Poo'tastic?

[ditchcrawler]

We have a composting Loo as a backup, saves a lot of mucking about as it goes straight into the bag for binning 

 

 

[Alan de Enfield]

42 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

Morning old boy. Well If you want to crap in a bin liner and throw it in the rubbish when there are perfectly acceptable better systems in use then have fun.

 

We were even instructed by the Government (during the 'get ready for Nuclear War training') on how to make our own 'crap in a bag' toilet & keep ready in the bomb-shelter (under the stairs)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 1, 2021 by Alan de Enfield

[frahkn]

17 hours ago, Troyboy said:

I wonder how many compost toilet owners actually compost their waste ? I know Peterboat does but from the various boating and van life vlogs many seem to just bag the poo up and put it in rubbish bins much like dog owners do . [ apart from those who hang it in bushes].  Everyone likes a good toilet thread with the more detail the better it seems so this looks like a good start to 2021. 

 

I do.

[peterboat]

3 minutes ago, frahkn said:

 

I do.

And I have for 9 years

[Troyboy]

54 minutes ago, peterboat said:

And I have for 9 years

Excellent ,have you got space for Dr Bobs crap too ?

[peterboat]

2 minutes ago, Troyboy said:

Excellent ,have you got space for Dr Bobs crap too ?

If he wants to ship it up I will compost it! I have a huge allotment that needs it

[OldGoat]

3 minutes ago, peterboat said:

If he wants to ship it up I will compost it! I have a huge allotment that needs it

That's the one instance that makes sense.

Putting the bags in general waste disposal (or worse - in the hedge etc) - which I suspect some folks do is extremely anti social. At least cassette or pumpout efluent gets some form of treatment, whereas landfill disposal doesn't.

 

[David Mack]

21 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

- we found the intervals between pump outs was only 2 weeks due to the vastly increased amount of water the toilet was using to flush.

 

And how long will it be between emptying plastic bags full of poo into rubbish skips?

[Jon57]

Just now, David Mack said:

 

And how long will it be between emptying plastic bags full of poo into rubbish skips?

Depends on what the doctor has eaten over Christmas ??

[Drayke]

22 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

Well we will find out soon!

We bought a compoosting toilet to replace our pump out. Picked it up today and will fit it in the next week or so.

On our old boat we had a vacuflush with a pump out tank which worked well and needed pumping out every four weeks or so. Once or twice a year the vacuflush pump needed surgery to free up the duck valves which got blocked with sweetcorn, apple pips etc and required a hour or so contact with our own poo & wee. This we thought far better than cassettes where from the state of many Elsan points you come into contact with not only your own waste but everyone else's. It was a very good system and worked well - most of the time.

Anywho, when we got our new boat this summer, with the largest holding tank available – a little smaller than the one on our old boat - we found the intervals between pump outs was only 2 weeks due to the vastly increased amount of water the toilet was using to flush. That got us looking at other options and after a load of research, we went for the Compoosting toilet that Foxes Afloat have shown on their Vlogs. We did talk to Shaun when we saw them near Braunston in October (installed for 6 months on their boat) and he was very positive about it. There is no way when we are out I will be looking for a pump out every 2 weeks.

We were very impressed with what @frahkn had written on here in a thread on composting toilets earlier in the year. I think Frank had the 'Nature's head' unit but we went down the Compoost option for the fan set up which will certainly not create smells in the bathroom when the bathroom fan operates – others have reported smells as bathroom fans tend to have more powerful motors than the small computer fans in the composting toilets so air is sucked back through the toilet from the external vent. The Compoost toilet also scores for me as it is made out of GRP rather than rotomoulded Polyethylene and the design to keep solids and liquids apart seem better than most. Time will tell. We will just take out and replace the old (6 month old) toilet and plug the waste pipe for now. Once we are happy with it, we may then rip out all the pipes and stainless holding tank. I'll update you on our progress.

I notice @Leemc has just bought one as well from Compoost. They are selling a lot of these units!

...bet's now being taken on how many minutes it takes Tim to respond!

