straw compost toilet

Discussion in 'Designing, building, making and powering your life' started by greenfrog, Jul 11, 2007.

  1. greenfrog

    greenfrog Junior Member

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    Hi, we desire to erect the above within our local community garden, need further data, have a builder who will construct the outer structure, saw some information in No.51 of the U.K. Permaculture magazine, stating the principle is that air and sawdust render our waste benign, was raised on a platform and the waste gathers beneath in a chicken wire and bramble screened space.....any assistance would be appreciated
     
  2. MoD

    MoD Junior Member

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  3. greenfrog

    greenfrog Junior Member

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    Many thanks top reading :D
     
  4. sweetpea

    sweetpea Junior Member

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    greenfrog, it's microbes that eat human waste, so they've got to come from where they live, which is in moist soil that is rich with natural compost. Microbes are like us, they don't like it dry, hot places and without shade. We've got to add those microbes from a natural source to the composting toilet to get it up to 150 degrees.

    Sawdust and straw alone isn't going to be a great home for them. I've got a composting toilet, and the manufacturers of all the toilets require people to buy the microbes and add them to the mix.

    Remember, just because human waste looks different, doesn't mean it's composted. Composting means the microbes ate, peed and died to bring it up to 150 degrees. It will break down by just sitting around for long enough, but that doesn't mean it's in a composting environment that got up to 150 degrees to kill the pathogens like e.coli which make us very, very sick if we get it on our hands, nose, eyes and transfer it to our stomachs. We'd die if we didn't have e. coli in our intestines, but that's where it needs to stay :)

    Nitrogenous pee, carbons (like straw, but wood chips aren't fast enough, and redwood sawdust or red cedar sawdust kill microbes) adding microbes from compost, then mixing the contents regularly starts composting of human waste.

    One last step, once you empty out that composted mixture from the toilet, put it in a silver garbage can, lid on, in the sun for another year and cook it to death before adding it to perennials only, hopefully not where dogs and cats will want to hang out. :)
     
  5. arawajo

    arawajo Junior Member

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    I'm so glad you found that book online MoD - I read it a few years ago and have been trying to get hold of it again for ages! I have a sawdust toilet I made from my hazy memory of what was written in that book. It works fine but manufacturers have changed the size of the buckets! Now the buckets are too tall. Buckets break down over time and get brittle and need replacing.

    Sweetpea I have had clivius multrum composting toilets in the main house for 12 years and had no problems. I just pile the compost around trees when I empty it.

    As we don't have any diseases or parasites ourselves we don't have issues of cooking the stuff for a year etc. That would be necessary if it was a public toilet or if we had visitors from overseas maybe. If E.Coli was so dangerous then changing a baby nappy could be a death defying task. Normal precautions such as hand washing will protect us. I do wear rubber gloves when emptying out the compost.

    Our own waste is usually safe - what goes in comes out!
     
  6. sweetpea

    sweetpea Junior Member

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    arawajo;

    I am pretty serious about this because I just don't want anyone to get sick, and it's important to realize that microscopic bacteria can survive in the pile even though the stuff we're looking at looks like it has changed.

    This is important for the cook in the house, especially during the summer when we eat more fresh foods. Also, contact lens wearers are handling something that goes in their eyes with their bare hands, it doesn't take a composting toilet to cross-contaminate one's eyes.

    I've had little chunks of compost of all sorts flip up and fly right in my face when I'm shoveling it out, a little stick hits the shovel funny and it flies in an unexpected direction. It's the unexpected contact that is most likely to surprise us.


    Here's articles about transmission of e.coli from baby diapers:

    https://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/a2z-e.html

    ========

    Here's one that shows that diaper rash can come from e. coli:

    https://www.kidshealth.org/parent/infect ... tions.html

    =======

    about washing hands after changing baby diapers:

    https://idsc.nih.go.jp/iasr/25/292/tpc292.html


    It's really dangerous to assume that because people are related, or they don't have diseases, their feces are okay to handle. Bacteria is bacteria, regardless of who it's related to. All humans have e. coli in their intestines, even vegetarians, and other pathogens are there right now that could make us very sick. We get colds, we get diarrhea, we don't have to go overseas to have that happen.

