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


Alan de Enfield

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40 minutes ago, The Happy Nomad said:

Can I just mention we have booked a Caravan Club site in Dorset for June.

 

I did let out a little chuckle after I'd booked and read that the only toilets on site were......

 

Composting ones. This will be my first experience of using one.

 

(Though of course before anybody points this out they will likely have proper composting facilities)

The hut where one of my brass bands rehearse has one, complete with a reed bed outside which I think is part of the system. I'd not met one before. All seemed very pleasant.

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2 hours ago, Dyertribe said:

 

I am opposed to the “(double) bag it and bin it” method of poo disposal. I would be more than happy to oppose your view on this subject in a pub, on a towpath, wherever. 

I have no objection whatsoever to those people who have the facilities having a composting toilet on their boat, in their caravan, in their home, where ever.

I do find the use of rubbish bins as a means of disposal of faeces appalling, that’s why sewers were invented. 

 

I go along with this view.  Brian on Harnser based on the Coventry canal

1 hour ago, tree monkey said:

I stayed in a place in NZ for a few days and they had a composting bog, slightly bizzare at first, it was outside, beautifully built and in the side of a very small hill with a stunning view out of a strategically placed cut out.

The morning dump was a real pleasure,  no need for something to read that's for sure :)

The photo I posted was alongside the tow path in Sweden. The twin seater jobbie. 

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1 hour ago, The Happy Nomad said:

Can I just mention we have booked a Caravan Club site in Dorset for June.

 

I did let out a little chuckle after I'd booked and read that the only toilets on site were......

 

Composting ones. This will be my first experience of using one.

 

(Though of course before anybody points this out they will likely have proper composting facilities)

Composting toilets are not new, of course; I remember them in the 1960's.

 

The names changes from time to time; back then they were (in my experience) called earth closets although that term is now reserved for something else.  A little, moveable shed; inside was a box bench with a suitably sized opening over a hole in the ground.  A pile of loose dry material (earth) and a little shovel to spread it over the solid matter.  The wee must have drained away and, eventually the composited material removed or the shed relocated.

 

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I have inadvertently just watched a blog featuring a narrowboat blogger with a 'composting toilet'. I find the whole thing disgusting because they are not using it as intended. They seem to dumping the liquid in the canal or on the bank somewhere and simply bagging up the solids and placing them in the standard rubbish containers. The rubbish containers are bad enough in summer but it makes feel quite ill to think that they contain large amounts of human waste as well. I don't think CaRT or the waste agents should be forced to deal with this and they should be banned from boats as they cannot be dealt with properly on a boat. Now I know why the canals in London are going green.

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Our 'family home' was built in 1660 and had a 3-seater version

It was 'shoveled out' by the servants and presumably the contents went onto the compost heap and eventually into the vegetable garden.

 

This is a Google image but ours was still in place and looked very similar.

It was in an adjacent outbuilding and I used to keep my Ferret cages on top of it.

 

220px-Townsend_House_privy_-_the_inside.jpg

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18 minutes ago, IanD said:

I always wondered what the poo fairies house looked like...

 

Thankfully a sight rarely if ever seen where I live. As the local authority seem to understand that if you expect people to bin it then its a good idea to empty them frequently. 

 

Oh and before the predictable response from somebody, yes of course it should really be taken home if the dog poo bin is full.

 

 

Edited by The Happy Nomad
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13 hours ago, matty40s said:

368227227_1311(3).jpg.1b94050879f323eb7d769d43d5a80bd3.jpg

 

Mmmmm! Interesting.

I've done some digging on dog poo!

If anyone wants to discuss numbers then here are just some of the many sites that have data. All sites seem to be using similar numbers and seem to tie in with the 'huge' amount of poo our Clumber Spaniel and Golden Retriever used to produce (before we went off sailing) - which was all composted at the time.

https://www.turningtogreen.com/post/what-do-you-do-with-dog-waste

http://www.carryoncomposting.com/142941462

https://www.theguardian.com/news/blog/2009/feb/11/dog-fouling-britain

 

What the sites seem to say is that there are a lot of dogs in the UK producing a lot of waste. In 2009 there were circa 7 million dogs in the UK. Average poo per dog was 340g so thats around 2.5Kg a week. Total dog poo today is circa 1,000tes PER DAY. That's a very similar amount to the amount of human excrement in nappies PER DAY. Most of the sites I've seen say that most of the dog poo is bagged and binned (as per the nappies). So the CRT will be seeing a huge amount of this waste going into their bins and likely 3 factors higher than the potential waste from 'solids' toilets. Dog poo is the same waste code (20-01-99) as solid toilet waste. If the CRT have problems with solid toilet waste then they have massive problems with dog poo.

