What are Composting Toilets?

Composting toilets are a form of toilets that use technologies other than large quantities of water to dispose of human waste. Toilet composting manages human waste through composting and dehydration, and the compost that is the end product of the process is a valuable soil additive.

Composting toilets are a valuable alternative to building large sewage treatment plants or underground septic systems, and the finished product they produce is actually beneficial to the environment instead of harmful or polluting. Since composting toilets use little or no water, they also help preserve this quickly vanishing resource instead of, literally, flushing it away. In fact, one of the best things you can do for the environment is either purchase a build a composting toilet for your home.

Increasingly public facilities at national parks and elsewhere are turning to composting toilets to help manage waste and serve as a demonstration of a beneficial green technology. Composting toilets are very different from outhouses or pit latrines. Most composting toilets have very little (if any) smell associated with them, and many closely resemble a flush toilet in terms of design (although they operate very differently).

Toilet composting generally involves one of two different composting toilet systems: Batch Systems and Continual Process Systems. Batch Composting Toilet Systems rely on a series of containers in which the toilet composting process will take place once it is filled and sealed. Some toilets will rely on a single container which is manually replaced, while other systems may have a carousel-type system where there or four containers are placed on a rotation device and a new, empty container will be spun under the composting toilet once another one if full. By the time all the containers are full, the first container on the carousel will have been fully composted and ready to be emptied.

Continual Process Composting Toilet Systems are systems that are continually composting toilet waste instead of using containers. Most of these systems have large underground composting chambers in which human waste will slowly move downwards. After six months to a year, the compost at the bottom of the chamber will be ready to be harvested and used as a soil amendment. The manner in which human waste is composted in these systems varies, but many rely on managed aerobic decomposition using microorganisms, and in some cases, macro-organisms such as earthworms.

With both composting toilet systems, you will generally add a small amount of absorbent “brown” matter to help with the toilet composting process (sawdust and peat moss are some examples). Just as with creating compost in the garden, the key to healthy and odorless toilet composting is a good mix of both green and brown organic matter.

Although toilet composting may seem strange at first to those accustomed to flush toilet systems, once you have adjusted to the technology you will find that they are no more difficult to use or unpleasant to have in your home than a flush toilet. For even more information about composting toilets please visit the toiletrated blog to read more articles and reviews of popular composting toilets.