    I've had composting toilets, too, and it doesn't mean we're going to get sick, but the potential is there if we get casual about it. We're careful when preparing meat in the kitchen not to cross-contaminate other foods, yet we don't usually get sick from eating meta. It's the same sort of thing. And when we have dogs and cats digging in garden beds that they could then track into the house with it on their feet, why run the risk? :)


    :)
     
  7. arawajo

    arawajo Junior Member

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    I agree with you sweetpea - I'm a nurse and my partner has a degree in microbiology so I know where you are coming from. I just think we can go overboard worrying about every little germ.

    I know it only takes one little microbe to kill us - more of a problem than Bush's "Weapons of Mass Destruction" but compost toilet or not, the germs are out there and we have to take the usual contact precautions at all times. Hand washing has proven to be the most important action in all the studies I've read.

    All antibiotic resistant bacteria are a very real problem but I don't think I need to cook my compost at 150 C for a year to make it safe. E.coli is a mesophilic bacteria that likes living at the constant temperature of the human body. It can survive for some time outside the body but dies from either low or high temperatures. As far as I'm aware it is not a spore former.

    Total cleanliness although psychologically important to many actually increase the possibility of disease by reducing challenges to the immune system.

    My worry is that this thread could put people off composting toilets and we really need to encourage them because of the water saving issue.

    BTW - Animals have E.coli too and they lick themselves after defaecating.
     
  8. SueinWA

    SueinWA Junior Member

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    One thing I keep seeing in these forums is some kind of assumption that all E. coli are the same. They aren't. The regular, generally-harmless, old garden-variety is what is normally in the human intestine.

    E. coli O157:H7 is what you're reading about in the news. It was first isolated in 1957. The first you heard about it in the news was 1982. It isn't everywhere. It isn't in most human intestines. You won't find it in most composting toilets.

    That said, you still need to take care to avoid possible pathogens before the contents of your composting toilet is completely composted. Sure, wear gloves, a dust mask and some cheap plastic goggles. But the odds of having E. coli O157:H7 in your humane manure is considerably less than finding a diamond ring in there. So please don't go crazy about being contaminated with nappy contents. If it didn't happen when you used a flush toilet, its not going to happen with a composting toilet. Some common sense goes a long way toward preventing a lot of problems from many sources.

    Complete pathogen destruction is guaranteed by arriving at a temperature of 62C (143.6F) for one hour, 50C (122F) for one day, 46C (114.8F) for one week or 43C (109.4F) for one month.

    You can do this without a tremendous amount of trouble.

    Sue
     
  9. frosty

    frosty Junior Member

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    mmmmmmmmmmmm I think we have to be careful of E Coli hysteria ...... we have a composting toilet and like arawajo we just pile it arround trees or dig it into the garden under anything exept root crops like potatos ......... hubby does always wear gloes when handling it and washes his hands afterwards and we have never had any problems

    if you are afraid of Ecoli dont eat cheese because modern rennet is genetically engineered and grown on E Coli bacteria :evil:

    I was very sick for over 10 years caused by injectin g myself with GE insulin which is grown on E Coli without being told the truth !!! ( and most diabetics still dont know )so I know the dangers but it is more likely to come from so called modern science messing with things it shouldnt than from a composting toilet

    frosty
     
  10. sweetpea

    sweetpea Junior Member

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    Okay, guys, you're scaring me, because I don't know where you're getting the idea that there's only one strain of E. coli to be worried about and that it's not very common. That's just not the case.

    All of the statistics here came from the USDA and the Centers for Disease Control:

    The E. coli strain O157:H7 is one of *hundreds* of strains of the bacterium in human feces that causes illness in humans. Certain strains of E. coli, such as Escherichia coli O157:H7, Escherichia coli O121 and E. coli O104:H21, are toxigenic (some produce a toxin very similar to that seen in dysentery). They can cause food poisoning usually associated with eating cheese and contaminated meat (contaminated during or shortly after slaughter or during storage or display).

    E. coli can generally cause several intestinal and extra-intestinal infections such as urinary tract infections, meningitis, peritonitis, mastitis, septicemia and Gram-negative pneumonia. A friend of mine got Legionnaire's disease, a kind of pneumonia, from using a leaf blower to clean out his truck after shoveling out a load of horse manure and breathing in the particles. Some people use leaf blowers in their yards, we don't want them getting this stuff airborne.

