Having covered animal manure I suppose we aught to cover of the human side of things.
I have been fortunate enought to use three types of composting toilets and I bet a few of you will have used at least one of them as well.
- A purpose built, fully composting, outdoor loo, the sort that might have been found at the bottom of your great grandma's garden, which separates the urine from the faeces to allow for separate composting processes.
- A purpose built indoor composting loo for faeces only.
- Behind a bush in the great outdoors.
Of all of them I think I prefer to stick with the flushing kind. Having said that the two "proper" toilets were clean, easy to use and did not smell. Each time we used the facility we needed to spread some sawdust over the solid waste. The solid waste is left to mature, just as cattle manure and once fully composted is good to use as a fertiliser. The urine is siphoned off to a straw filled container and can be used on a normal compost heap.
Human manure compost is being produced today by some of the organisations treating our sewerage, just as it was collected and processed in the days before flushing toilets. Flushing toilets have not been with us that long in the grand scheme of things so we should not be shy about where the waste goes and what it is used for.
If you have any questions or have something else to add, please let me know.