Don’t forget to flush/clean out the old tank and then put something like ‘Jeyes Fluid’ into it, 3 months is a long time to leave a poo tank to fester. It also helps with smells when and if you take the old tank out.

[Dr Bob]

1 hour ago, F DRAYKE said:

Don’t forget to flush/clean out the old tank and then put something like ‘Jeyes Fluid’ into it, 3 months is a long time to leave a poo tank to fester. It also helps with smells when and if you take the old tank out.

That's useful to know. Will it kill all the smells in the tank?  How much do you reckon I need to put in?

2 hours ago, David Mack said:

 

And how long will it be between emptying plastic bags full of poo into rubbish skips?

Dunno?

I'm planning to compost a lot of it but guess there will be many 10s of millions of soiled nappies between my visits to the waste bin.

[Jerra]

9 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

We have a composting Loo as a backup, saves a lot of mucking about as it goes straight into the bag for binning 

Point of order M'Lud!   If it is in a plastic bag and straight into the bin how is it a composting Loo?    Where and when does the composting take place?

[ditchcrawler]

32 minutes ago, Jerra said:

Point of order M'Lud!   If it is in a plastic bag and straight into the bin how is it a composting Loo?    Where and when does the composting take place?

And we have a winner, you have hit the nail right on the head.

[Drayke]

4 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

That's useful to know. Will it kill all the smells in the tank?  How much do you reckon I need to put in?

Dunno?

I'm planning to compost a lot of it but guess there will be many 10s of millions of soiled nappies between my visits to the waste bin.

I think I put about 250ml in mine filled it with water, 280ltr tank, left it for about 2 months then emptied it and did the same again, no smells except Jeyes Fluid smell. Its supposed to help clear any sludge left inside tank. I did use the old waste tank for a while to tip the contents of the liquid bottle/tank into if I couldn't find somewhere to empty it  then when full found a pump out  station, quite a long time between emptying old waste tank. Hope that makes sense. I now have the use of a garden where i can finish composting the solids. 

10 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

We have a composting Loo as a backup, saves a lot of mucking about as it goes straight into the bag for binning 

 

 

Where does the liquids go??

[Dr Bob]

3 minutes ago, F DRAYKE said:

I think I put about 250ml in mine filled it with water, 280ltr tank, left it for about 2 months then emptied it and did the same again, no smells except Jeyes Fluid smell. Its supposed to help clear any sludge left inside tank. I did use the old waste tank for a while to tip the contents of the liquid bottle/tank into if I couldn't find somewhere to empty it  then when full found a pump out  station, quite a long time between emptying old waste tank. Hope that makes sense. I now have the use of a garden where i can finish composting the solids. 

Thanks for that. Excellent info!

[TheBiscuits]

46 minutes ago, Jerra said:

Point of order M'Lud!   If it is in a plastic bag and straight into the bin how is it a composting Loo?    Where and when does the composting take place?

 

This is a fair comment, so I have been referring to mine as a separating loo for a few years.  The separating of solids and liquids is what makes them useful to boaters - the type where it all goes in the same bucket is no better than a portapotti even if you add woodshavings instead of flushing with water.

 

My logic is that your body separates the two for a reason - don't mix them back together and the two types are far less unpleasant to handle than when they are mixed.

 

We used to empty our "black bucket" every month whether we needed to or not, but now BobBiscuits is big enough to use it too it's probably more like every three weeks - three people on board full time, and obviously a lot less use of loos anywhere else this year.

 

Welcome to the poo-in-a-bag gang @Dr Bob, but please don't tip the wee in the cut like so many boaters with pumpouts or cassettes do - it's far too good a plant food and massively accelerates weed growth!

 

 

[blackrose]

44 minutes ago, Jerra said:

Point of order M'Lud!   If it is in a plastic bag and straight into the bin how is it a composting Loo?    Where and when does the composting take place?

 

Yes that is the main criticism of "composting toilets" for boat use for most users, unless they have space outside to continue and complete the composting process. 

