10 Reasons To Build A Compost Toilet System
You can build a compost toilet system and save lots of money over commercial models. What’s more there are no parts to break down or complicated installation procedures to follow.
When we first decided that we would switch to using a compost toilet, we spent a long time researching the various models on line.
The first thing that struck us was how expensive these things were. The next big turn offs, were the negative reviews that every model had. We scoured the web looking at blogs and forum posts that relayed users experiences of these expensive thrones and the overall impression that we got, was that these units were poor performers with inflated price tags.
Loveable Loo by Joe Jenkins
As we are not keen on wasting money, especially on things that don’t work, we turned to researching self built toilets. Of all of the designs out there, none impressed us quite as much as the beautifully simple Loveable Loo, conceived by the lord of Humanure himself Mr Joe Jenkins.
This was the toilet for us! It was simplicity itself to build acompost loo, using the plans that Joe kindly makes available in his book -The Humanure Handbook – which you can read and download for free here
It took just 2 days to get used to sprinkling sawdust instead of flushing. These days it just seems normal. To us, flush toilets now seem odd!
Given the increasing concern over dwindling freshwater supplies it does seem odd that we think it’s ok to keep depositing excrement into clean water. Imagine what a visiting alien would make of it all!
So here are a few reasons why a compost toilet is a great idea. Mull them over and who knows, you too might end up preferring to sprinkle rather than flush.
- It is estimated that every day, Americans flush over 4.8 billion gallons of fresh water down their toilets. A compost toilet saves water. We use 2 gallons of water to rinse out 4 receptacles once they have been emptied into the Humanure pile. How much water would your family use flushing toilets for 4 days?
- You get a useful resource at the end of the process. COMPOST!
- You are taking responsibility for your own excrement instead of mindlessly sending it on down the line to become an environmental problem.
- Water shut offs and sewer backups won’t ever trouble you again.
- You can put a toilet where ever you need on without worrying about the plumbing.
- Composting your own manure completes the nutrient cycle and restores the earth instead of depleting it.
- You’ll never have to buy toilet cleaning chemicals again.
- If you are setting up home in an off grid location then you can save the cost of a septic system.
- Annoying relatives probably won’t want to visit you anymore.
- And finally a compost toilet is very pleasant to use.
Managed correctly a compost toilet system doesn’t smell at all!
Using a Loveable Loo was our first experience of using a toilet that didn’t flush. Needless to say we were aprehensive at first, especially as we had chosen to make it the only kind of toilet in the barn that we were transforming into our home.
Our fears were unfounded however and no one in our family has any complaints. Even guests are pleasantly surprised and our loo is now quite a conversation piece.
