Composting toilet- 10 month review

[Leemc]

We replaced our sealand maserating ( cassette) with a composting one in January and thought it would be helpful to let people know our thoughts so far.

There's been quite a lot posted on this topic since I joined the forum, including lots of overly harsh negative comments. I'm not doing this to attract the same. 

To start with we are 100% happy with everything about the system. It is superbly simple to operate and manage and there is no way we would want to change back.

The smell- unbelievably there is absolute no smell at all. You can( if you want) stick your head in the solids bucket and there is absolutely no odour at all. Obviously, the liquids and solids cannot meet, but that has not happened with us.

 

The solid waste- this is probably the big issue for some. The key is the time these are allowed to dry out. Our system( I think most do) has a fan that draws moisture away. The image many may have, is a big bucket of pooey sludge. This is not the case. After a couple of weeks you're left with dried out lumps that rattle when put in a bucket. We currently take ours home and put in a garden compost bin. But I cannot see why these can't go in normal waste. They are not offensive, they are hard odourless lumps. You can simply pick them out of the bucket, obviously with a glove. When you consider local authorities handle bin loads of repulsive wet dog poo bags in their millions everyday, a few bags of dried out human waste should not be an issue. I would've posted pictures but not sure they would be wanted.

For families, I suppose the waste wouldn't have enough time to dry out properly before the bucket needs changing.

 

We must have saved hundreds of litres of water and used absolutely no toilet chemicals this year. We also haven't needed to set foot in any Elsan facility. If we'd had a pumpout system, we'd have saved money on that.

 

This system works for us and we are delighted with what it's been like this year. I know others disagree quite strongly, but once you see how it actually works on a day to day basis, you can't fail to be impressed.

 

 

[Alan de Enfield]

13 minutes ago, Leemc said:

But I cannot see why these can't go in normal waste

 

Because the law says so.

(Above 7kgs and only then in tiger-striped bags, and, how can C&RT control that ?)

 

 

13 minutes ago, Leemc said:

We currently take ours home and put in a garden compost bin.

 

Then you are doing it properly, many others don't.

Edited November 3, 2021 by Alan de Enfield

[peterboat]

11 minutes ago, Leemc said:

We replaced our sealand maserating ( cassette) with a composting one in January and thought it would be helpful to let people know our thoughts so far.

There's been quite a lot posted on this topic since I joined the forum, including lots of overly harsh negative comments. I'm not doing this to attract the same. 

To start with we are 100% happy with everything about the system. It is superbly simple to operate and manage and there is no way we would want to change back.

The smell- unbelievably there is absolute no smell at all. You can( if you want) stick your head in the solids bucket and there is absolutely no odour at all. Obviously, the liquids and solids cannot meet, but that has not happened with us.

 

The solid waste- this is probably the big issue for some. The key is the time these are allowed to dry out. Our system( I think most do) has a fan that draws moisture away. The image many may have, is a big bucket of pooey sludge. This is not the case. After a couple of weeks you're left with dried out lumps that rattle when put in a bucket. We currently take ours home and put in a garden compost bin. But I cannot see why these can't go in normal waste. They are not offensive, they are hard odourless lumps. You can simply pick them out of the bucket, obviously with a glove. When you consider local authorities handle bin loads of repulsive wet dog poo bags in their millions everyday, a few bags of dried out human waste should not be an issue. I would've posted pictures but not sure they would be wanted.

For families, I suppose the waste wouldn't have enough time to dry out properly before the bucket needs changing.

 

We must have saved hundreds of litres of water and used absolutely no toilet chemicals this year. We also haven't needed to set foot in any Elsan facility. If we'd had a pumpout system, we'd have saved money on that.

 

This system works for us and we are delighted with what it's been like this year. I know others disagree quite strongly, but once you see how it actually works on a day to day basis, you can't fail to be impressed.

 

 

Same as me for the last 8 years, I now throw vegetable matter in with it so that when it goes onto the compost heap it's better mixed. Like you I couldn't go back to a cassette or pump out just to messy and labour intensive 

[IanD]

40 minutes ago, peterboat said:

Same as me for the last 8 years, I now throw vegetable matter in with it so that when it goes onto the compost heap it's better mixed. Like you I couldn't go back to a cassette or pump out just to messy and labour intensive 

 

And you use it properly as well, also unlike the majority of composting toilet owners on boats, which is what led to the CART ban on bag'n'binning...

