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Poo'tastic?


Dr Bob

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3 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

It will affect the warranty on the toilet and toilet system only....but that is not then a problem. Not likely to take the tank out for another 6 months in case we dont get on with the new system. Easy to change back.

In reality you are saving wear and tear on it ?

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49 minutes ago, haggis said:

 

Good that you will be composting most of the time . Where on the boat will this take place ? Will that be a use for your pram hood cover - instead of a conservatory, you will have a compost room ? ? 

 

haggis. Sorry to ask so many questions but I just can't understand why so many boaters think the best way to deal with their poo is to go back to the bucket and chuckit days and I must be missing something

Off boat compost bin then smaller one on cruiser stern. We read in all the reports it doesnt smell.  We shall see.

Edited by Dr Bob
forgot the bin!
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2 hours ago, frangar said:

I trust your marina are happy you are going to be filling their bins up with human waste?? I really hope you won’t be mooring where I might! 

Whilst the aim is to compost, I find it amusing that a number of people on here are aghast at human waste being put in bins. Where do they think all the 10 million nappies a day go? Perhaps those peeps would like to answer? Soiled nappies contain solids AND liquid which means the combined waste smells very badly by the time the council process the waste 2-4 weeks later. The soiled nappies then go to either incineration (burning the plastic!!!!!) or landfill where most of the plastic does not degrade and will be there in 1,000 years time. Most councils waste processing lines means this waste does not go near human hands as they are only picking 'the good stuff' out. Talk about phasing out single use plastic!

By composting, I am helping the environment in requiring less energy to run the pumpouts, run the lorries that transport the effluent and less energy to run the sewarage plants.

 

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7 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

Whilst the aim is to compost, I find it amusing that a number of people on here are aghast at human waste being put in bins. Where do they think all the 10 million nappies a day go? Perhaps those peeps would like to answer? Soiled nappies contain solids AND liquid which means the combined waste smells very badly by the time the council process the waste 2-4 weeks later. The soiled nappies then go to either incineration (burning the plastic!!!!!) or landfill where most of the plastic does not degrade and will be there in 1,000 years time. Most councils waste processing lines means this waste does not go near human hands as they are only picking 'the good stuff' out. Talk about phasing out single use plastic!

By composting, I am helping the environment in requiring less energy to run the pumpouts, run the lorries that transport the effluent and less energy to run the sewarage plants.

 

But Andy old boy, babies are not potty trained hence the problem with mucky nappies. Adults in the main are, so easy to dispose of waste quickly in seconds at thousands of locations in a system maintained for the job. I really cannot see any benefits. I did however watch the vid of those two blokes fitting theirs then looked at the price ? in a nutshell, you are bloody bonkers ?

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4 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

Its not the land fill that gets me, its just that C&RT and the marina I use to be in both claim that their bins are hand sorted for recycling.  

Hand sorting is not a good description. What you refer to is a 'picking line'.

All the rubbish ends up on a moving belt and teams of people (heavily protected) 'pick' recyclable and wanted bits off the conveyor and throw them into designated bins. They leave the 'crap' stuff on the belt. So any nappies, plastic bags with something that looks 'iffy' and anything in biodegradable bags (like dog poo) gets left untouched. Each council will have its own proceedures for leaving rotting food, flesh, rotting animals etc on the belt.

The alternative which the better recycling councils do is to pre-sort prior to collection and then all the black bags go direct to incineration without manual intervention (ie Vale of Glamorgan and Cardiff)

Edited by Dr Bob
speeling
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I was about to join the argument / discussion, but forst looked at CRT's advice ....

It stated "bin it" - so schtum, why make an effort to mature the stuff, just wrap it and dispose of it in the refuce bins as CRT suggests.

 

Seems B.daft - but there you go....

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20 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

Hand sorting is not a good description. What you refer to is a 'picking line'.

 

That's interesting.  Hope none of the bags burst open as the biffa bin is tipped into the bin lorry or the lorry is emptied onto the conveyor belt.  I know our local authority has a picking line for our blue bins which contain metal, paper and plastic but I think the grey bins (black bag waste) goes straight to landfill. I think the contents of the grey bins has reduced dramatically since they extended the use of blue bins and brown bins (food and garden waste) and put bottle banks all over the place. 

I gather though that each local authority does its own thing in an attempt to be more environmentally friendly. 

 

haggis

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2 minutes ago, Chris John said:

You’ll never hear anyone with a compost loo say they are awful. There may not be too proud to carry a pot full of piss around but they are too proud to admit that compost loos are not all that great.....

Sorry to say ten years and wouldn't go back to cassette or pump out both are just so crap

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2 minutes ago, peterboat said:

Sorry to say ten years and wouldn't go back to cassette or pump out both are just so crap

And I support you, you are one of the dozen I have come across who actually compost. I know a couple who actually do it onboard as well with 3 containers.

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3 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

Whilst the aim is to compost, I find it amusing that a number of people on here are aghast at human waste being put in bins. Where do they think all the 10 million nappies a day go? Perhaps those peeps would like to answer? Soiled nappies contain solids AND liquid which means the combined waste smells very badly by the time the council process the waste 2-4 weeks later. The soiled nappies then go to either incineration (burning the plastic!!!!!) or landfill where most of the plastic does not degrade and will be there in 1,000 years time. Most councils waste processing lines means this waste does not go near human hands as they are only picking 'the good stuff' out. Talk about phasing out single use plastic!

