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C&RT say don't empty your compost toilet in our bins.


Alan de Enfield

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2 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

He would then need to become either a licenced 'waste dealer' or a 'waste broker'

 

• waste dealer – any person, business or organisation that buys waste with the aim of subsequently selling it, including in circumstances where the dealer does not take physical possession of the waste

• waste broker – any person, business or organisation that arranges waste transportation and management of waste on behalf of another party, such as organisations contracting out waste collection services e.g. local authorities, supermarkets and producer responsibility compliance schemes • waste manager – any person involved in the collection, transport, recovery or disposal of controlled waste, including the supervision of these operations, the aftercare of disposal sites and actions taken as a dealer or broker A separate duty of care applies to householders (occupiers of a domestic property), limited to taking all reasonable measures available to them to ensure their waste is only transferred to an authorised person. For the purposes of this Code, occupiers of domestic property are not treated as a ‘waste holder’ as defined above, when dealing with household waste produced on that property.

 

And subject to all of the same "Duty of Care" restrictions as Biffa etc.

There is an existing business model 

https://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Harry_King

 

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7 minutes ago, Up-Side-Down said:

I spend half an hour every five months .......... which is why I find a composting loo such an attractive proposition!

So you don't spend any time managing (moving and aerating) the compost, as discussed earlier?

 

[I'm assuming you do this properly and you're not a b'n'b-er]

 

Like I said, feel free to put your own numbers in, mine were guesses (like I said). But don't forget to add in all the real costs of running a real business if you want somebody else to do the work for you... ?

 

It's a mistake that people often make with things they really do as a hobby or for enjoyment (musical instrument making, old car restoration, vintage canal boats...) -- they don't value their time, so they don't realise what the external cost would be to make a living out of it (or for somebody else to).

Edited by IanD
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2 minutes ago, IanD said:

So you don't spend any time managing (moving and aerating) the compost?

 

Like I said, feel free to put your own numbers in. But don't forget to add in all the real costs of running a real business if you want somebody else to do the work for you... ?

As long as I keep the rain water out and carefully layer the poo with coarse material (such as straw) it seems to look after itself quite happily. At least it has done over the past few years. I remember my granddad's compost heap of 60 years ago and, if carefully built, required no further input from him ........... and you should have seen his roses!

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Just now, Up-Side-Down said:

As long as I keep the rain water out and carefully layer the poo with coarse material (such as straw) it seems to look after itself quite happily. At least it has done over the past few years. I remember my granddad's compost heap of 60 years ago and, if carefully built, required no further input from him ........... and you should have seen his roses!

All of which is why a composting toilet used properly is an excellent idea ?

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14 minutes ago, Chagall said:

 

I appreciate the time and effort for that. Thank you.  ?

 

edit for the removal of doubt: ... it wasn't meant to seem patronising. 

 

 

Thanks, it didn't ?

 

It just seemed that there were plenty of "this will solve the problem" ideas floating around -- some more practical than others -- but no ideas as to what they might actually cost.

 

If my post prompts people to start thinking about this realistically (no unicorns involved...) and coming up with better figures -- or maybe even a workable solution! -- then that would be great.

 

But for any solution to a problem like this the numbers have to add up, and this is all too often ignored. A classic case (from SEWTHA) is where the government suggested we should all save energy by unplugging our phone chargers when not in use, because this would save [a big sounding number] of kWh per year. Ignoring how much energy we use for everything else [a much *much* bigger number]; it turns out that if we all did that, the energy saving would be about the same as taking one fewer bath/shower per household per year...

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2 minutes ago, IanD said:

All of which is why a composting toilet used properly is an excellent idea ?

Point taken Ian.

 

It's all about a) managing people's expectations (so they understand the full implications of owning a composting loo) and b) education. When it comes down to it, how many people are still that much in touch with the land and nature that they know what composting actually is or, indeed, how to manage a simple compost heap.

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13 minutes ago, Up-Side-Down said:

Point taken Ian.

 

It's all about a) managing people's expectations (so they understand the full implications of owning a composting loo) and b) education. When it comes down to it, how many people are still that much in touch with the land and nature that they know what composting actually is or, indeed, how to manage a simple compost heap.