    An estimated 73,000 cases of infection and 61 deaths occur each year in the United States alonefrom 0157:H7. The bacteria can also be spread by person-to-person contact.

    E. coli O157:H7 infection is nationally reportable in the USA and Great Britain, and is reportable in MOST U.S. states. HUS (hemolytic-uremic syndrome) is also reportable in MOST US states.

    All the different kinds of fecal coli bacteria, and all the very similar bacteria that live in the ground (in soil or decaying plants, of which the most common is Enterobacter aerogenes), are grouped together under the name coliform bacteria. They all have the potential to give us diarrhea, eye infections, the above listed infections.

    And then there's viruses in fecal matter,https://biology.plosjournals.org/pe...i=10.1371/journal.pbio.0040003.....salmonella, campylobacter, Cryptosporidium.

    Here's what happened in Oregon when sewage got into the water supply:

    https://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:xMu ... regon.gov/
    DHS/ph/dwp/docs/wstc/disease.pdf+pathogens+human+feces&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=19&gl=us&client=firefox-a

    All of the above statistics came from people who had no idea they were coming in contact with bacteria. We know we are coming in contact with it, we know the circumstances it was in before it made it out into the yard. Isn't it important to understand what that material is, or has the potential to be (unless we have lab tests to prove it's not), and understand what it takes to make it a safe substance to be put where our families and animals are going to be digging?

    I don't want to turn anyone off of using a composting toilet. I never said anyone is going to die. I have a composting toilet, I think it's great. But we are talking *composting* toilets, that was the original question, which requires the RULES of composting, and that requires high temps for several days, mixtures that create the right environment for microbes to break down the solids at a temperature high enough to eliminate the possibility of bacteria AND pathogens that exist in human excrement.

    The compost only has to be at 150 degrees for a couple of days, not a whole year. That's true of any compost, even the biomass stuff in your back yard. The point of putting it in a metal garbage can is because we can't really know that the entire pile was at 150 degrees. Maybe the middle was, but the sides weren't, maybe it never got that hot. But cooking it in a garbage can is easy and safe, it takes no effort.

    https://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/qa_ecoli_sickness.htm

    "E. coli can be spread to playmates by toddlers who are not toilet trained or by adults who do not wash their hands carefully after changing diapers. Children can pass the bacteria in their stool to another person for 2 WEEKS after they have gotten well from an E. coli O157:H7 illness. Older children and adults rarely carry the bacteria without symptoms."

    People from all over the world read these boards that have every possible circumstance under which they could be composting fecal matter, if we can warn them ahead of time what to look for, they can research it and decide for themselves. :)
     
  11. SueinWA

    SueinWA Junior Member

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    Sweetpea, you have every right to be a fecophobe if you want to be. But you need to keep your facts straight. You carefully picked and chose from the CDC to support your view. Some of your additions were incorrect.

    You quoted the CDC: "An estimated 73,000 cases of infection and 61 deaths occur each year in the United States alone from 0157:H7."

    In a population of over 300 million, those figures hardly make me sweat. There were over 6 MILLION car crashes, with 42,642 deaths last year. Its always a good idea to maintain perspective.

    There are millions of bacteria, spiroketes, parasites, etc in the soil, from people, mammals, rodents, birds and marsupials, and have been since the beginning of time. Again, maintain perspective.

    You said, "The bacteria can also be spread by person-to-person contact."

    Yes, it can, but its far from being the most common way. CDC: "Though most illness has been associated with eating undercooked, contaminated ground beef, people have also become ill from eating contaminated bean sprouts or fresh leafy vegetables such as lettuce and spinach... In addition, infection can occur after drinking raw milk and after swimming in or drinking sewage-contaminated water."

    Also, (CDC) "Children can pass the bacteria in their stool to another person for 2 WEEKS after they have gotten well from an E. coli O157:H7 illness." That's 2 WEEKS, folks, not forever. We're not talking typhoid carriers here.

    You said, "The compost only has to be at 150 degrees for a couple of days"

    No, just one hour.