By composting, I am helping the environment in requiring less energy to run the pumpouts, run the lorries that transport the effluent and less energy to run the sewarage plants.

 

There are plenty of good reasons to use a compost/separator bog, including your entirely pragmatic reason but I do think the "someone else does it so why shouldn't i" a poor justification and goes a long way to justify the general distrust of the things.

 

I am not aghast, I just think it's a shit justification  :)

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Getting up close and personal with the contents of my bowels (not to mention those of my family and possibly visitors) is not something I relish, despite working for 10 years in hospital laboratories, which entailed the examination of the effluent of a myriad of strangers. Cassette toilets are beyond the pale as far as I am concerned, having to get closer by using a composting toilet seems even worse (and a lot more faff). I’m afraid when retirement is confirmed and my hunt for a narrowboat home commences it’s a pump out or nothing. 

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10 hours ago, OldGoat said:

Please Sir, how do you then dispose of the composted waste?

What  do you imagine?

 

 I have a composting bin in a locker on the boat and then (when we go home) I add it to our compost heap. After a year or so the contents of the compost heap go on the garden.

 

What else would you expect I do with it? It's compost for god's sake.

Edited by frahkn
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9 hours ago, frahkn said:

What  do you imagine?

 

 I have a composting bin in a locker on the boat and then (when we go home) I add it to our compost heap. After a year or so the contents of the compost heap go on the garden.

 

What else would you expect I do with it? It's compost for god's sake.

Which is what I would do if I had one, but don't plan to change things now unless we have problems

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9 hours ago, frahkn said:

What  do you imagine?

 

 I have a composting bin in a locker on the boat and then (when we go home) I add it to our compost heap. After a year or so the contents of the compost heap go on the garden.

 

What else would you expect I do with it? It's compost for god's sake.

That dear sir is the correct answer, thank you.

 

I was more concerned about those who don't have a garden and who may be tempted to dump partially treated compost into Crt's waste bins.

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11 hours ago, frahkn said:

What  do you imagine?

 

 I have a composting bin in a locker on the boat and then (when we go home) I add it to our compost heap. After a year or so the contents of the compost heap go on the garden.

 

What else would you expect I do with it? It's compost for god's sake.

So by the end of a summer's boating how much accumulated and partly composted waste do you have on the boat? What container(s) is it in, and how do you transport it from the boat to your compost heap?

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13 hours ago, frahkn said:

What  do you imagine?

 

 I have a composting bin in a locker on the boat and then (when we go home) I add it to our compost heap. After a year or so the contents of the compost heap go on the garden.

 

What else would you expect I do with it? It's compost for god's sake.

Well the majority of boaters (should) double bag and label as human waste and put it in a bin, thus adding to the plastic bag problem. So your smart comment about “it’s compost for gods sake” doesn’t work for most! 

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17 hours ago, Dyertribe said:

Getting up close and personal with the contents of my bowels (not to mention those of my family and possibly visitors) is not something I relish, despite working for 10 years in hospital laboratories, which entailed the examination of the effluent of a myriad of strangers. Cassette toilets are beyond the pale as far as I am concerned, having to get closer by using a composting toilet seems even worse (and a lot more faff). I’m afraid when retirement is confirmed and my hunt for a narrowboat home commences it’s a pump out or nothing. 

They are ok until you are frozen in or a visitor drops something in it and wrecks the macerarator ? I have had both unfortunately. What really worried me was mine was a built in tank, the side of the hull and base plate forming the tank, what happens when it corrodes through? Sorry for me composting is best and food for the allotment 

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3 hours ago, David Mack said:

So by the end of a summer's boating how much accumulated and partly composted waste do you have on the boat? What container(s) is it in, and how do you transport it from the boat to your compost heap?

You will find full (perhaps too much) detail in my original post about this, don't have time to find the link at the moment.

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1 hour ago, ditchcrawler said:

That is a really interesting document!

To me it says a number of things:

  1. Urine is a very useful fertiliser and we should use it as a fertiliser if we can

  2. The main problem is that it contains too much water (so the Nitrogen content is too low) so it is not commercially viable

  3. If it could be reduced in water content then it could replace a lot of man made alternatives

so nothing about it being 'bad' to spread on the land. That to me is quite significant.

 

BUT, the main bulk of the paper then goes on to discuss the chemistry of urine which is even more interesting.

Left to it's own devices, a molecule of urea (the active component in urine) will react to hydrocarbonic acid and two molecules of ammonia via a reaction catalysed by urease-enzymes. This reaction happens very quickly (ie seconds/minutes). Unknown to most of us (as the paper says), human faeces contain large amounts of urease forming bacteria therefore mixing solids and liquids in a toilet start the ammonia forming reaction going. Ammonia and its derivatives are very strong green house gasses and we know ammonia is there from the smell of mixed toilet waste. Global warming here we come!

It is therefore very interesting that any toilet that separates the liquid from solid HAS to be far better for the environment firstly as it will SIGNIFICANTLY reduce ammonia formation from the urine and secondly, the urine's action as a fertiliser can be a benefit. As a chemist, I had not realised that.

Spreading it along the hedgerows looks like it is a big benefit to global warming in reducing ammonia emissions and promoting plant growth to extract more CO2 from the atmosphere.

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