All true -- but here it's not the people doing composting with a heap needing more education and understanding who are the problem, it's the ones who installed a composting toilet on a boat because it was convenient and cheap -- but only because they chucked the waste into a CaRT bin and made it Somebody Else's Problem.

 

It's understandable why people did this (and why the vloggers are encouraging it), but it looks like CaRT can't allow them to carry on doing it in future -- unless they build the "compost-enabled network", and boaters pay for it ?

Edited by IanD
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I doubt grandad used to make his compost out of human faeces and straw. 

Straw is mostly cellulose and it takes a year to even start breaking down, this would be OK if the compost heap is heated, which happens with horse manure, but not human faeces in small black bags sitting on your roof. Frankly, if I inadvertantly moored near a boat with faeces on their roof, I'd move straight away. Eccentricity is fine, but that's just insanitary.

Damian does not keep his shit on his roof, but he thinks it's OK to tell other people what to do. ?

I have retired on to the waterways for a quiet life.

Organisations who are supposed to run the inland waterways, for whatever reasons, should not employ people like Damian. I've met quite a few of them, and they are a waste of space. They are 'indicator organisms'. 

Edited by LadyG
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4 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Has anyone noticed that dried dog-poo is no longer white ?

 

Just now, WillCful said:

It's because they're going vegan.

I know someone who insisted her dog is vegan - by sheer coincidence so is she.

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56 minutes ago, LadyG said:

I doubt grandad used to make his compost out of human faeces and straw. 

Straw is mostly cellulose and it takes a year to even start breaking down, this would be OK if the compost heap is heated, which happens with horse manure, but not human faeces in small black bags sitting on your roof. Frankly, if I inadvertantly moored near a boat with faeces on their roof, I'd move straight away. Eccentricity is fine, but that's just insanitary.

Damian does not keep his shit on his roof, but he thinks it's OK to tell other people what to do. ?

I have retired on to the waterways for a quiet life.

Organisations who are supposed to run the inland waterways, for whatever reasons, should not employ people like Damian. I've met quite a few of them, and they are a waste of space. They are 'indicator organisms'. 

From experience I can assure you that my compost will be ready in 3 years which is a standard cycle, my neighbours have 3 heaps the same as myself. I have some well rotted cow manure for this year along with leaf compost, I hope that other boaters do the same 

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7 hours ago, IanD said:

Earlier in the thread somebody (Dr. Bob, page 4) said that out of 250 composting toilet boaters, only 70 correctly composted their compost, leaving 180 b'n'b-ers. Given that these toilets are still pretty uncommon I wouldn't be surprised if these numbers are correct, equally they could be wrong (too low) which would change the numbers.

 

If you have other more accurate numbers, feel free to supply them.

 

I suspect it won't change the fact that if people had to pay the real cost of disposing of their non-compost, it would cost considerably more than pumpouts and a *lot* more than cassettes, and be much less green than they think.

 

This is a classic case of externalising costs, just like polluting industries -- making something look cheap by ignoring what it actually costs somebody else to clear up your mess.

 

I'm all in favour of composting toilets used properly, unfortunately only a quarter of owners do this today ?

Dr Bob is quoting from a survey taken on the facebook group "Compost Toilets for Boats and Off-Grid Living". This group has 7,657 members. Obviously not all of them are UK boaters with a dry toilet but I bet that way more than 200 of them are.

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2 minutes ago, spicemouse said:

Might be a stupid question, but is there now a market for a compost boat which goes up and down collecting compost and um.. selling it to someone? 

 

 

The question is 'where does this poo-collecting boat keep it for three years' ?

 

Wrong answer :- "He puts it into the C&RT bins".

Two Loos Lautrec b.jpg

Two Loos Lautrec.jpg

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6 minutes ago, spicemouse said:

Might be a stupid question, but is there now a market for a compost boat which goes up and down collecting compost and um.. selling it to someone? 

You'd need a couple of shit buttys too, this years, last years and all previous, bit like a Tom Pudding train.

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