    Salmonella is not a virus, its a bacteria.

    Cryptosporidium is not a virus, its a protozoan parasite.

    Campylobacter is also not a virus, its a bacteria.

    You listed a site, "Here's what happened in Oregon when sewage got into the water supply".

    Its the same thing when sewage gets into water supplies everywhere in the world. And its going to get worse as populations increase and clean water supplies decrease. As it is, most people in the U.S. routinely dump fecal material into drinking water.

    And, to tell the truth, I doubt that dumping your compost pile into a metal trash container is going to do anything. If someone wants to try it, put a $17 compost thermometer into it after a couple of days in the sun and see just how hot it gets... or doesn't. I have some kitchen waste that's been sitting in a covered black plastic composter for over a year. I stuck my compost thermometer in it on one of our 100F days just to see what it was doing: 80F (almost 27C). Metal garbage cans only get hot on the outside, the shiny surface reflects heat, totally opposite to absorbing it.

    My last words: If people want to use composting toilets or the humanure way to dispose of urine and feces, they'd best educate themselves. If they don't, they're fools. On the other hand, just use some basic common sense and some basic equipment, and stop fearing anything smaller than a bean. The whole world is basically a dangerous place. Get used to it. Just use your head.

    Sue
     
  12. sweetpea

    sweetpea Junior Member

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    Sue, you sound angry, and I'm sorry that that has happened. In fact, you've been upset at me for months on these boards, so I imagine this is the result of a buildup. One problem with written messages is if the tone of voice is not clear, then it can be misread. I must not have made my tone clear that I was just giving statistics from valid sources. I'm not angry about any of this, but this is an important topic so I've got one more main thing to say.

    I'm not angry in this post, I only have a couple of points for those who are still deciding whether to use a composting toilet or not. My capital letters here are not yelling, it's just to make a quick point in case people have stopped reading, since we've probably bored a few people to tears. :)

    I guess we'll just need to agree to disagree. However, just a few points about what I said.

    My statistic only covered the US. The rest of the world is out there with their own statistics which add to the numbers I found. I just don't have time to research the whole planet for their numbers. I certainly don't want 73,000 people to suffer, regardless of what size population they come from. It could be any one of us, they aren't nameless, faceless people who got what they deserved.

    That's a group of people who had no clue they were coming in contact with it, they weren't educated about where they could pick up an infection from feces. But those of us with composting toilets know it's right in our homes, it's out in our yards, and we'd better know what we've got on our hands, or could have on our hands, so to speak.

    I was making of list of bacteria AND pathogens AND viruses. I wasn't saying which things were which. I just didn't have time to write a proper paper about it.

    About the can, metal absorbs heat differently than plastic, that's why black plastic isn't as effective as metal. I use a silver garbage can to cook lots of things, like ivy and kitchen scraps that can have maggots in it, and it gets very hot in the sun. Probably painting the metal can black would make it even hotter, as long as there's a lid on it and no holes in it. Ever use a solar oven? It uses shiny metal panels to direct the heat to a metal box, it can get upwards of 350 degrees. So a passive metal can can get to half that easily.

    As I mentioned before, the 150 degrees pile of compost, even if it's back yard compost, has to be gotten to 150 EVERYWHERE in the pile, not the just middle where it usually gets that hot. The sides won't be 150, the top won't be 150. That takes several days of turning and watchful measuring with a thermometer to know for sure that the WHOLE PILE eventually got to 150 degrees at some point. You can't just make a pile, let it sit, and have everything in it come to 150.


    But my main point:

    The most important thing here that we haven't mentioned specifically. is that FRESH poop has fewer amounts bacteria/pathogens/viruses than a composting toilet that has to sit in a WARM AND HUMID environment where the microbes can survive and work on it for 6 MONTHS TO A COUPLE OF YEARS, depending on the size of the container and how many people are using it. That's where the bacteria/pathogens/viruses get a chance to grow. That's the huge difference about having feces around for long periods, it just doesn't compare to the fresh stuff. It is the perfect environment to grow large amounts of the stuff we don't want to come in contact with, UNLESS it is done correctly, and with more than just straw and sawdust and buckets.