 

Unfortunately, for the vast majority of boaters there is no perfect toilet solution. All systems are a compromise and different people prefer different compromises. It's each to their own. I'm pretty happy with the vacuflush cassette system I've got as I can't find a better toilet for me. I had a pump out on a previous boat and I bought an Airhead composting toilet a couple of years ago but sent it back because I wasn't happy with the build quality. If people like composting toilets even though they don't actually compost their waste then good luck to them.

 

[Dr Bob]

15 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

This is a fair comment, so I have been referring to mine as a separating loo for a few years.  The separating of solids and liquids is what makes them useful to boaters - the type where it all goes in the same bucket is no better than a portapotti even if you add woodshavings instead of flushing with water.

 

My logic is that your body separates the two for a reason - don't mix them back together and the two types are far less unpleasant to handle than when they are mixed.

Well said Pete.

The newer composting toilets do a good job separating the liquid from solids so far easier to compost the solids especially when a lot of moisture is removed. Now Bob's out of nappies, I guess you are not filling black bags up with them anymore. Nappies dont separate the solids from liquids so must smell pretty awful 3 weeks later when they arrive at the council picking line. 10 million of them a day?

[tree monkey]

6 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

Well said Pete.

The newer composting toilets do a good job separating the liquid from solids so far easier to compost the solids especially when a lot of moisture is removed. Now Bob's out of nappies, I guess you are not filling black bags up with them anymore. Nappies dont separate the solids from liquids so must smell pretty awful 3 weeks later when they arrive at the council picking line. 10 million of them a day?

I'm sorry but I didn't find the nappy justification a good reason to dump bagged human waste in bins, in an ideal world there should be some appropriate way of disposing of used nappys so the waste can be removed and the plastic recycled, however unlikely this is ever to happen, or of course they could ban the things

 

It is no justification to dump untreated human waste in the general bins. Despite this I think composting/separating bins are a decent alternative for many people, there just should be actual composting taking place, either small scale allotment type or larger scale organised via dedicated bins, possibly anaerobic digestion.

 

Good luck with the new bog

[Dyertribe]

10 minutes ago, tree monkey said:

I'm sorry but I didn't find the nappy justification a good reason to dump bagged human waste in bins, in an ideal world there should be some appropriate way of disposing of used nappys so the waste can be removed and the plastic recycled, however unlikely this is ever to happen, or of course they could ban the things

 

It is no justification to dump untreated human waste in the general bins. Despite this I think composting/separating bins are a decent alternative for many people, there just should be actual composting taking place, either small scale allotment type or larger scale organised via dedicated bins, possibly anaerobic digestion.

 

Good luck with the new bog

Our council recycle disposable nappies.

[Dr Bob]

6 minutes ago, Dyertribe said:

Our council recycle disposable nappies.

Only those in dedicated nappy recycling. The process doesn't allow them to be recycled from black bag waste. Too many other contaminants.

[tree monkey]

8 minutes ago, Dyertribe said:

Our council recycle disposable nappies.

Well I didn't know that was available, good for them

 

[TheBiscuits]

2 hours ago, tree monkey said:

It is no justification to dump untreated human waste in the general bins.

 

We've had this conversation before Alan, and we're unlikely to agree, but I'll try once more:

 

You stop everyone else dumping a million tonnes of crap into landfill every week, and I'll stop pooing in a biodegradable bag!

 

You're still welcome to beer though.  Heck, you can even use the loo!

[tree monkey]

2 hours ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

We've had this conversation before Alan, and we're unlikely to agree, but I'll try once more:

 

You stop everyone else dumping a million tonnes of crap into landfill every week, and I'll stop pooing in a biodegradable bag!

 

You're still welcome to beer though.  Heck, you can even use the loo!

You're right, we won't agree on this but I would be happy to buy you a beer and even use your facilities.

 

[Jerra]

10 hours ago, tree monkey said:

 in an ideal world there should be some appropriate way of disposing of used nappys so the waste can be removed and the plastic recycled,

Terribly old fashioned I know but when we had the girls there was no waste (apart from theirs).   Both the nappy and the liner were washable.