Edited November 3, 2021 by IanD

[GUMPY]

39 minutes ago, Leemc said:

We currently take ours home and put in a garden compost bin

Is that your own compost bin/heap or the council collected green garden bin? If the latter then you are not allowed to put anything in there that hasn't come from the garden. Not even veg peelings unless they are veg grown in your garden. This is to prevent cross infection 😱

 

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, Loddon said:

Is that your own compost bin/heap or the council collected green garden bin? If the latter then you are not allowed to put anything in there that hasn't come from the garden. Not even veg peelings unless they are veg grown in your garden. This is to prevent cross infection 😱

 

 

Surely it's obvious that a 'garden compost bin' is absolutely not a 'green garden bin' as in the ones emptied by the council?

[Leemc]

22 minutes ago, Loddon said:

Is that your own compost bin/heap or the council collected green garden bin? If the latter then you are not allowed to put anything in there that hasn't come from the garden. Not even veg peelings unless they are veg grown in your garden. This is to prevent cross infection 😱

 

Absolutely not the garden waste bin. It's a big black thing hidden by shed. Some of the stuff in there about 10 years old

[peterboat]

1 minute ago, Leemc said:

Absolutely not the garden waste bin. It's a big black thing hidden by shed. Some of the stuff in there about 10 years old

It shouldn't be in there! It should be on your garden by now, mine gets 3 to 4 years on the compost heap and is high grade compost by then 

[GUMPY]

12 minutes ago, The Happy Nomad said:

 

Surely it's obvious that a 'garden compost bin' is absolutely not a 'green garden bin' as in the ones emptied by the council?

I would not refer to a garden compost recepticle as a bin.

My garden bins are the ones collected by the council.

Hence my query.

 

[TheBiscuits]

5 minutes ago, Loddon said:

I would not refer to a garden compost recepticle as a bin.

My garden bins are the ones collected by the council.

Hence my query.

 

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Loddon said:

I would not refer to a garden compost recepticle as a bin.

My garden bins are the ones collected by the council.

Hence my query.

 

 

You appear to be out on a bit of a limb there.

 

Composting 'bin' gets many many hits on Google.

 

And our council definitely refers to them as 'composting bins' and 'garden waste bins' separately. 

 

 

1 minute ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

Our council was once giving those away free or for a nominal charge, I think to reduce the amount that goes in the garden waste bins. Stupidly I didn't get one at the time and they ran out.

[peterboat]

4 minutes ago, The Happy Nomad said:

 

You appear to be out on a bit of a limb there.

 

Composting 'bin' gets many many hits on Google.

 

And our council definitely refers to them as 'composting bins' and 'garden waste bins' separately. 

 

 

 

Our council was once giving those away free or for a nominal charge, I think to reduce the amount that goes in the garden waste bins. Stupidly I didn't get one at the time and they ran out.

Mum got one it's now on my allotment!

[robtheplod]

1 hour ago, Leemc said:

We replaced our sealand maserating ( cassette) with a composting one in January and thought it would be helpful to let people know our thoughts so far.

There's been quite a lot posted on this topic since I joined the forum, including lots of overly harsh negative comments. I'm not doing this to attract the same. 

To start with we are 100% happy with everything about the system. It is superbly simple to operate and manage and there is no way we would want to change back.

The smell- unbelievably there is absolute no smell at all. You can( if you want) stick your head in the solids bucket and there is absolutely no odour at all. Obviously, the liquids and solids cannot meet, but that has not happened with us.

 

The solid waste- this is probably the big issue for some. The key is the time these are allowed to dry out. Our system( I think most do) has a fan that draws moisture away. The image many may have, is a big bucket of pooey sludge. This is not the case. After a couple of weeks you're left with dried out lumps that rattle when put in a bucket. We currently take ours home and put in a garden compost bin. But I cannot see why these can't go in normal waste. They are not offensive, they are hard odourless lumps. You can simply pick them out of the bucket, obviously with a glove. When you consider local authorities handle bin loads of repulsive wet dog poo bags in their millions everyday, a few bags of dried out human waste should not be an issue. I would've posted pictures but not sure they would be wanted.

