Compost Toilet?

[Guest]

Hello one and all, nice to meet you, I'm Ben and I'm a newbie on the forum.

I'd just like to get feedback on any possible users of compost toilets. I'm a liveaboarder on my 27' boat, Ducksoup, and – lets be honest - those darn holding tanks are a right palaver, right?. Anyone out there got some good (or horrifying) tales to tell about the twilight world of the compost system?

I've been told this is a pretty cheap & solid model...

http://www.natureshead.net/marine.html

Hmmm ... I've only just realised that my first post on NBN is about bum-manure. My mamma always said I should try and make a good first impression...

All the best,

Ben

[Antares_9]

Welcome to the forum Ben, I have no personal experience of the things but I do appreciate they have come along way from the old sandbox in the corner days.

[ZimbiIV]

welcome, but what do you do with the 'compost' on a liveaboard? Throw it overboard, sell it or water down to get it pumped out?

paul

[jillR]

hi paul

a couple of the ressy boaters i know who have a composting loo take it to their allotment and stick it under the roses.

jill

[Guest]

what do you do with the 'compost' on a liveaboard? ... sell it ...?

paul

— Why, you interested?

Seriously, I can't easily imagine anyone being enviro-minded enough to go to the bother of a compost toilet and then just dumping it overboard.

The claim of the sellers is that the produced compost is odour-free. I've a pretty sceptical little soul, so I thought I'd ask around for people's experiences...

[Julz]

Although i have never come across a composting loo installed on a boat, i have had the experiance of using one on a campsite, where it was a necesity due to the place being a long way from the main sewerage system on the farm where we were staying, so it was a financially viable alternative to extending the main sytem down into the camp field

Yes there was a smell with it, but no where near as bad as the old 'tub' toilets of days gone by, you could also see down into the holding area of it, which i found most off putting, and like a lot of the loos found on the continent, anything other than what you had eaten or drank previously had to go into a bin at the side, including toilet paper and sanitary products

Im not sure if this is the same composting set up as the one your refering to, or are the boat composters more like the modern 'digestor' systems that use enzymes to break down solid waste into a liquid, which in turn drains away into the stratas of the land, or in the case of a boat into some bio form of a clumping agent?

Julz

[jillR]

hi julz

boat composters more like the modern 'digestor' systems that use enzymes to break down solid waste into a liquid, which in turn drains away into the stratas of the land, or in the case of a boat into some bio form of a clumping agent?

the modern ones are great and smell free if used properly

hi ben

have you asked sam for a butchers at his natures head im sure he will give you the low down

jill

[Guest]

Thanks Jill, that's great, I'll ask Sam if I can give it a butchers. And thanks too Julz for that rundown - although I think the newer systems are pretty different these days, like air head and nature's head.

[jillR]

hi ben

another couple of links that might help

http://www.liloontheweb.org.uk/handbook/toilets

http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/05/art ... /index.cfm

jill

[jillR]

a simple system I have seen in use that worked really well and virtualy

smell free ................

http://duckworksmagazine.com/05/articles/toilet/index.htm

the fact that we take carefully treated drinking water

(the most precious commodity on the planet)

and use it to flush our loos has always made me wonder

why people don't look towards water free alternatives

on shore as well as afloat.

emptying a cassette loo is nasty in comparison to this system.