year.  It had riddles in the base to stop things clogging up.  The one we favoured was the willow bog which I have posted details on here (If I remember rightly).  Jug in the shed to pee in and then chuck it on the compost heap is my preferred option and costs nothing  :)

:'( We're not allowed sheds. Not allowed a lot now I think about it!

We built a compost loo at a friends house at the weekend in an old coal shed.
All we used was a pallet, an off cut of marine ply, plastic bucket with lid, plastic container, hose pipe, fixings and an old tree branch for handles.

It works really well, and it was really simple to build! People are often put off by them because of the smell but the general advise is if it smells than you are doing something wrong!

Our next build will be the lottie!

Well done you  :)  Is your shed raised up off the ground so there is a "fall" for the effluent before it hits the floor or hay bale?

No - it was a small outhouse with a concrete floor so we had to go up :-) Basically we raised the level of the seat so that there was enough height to fit the containers in underneath. There's still enough head height and we made a step up - there was a great view... until we put the door back on LOL