For families, I suppose the waste wouldn't have enough time to dry out properly before the bucket needs changing.

 

We must have saved hundreds of litres of water and used absolutely no toilet chemicals this year. We also haven't needed to set foot in any Elsan facility. If we'd had a pumpout system, we'd have saved money on that.

 

This system works for us and we are delighted with what it's been like this year. I know others disagree quite strongly, but once you see how it actually works on a day to day basis, you can't fail to be impressed.

 

 

Was it one you purchased or did you make it?

[Leemc]

We bought it. Sure some of the people on this forum could build one but I felt like a genius for simply installing it and the other half wasn't convinced I could do that!

[Alan de Enfield]

5 minutes ago, Leemc said:

We bought it. Sure some of the people on this forum could build one but I felt like a genius for simply installing it and the other half wasn't convinced I could do that!

 

 

I think even I could manage to install one :

 

 

 

[robtheplod]

1 minute ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

I think even I could manage to install one :

 

 

 

I'm waiting for the day Alan announces he has installed a compost loo .....

[matty40s]

2 minutes ago, robtheplod said:

I'm waiting for the day Alan announces he has installed a compost loo .....

Will we get a PooDF??

[agg221]

2 hours ago, Leemc said:

We replaced our sealand maserating ( cassette) with a composting one in January and thought it would be helpful to let people know our thoughts so far.

 

This system works for us and we are delighted with what it's been like this year. I know others disagree quite strongly, but once you see how it actually works on a day to day basis, you can't fail to be impressed.

Thank you for posting your experiences.

 

This is an area where I don't think there is currently a 'one size fits all' solution and it is useful to hear about what does/does not work for people under particular circumstances.

 

Alec

[Alan de Enfield]

12 minutes ago, robtheplod said:

I'm waiting for the day Alan announces he has installed a compost loo .....

 

Don't hold your breath - we now have a 'pump-it-straight-overboard system' as allowed by the Environmental Permitting Act as boats have exemption to discharging sewage in inland freshwaterways. unless there is aspecific act preventing it on a specific waterway.

 

See section 2 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 3, 2021 by Alan de Enfield

[Leemc]

Compared to what our water companies are allowed to get away with, a few boat toilet dumpings ain't going to do much harm.

[wandering snail]

Think how much saving there would be on sewage going straight in to water courses if all householders, let alone boaters, were encouraged to use separating loos instead of Victorian style flush, with the infrastructure in place to collect it for compost. Time for a total rethink on how we manage our human waste? 

[Cheshire cat]

3 hours ago, Loddon said:

Is that your own compost bin/heap or the council collected green garden bin? If the latter then you are not allowed to put anything in there that hasn't come from the garden. Not even veg peelings unless they are veg grown in your garden. This is to prevent cross infection 😱

 

 

That's not universally the case. Our local authority expects us to put all food waste in the green bin, animal or vegetable and doesn't make any statements about its provenance.

 

Good factual info from the OP. Unfortunately CC'ers can't take it home.

[booke23]

4 hours ago, Leemc said:

For families, I suppose the waste wouldn't have enough time to dry out properly before the bucket needs changing.

 

This was my experience. With a family of four, composting just doesn't work. 

[tree monkey]

45 minutes ago, wandering snail said:

Think how much saving there would be on sewage going straight in to water courses if all householders, let alone boaters, were encouraged to use separating loos instead of Victorian style flush, with the infrastructure in place to collect it for compost. Time for a total rethink on how we manage our human waste? 

I think for the right people with the commitment required compost loos are ideal, they certainly aren't a universal panacea for the majority, there's enough people who can't be arsed to cut their hedges never mind compost the bog waste

[agg221]

46 minutes ago, wandering snail said:

Think how much saving there would be on sewage going straight in to water courses if all householders, let alone boaters, were encouraged to use separating loos instead of Victorian style flush, with the infrastructure in place to collect it for compost. Time for a total rethink on how we manage our human waste? 

Back to the night soil men?

 

Maybe we should also go back to wearing a lot more tweed to make use of the liquid component...

 

🙂

 

Alec