The amount of dog poo is to me mind boggling. I had not realised 7,000tes per week is produced and most goes into bins (like I said, years ago we used to compost ours). I reckon not many peeps on here knew that either. For me that is not nice........and we havent even talked about cat litter which in may cases is disposed of in the same way (and is likely more of a bio hazard - see the links above).

 

12 hours ago, Ianws said:

How much dog poo is either left where it is or bagged and put in trees, compared with human poo bagged and binned, apparently legally. Is it the fact that it is human poo that is bothering people so much? 

 

I think you have a point here. No one would dream of condeming dog owners. Putting dog poo in the bin is now the way we do it in the UK. It is accepted by most that this is OK. I dont like the idea of putting our solid waste in a bin but unfortunately it is the norm now - along with nappies and incontenence pads. I've made my choice to go for a composting loo - and try and compost but will dispose of in a bin if available if no composting  available. Others choose to have dogs and put their dog poo in a bin. Same choice.

 

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1 hour ago, Dr Bob said:

[snip]

I think you have a point here. No one would dream of condeming dog owners. Putting dog poo in the bin is now the way we do it in the UK. It is accepted by most that this is OK. I dont like the idea of putting our solid waste in a bin but unfortunately it is the norm now - along with nappies and incontenence pads. I've made my choice to go for a composting loo - and try and compost but will dispose of in a bin if available if no composting  available. Others choose to have dogs and put their dog poo in a bin. Same choice.

 

No it isn't "the norm". It's what maybe 1% of boaters on the canals (a few hundred) do because it's cheap and convenient for them, and nobody stopped them doing it in the past.

 

The other 99% dispose of their poo into the sewage system, and funnily enough lots of them seem to object to the 1% who want to carry on bag'n'binning. The nice guys like Peter (and possibly you, depending on how much you compost) aren't the problem, what is are the boaters who are less conscientious about making the waste less nasty and always bin it -- and especially the rising number of them (thanks, vloggers...)

 

No amount of red herrings about dogs or nappies or that it's nice dry not-really-poo (yours might well be, others obviously less so) are going to change the viewpoint of the 99%, which is that even if the bins contain dog poo or baby poo this doesn't make it acceptable to add a load of human adult poo on top, from boaters who bought composting toilets but don't use them as the name suggests and CaRT said they should be used.

 

So I suggest you stop trying to pretend that this is somehow "normal" and should be allowed to continue as a "fait accompli", because it isn't and it shouldn't -- and won't be, according to CaRT. You made your choice, and -- like diesel car buyers -- changing circumstances have now made it look like a bad one, not the good one you expected. It was your choice.

 

And if this issue is dividing boaters, then I'd say that taking action which the 1% don't like is better than allowing the bins to fill up with an ever-increasing pile of poo which the 99% (and CaRT) don't like. Or hemi-demi-semi-compost, whatever you want to call it.

 

Yes there should be some reasonable time to allow the 1% to switch over to a non-poo-bag toilet (or use it properly, if that can be enforced which seems difficult), a year seems fair -- after all, it's more warning than we get for tax or legal changes which have far bigger impacts on people's lives...

 

P.S. Don't bother trying to show that the number is 2% or 3% or 4% whatever, because it won't change the facts ?

Edited by IanD
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38 minutes ago, IanD said:

No it isn't "the norm". It's what maybe 1% of boaters on the canals (a few hundred) do because it's cheap and convenient for them, and nobody stopped them doing it in the past.

 

The other 99% dispose of their poo into the sewage system, and funnily enough lots of them seem to object to the 1% who want to carry on bag'n'binning. The nice guys like Peter (and possibly you, depending on how much you compost) aren't the problem, what is are the boaters who are less conscientious about making the waste less nasty and always bin it -- and especially the rising number of them (thanks, vloggers...)

 

No amount of red herrings about dogs or nappies or that it's nice dry not-really-poo (yours might well be, others obviously less so) are going to change the viewpoint of the 99%, which is that even if the bins contain dog poo or baby poo this doesn't make it acceptable to add a load of human adult poo on top, from boaters who bought composting toilets but don't use them as the name suggests and CaRT said they should be used.