    And, again, I'm sorry we disagree and that it's caused a riff here, because we used to exchange nice emails and talk about a lot of things. I don't know why it stopped, and I'm sorry that's changed.
     
  13. arawajo

    arawajo Junior Member

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    I feel I have to say, sweetpea, that you are scare mongering about E.coli. Humans have lived with it for ever.

    Some people have just got used to flushing their poop away and not having any more thoughts about it.

    Using drinking quality water to flush toilets, as is done in towns and cities everywhere, in the long term will cause far more human suffering than what you are talking about. Get it in perspective please.
     
  14. Jim Bob

    Jim Bob Junior Member

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    When I was a kid we used composting toilets. What we had was an outhouse with three seats, and under each was a 44 gallon drum. You'd go and do what you had to do, toss in some ash from the fire and a a handful of leaves and grass, then close the lid. The thing had a vent with a long pipe going up, and some mesh to stop flies getting in.

    It took about 6-12 month to fill each drum. The old man would bang a lid on it and seal it up good, there was just a little one-way valve which let gas out. Then we'd use the next toilet seat along and repeat the process. The theory was that by the time you'd filled up the third drum, the first one would have been cooking for 12-24 months, and all broken down and harmless. I only ever saw two of the drums emptied out, they looked like any normal kind of compost to me. They went into a long trench, and a couple of fruit tree saplings went in there.

    I went back to the town about twenty years later for a visit, and passed by the place. The fruit trees were doing very well, and I didn't see any gravestones outside the house, either.

    I don't think the 12-24 months were really needed, but the fact was that we had the three drums, and they only filled so fast. There was no point in emptying one just to have it sit empty for a year. May as well leave the stuff in there.

    In southeastern Asia their poo goes straight onto fallow land. The Earth breaks it down, just like it breaks down cow or pig or roo poo. And there are about 3 billion Asians in the world, so it mustn't be that deadly for them.

    The point about the babies is a good one. If human faeces are are so horrendously deadly that plain old basic hygiene - washing your hands with warm water and soap when they get poo on them - can't save you, then no parent would survive the first year of their first child's infancy. And the rest of the family would keel over, too, after eating food prepared by the poo handler.

    A year or two back there were some deaths here in Melbourne - two, I think - from food poisoning. It was traced to a takeout joint. They had some three day-old pork rolls sitting there lukewarm in the bain-marie, which had been handled multiple times by a staff member who didn't wash her hands after going to the toilet. So basically they worked hard to culture the bacteria. It takes a real effort to culture enough bacteria to kill someone. Just not washing your hands, or just keeping food lukewarm for days, or just coming into contact with someone who's got the illness, it's rarely enough. You have to combine all these.

    I'm a chef, and HACCP qualified - that's the most rigorous standards of food safety you can imagine. I can tell you that most of it is really just religious ritual. Basically, wash your hands after going to the toilet, wash your chopping board after cutting meat on it, defrost meats in the fridge not on the bench overnight, and make sure things are cooked quickly, and cooled down quickly. Do that and you'll be alright.

    The rest is just there as ritual. Stuff like plastic rather than wooden chopping boards, stainless steel benches, staff washing their hands after eating or touching their face, separate chopping boards for meat and vegie and dairy - it's like the priest's cassock, the CEO's tie, the student's shiny shoes, or the doctor's white coat - it's just there to look good and make us feel better. Real food safety, it's just basic hygiene and common sense.
     
  15. pebble

    pebble Junior Member

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    I'm pretty sure that Mr Jenkins, the Humanure guy, says that he used to turn his compost but now he doesn't. His system lets the pile accumulate for 12 months, and then sit for 12 months, and at the end of that time it's ready for the garden. No turning is necessary. He takes the temperature of his composts, and heating all of the compost is part of his system.
     
  16. sweetpea

    sweetpea Junior Member

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    Okay, I give up.

    This is the last post on this for me. You guys don't want to hear that we should be careful with poop sitting around in warm and humid conditions for months on end, then fine. Do whatever you want.

    Jim Bob, your relatives were doing it exactly right. A combination of soil, green grass with nitrogen and other carbons, a combination of things for the microbes to eat, a vent to allow aeration and gas exchange. that's how we compost. That's the right way to compost. They knew what they were doing.

