Composting Toilets

kthignight24

The subject of closed loop systems come up occasionally here and often human waste is mentioned as depleting vitamins and minerals, thus requiring other input (fish food). Has anyone ever tried incorporating composting toilets? Is it safe? Would it be possible to incorporate the resulting compost into an aquaponic system. I just learned of their existence recently and (shockingly) thought... "aquaponics?".

earthbound

Difficult I would think... There are always risks in combining human manure and food production. I'd rather it go through further further changes, use it as compost on a ground grown crop, then feed that to worms, then the worms to the fish.. Or something along those lines...

jessy

TCLynx is the composting queen.......not much she doesn't know about alternative living

Snags

Friends who have composting toilets usually just bury it near the fruit trees.
Have a friend who bought heaps of composted humanure from the sewage plant in Bundy it looked like great black compost.
He put it around his trees too
I mustered up enough courage to pick up a handful and smell it and run it through my fingers.
If you didn't know, you would say it was the best black compost you ever saw and where can I get some.
Don't know if its safe for veggies I would imagine if it was properly composted to kill the pathogens it would be very safe.

I didn't buy any even though I think its excellent,and have seen the results, so marketing is definitely a problem.

bythebrook

My house has its own sewerage system for all household water, including the waste from the toilets. It goes through aerobic and anaerobic digestion, is chlorinated and filtered and waters about thirty fruit trees through sub-surface drippers. This uses the nutrients on-site and stops them ending up in waterways and contributing to algal blooms.

faye

What make is your system Bythebrook? We looked at getting a Biolytics system and at the time there was a great special, a few months later they were out of business, luckily we hadn't paid a deposit :cry:

red beard

I was a sewer sucker tanker truck driver about 28 years ago in VIC and all of our trucks dumped out at Lillydale sewer setling ponds from there the solids were taken out and left to compost and then taken out and put onto the local parks and gardens they had the best gardens going
the guys who ran the ponds grew there own veg patch in it the crops they got out were huge
I think of memory there was a bloke who started a business named golden nugets I think who was composting it and selling it .
We aet out of composted animal shit why not human :bootyshake:

?

jessy

yep, My old boss's parents, Polish couple, would redirect their sewage, and the rest of the neighbourhoods in Midland, into their garden. Best Vegies in the hills

Just old immigrate farmers, that like growing the vegies the OLD way.

So Be it.

SolTun

http://www.jenkinspublishing.com/messages/

jessy

great thread. Thankyou SolTun. I will be adding it to my favourites for later reference.

Down at Red Bluff , Western Australia, a world renowned surfing spot, was the first time I had ever experienced a compositing toilet.

To say the least it was primitive, but hey, it was 20 years ago.

You pooped, and threw a hand full of lime on top ! Job done ! Needed to freshen your hands and face, well the beach was just down there.

Needed water, then you bought in in on the rough track. I loved it.

floyd

Compostnig toilets are excellent and anyone interested should check out Milkwood permaculture's blog (http://milkwood.net/2011/04/18/compost- ... -the-bins/ [I helped build alot of this system..]), and get your self a copy of The Humanure Handbook.

Designs can be as simple (a 20l bucket inside a wooden box with a toilet seat on top, just add woodchip/saw dust after a poop) or as flash as you like. there is absolutely no reason why modern composting toilets can not be incorporated into any new house. They dont smell, they are easy to maintain, and you are closing your loop in a significant way. FOr comercial systems, there is the rota-loo, the clivus multrum and many others....Some are dry composting, some wet....some give you a dry powdered product at the end that bears no resemblance to poo or compost, more like ash....and some (like DIY's) will require further composting in a humanure hacienda

A general rule of thumb I like to stick too....Try not to use it on crops where it will come in direct contact with the humanure...i.e a lettuce crop...the humanure will almost certainly come into direct contact with the lettuce leaves, and this should be avoided...but on fruit trees etc, where the edible part of the crop is never going to physically touch he humanure - no worries....

Happy composting!

Floyd

floyd

P.S...

I cant see how it could be incorporated into an AP system, other then using it to grow fish food as EB stated (veg or worms or even BSF larvae)

Floyd.

kthignight24

Quote:

Difficult I would think... There are always risks in combining human manure and food production. I'd rather it go through further further changes, use it as compost on a ground grown crop, then feed that to worms, then the worms to the fish.. Or something along those lines...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPivZEmQXoE&feature=fvst

And after a years worth of composting...
Maybe a separate hydroponics system where you add the fully composted waste to gravel and worms constant flood growing trees for the wood shavings and... something else who's fruit you can feed to the fish... or add to the AP beds for composting. What can you grow for fish food? Or worms from here to the fish. Thanks everyone. I love this forum!

trévi

Hmm. There is enough crap in water without puting additional polutants.

kthignight24

Quote:

Hmm. There is enough crap in water without puting additional polutants.

Well fish waste is a pollutant unless you have enough plants to consume it, right? Wouldn't the same hold true for human waste? Obvously after an intensive composting process to kill the pathogens.

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