 

So I suggest you stop trying to pretend that this is somehow "normal" and should be allowed to continue as a "fait accompli", because it isn't and it shouldn't -- and won't be, according to CaRT. You made your choice, and -- like diesel car buyers -- changing circumstances have now made it look like a bad one, not the good one you expected. It was your choice.

 

And if this issue is dividing boaters, then I'd say that taking action which the 1% don't like is better than allowing the bins to fill up with an ever-increasing pile of poo which the 99% (and CaRT) don't like. Or hemi-demi-semi-compost, whatever you want to call it.

 

Yes there should be some reasonable time to allow the 1% to switch over to a non-poo-bag toilet (or use it properly, if that can be enforced which seems difficult), a year seems fair -- after all, it's more warning than we get for tax or legal changes which have far bigger impacts on people's lives...

 

P.S. Don't bother trying to show that the number is 2% or 3% or 4% whatever, because it won't change the facts ?

He clearly meant normal with regard to dog poo.

39 minutes ago, IanD said:

No it isn't "the norm". It's what maybe 1% of boaters on the canals (a few hundred) do because it's cheap and convenient for them, and nobody stopped them doing it in the past.

 

The other 99% dispose of their poo into the sewage system, and funnily enough lots of them seem to object to the 1% who want to carry on bag'n'binning. The nice guys like Peter (and possibly you, depending on how much you compost) aren't the problem, what is are the boaters who are less conscientious about making the waste less nasty and always bin it -- and especially the rising number of them (thanks, vloggers...)

 

No amount of red herrings about dogs or nappies or that it's nice dry not-really-poo (yours might well be, others obviously less so) are going to change the viewpoint of the 99%, which is that even if the bins contain dog poo or baby poo this doesn't make it acceptable to add a load of human adult poo on top, from boaters who bought composting toilets but don't use them as the name suggests and CaRT said they should be used.

 

So I suggest you stop trying to pretend that this is somehow "normal" and should be allowed to continue as a "fait accompli", because it isn't and it shouldn't -- and won't be, according to CaRT. You made your choice, and -- like diesel car buyers -- changing circumstances have now made it look like a bad one, not the good one you expected. It was your choice.

 

And if this issue is dividing boaters, then I'd say that taking action which the 1% don't like is better than allowing the bins to fill up with an ever-increasing pile of poo which the 99% (and CaRT) don't like. Or hemi-demi-semi-compost, whatever you want to call it.

 

Yes there should be some reasonable time to allow the 1% to switch over to a non-poo-bag toilet (or use it properly, if that can be enforced which seems difficult), a year seems fair -- after all, it's more warning than we get for tax or legal changes which have far bigger impacts on people's lives...

 

P.S. Don't bother trying to show that the number is 2% or 3% or 4% whatever, because it won't change the facts ?

This 99% thing is a red herring.  I'd say about 90% of boaters don't give a toss.  It's you who's in a tiny minority of boaters who are all riled up by this.

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1 hour ago, IanD said:

 

 

So I suggest you stop trying to pretend that this is somehow "normal" and should be allowed to continue as a "fait accompli", because it isn't and it shouldn't -- and won't be, according to CaRT. You made your choice, and -- like diesel car buyers -- changing circumstances have now made it look like a bad one, not the good one you expected. It was your choice.

 

 

 

Poor analogy. Us diesel car drivers havent been told to stop driving our cars now and switch to electric ones immediately.

 

We have got at least 9 years to adapt, and even then it won't be illegal to use one, just illegal to buy a new one.

 

Try another.

 

 

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3 minutes ago, The Happy Nomad said:

 

Poor analogy. Us diesel car drivers havent been told to stop driving our cars now and switch to electric ones immediately.

 

We have got at least 9 years to adapt, and even then it won't be illegal to use one, just illegal to buy a new one.

 

Try another.

Same as the poor VHS/Betamax analogy.

 

I've racked my brains for a suitable analogy, and came up with nothing.

 

Here's a challenge then:

 

Give an example were something involving a capital investment was allowed by the authorising authority, and then, without warning, banned from use without any prior warning or discussion?

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1 hour ago, doratheexplorer said:

He clearly meant normal with regard to dog poo.

This 99% thing is a red herring.  I'd say about 90% of boaters don't give a toss.  It's you who's in a tiny minority of boaters who are all riled up by this.

If you believe that, put up a poll on this forum (should bag'n'binning be allowed to continue or not?) and let's see who's in the minority.

 

From the number of boats with composting toilets, at most a few percent of boaters are bag'n'binning, They're a small minority, that's the definition.

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