    There was an excellent reason to use three barrels and let them sit for 24 months, because the microbes were breaking it down and changing the environment that had bacteria and pathogens in it. Yes, they needed to sit that long because microbes are slow. Just because the stuff looks different, doesn't mean it doesn't have bacteria and pathogens in it. That's one of my main things I've been saying. After two years, sure, you can put it on perennials because it's been broken down by microbes, and it's entirely different than fresh stuff.

    Pebble, Sue said it takes one hour at 150 degrees, I said there's no way a whole pile gets to 150 in one hour. It's not possible. If it sits for 24 months, then great. That's what I've been saying. Set it aside for an extra year. Why not? It's not like we're in desparate need for this kind of compost.

    I'm outta here. :)
     
  17. M a x

    M a x Junior Member

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    hi, i'm new here and this is my first post.

    it's true that only the center of the pile becomes hot enough for complete pathogen destruction, which is why the classic humanure pile is basically a series of straw 'nests', with the sawdust/humanure deposits at their center. if you don't maintain the concave shape of the pile then you will obviously get turds rolling downhill to the cold outer zone. if you've read the book and still have questions, there is a message board: https://www.jenkinspublishing.com/messages/

    that said, i tend to agree with Mollison: by composting, you lose available nutrients. this is why i use the banana circle toilet, with the C/N maintained at about 40:1. it's the most direct, efficient way for me to get all of the available nutrients back in edible form. it's also the safest method because the compost never leaves the pit, so the pathogen issue is irrelevant.
     
  18. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    don't know how i missed this thread when it first started, but as always i see the fear hype brigade always come into something where someone wants to be more responsible and manage their own waste.

    we had a composting toilet and we used compost worms to process the product this took place in about 7 months, the end product had no odour to remind one whence it came or no appearance the same, it looked like good moist humus, that the gardens loved, where it was further worked over by more composting and normal garden worms.

    now we did this for the 6 years we lived on our property never had a sick day well outside a common cold that is, and also shared lots of excess vege's with others who likewise never contracted a near fatal illness.

    in these drought times with ever increasing water restrictions attempting to conserve water the one greatest action that could happen would be for all single dwelling home owners to install a composting loo, imagine the water that wouild save? and good waste resource would not be then added to other less desirable compounds as happens in the public sewerage systems.

    to all the hype campagners! where is the hard physical evidence?? a pandemic of human waste composters? even a single person in a single hospital somewhere in the developed world who is there because of composted human waste??

    len
     
  19. arawajo

    arawajo Junior Member

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    I couldn't agree more! For 12 years we have had compost toilets and we have never been sick. I am a nurse in a hospital and I've never heard of anyone coming in with any disease related to compost toilets.

    I think it's criminal for people to use drinking quality water to flush toilets, and it's wasteful to use any other water to flush. Composting benefits the planet - flushing has the potential to destroy it.

    They are planning to dam our Mary River to give more water to Brisbane. What for? So they can flush it down their toilets?

    Modern compost toilets look just like any other toilet, there is no odour and the fan can be run on solar power. There is no reason why people living in the suburbs can't have composting toilets. They are much safer than the old dunnies afterall.
     
  20. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    g'day arawajo,

    exactly and funny thing hey lots of these "yuk fear brigade" have probably used a composting toilet at sometime in their lives especially if they have visited state run forests or camped at similar sites, yet mention using one at home and "oh heaven to betsy what next!!", bet they're also the first ones to not want to drink the recycled sewerage in their drinking water? or maybe that's ok because it is out of sight out of mind in control of profit makers??

    i agree we don't need the mary dammed (or should that be damned?) to ruin more habitat, just to! here it comes 'have water for those new clear power generators', worth thinking about. how useless any way the average dam depth will be 3 meters over arrable land soakage and evaporation will be immense, and ruined habitat and good food growing land all lost to no avail.

    most homes in brissy could have a big enough tank installed to run their ahve to be well managed homes, we are on a small block and valued water highly enough to give it a righfull place in our home, we currently are on our own water so most grey water flushes the loo and the rest goes to plants mostly the potted ones.

    len
     

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