An adult Westerner produces 200 grams of stool per day, so 73 kilos per year (and 6.5 tons during your life). A composting toilet is a toilet in which feces are transformed by biological processes into compost. Composting may in the toilet or on the compost heap.
In order to get a good composting, temperature and humidity must be kept under control.
You can begin to separate waste collection: urine separately. You discharge it separately, try to keep it that way. That gives much less odor and improved moisture ratio. Throw urine on the compost heap. Urine left longer in a container forms ammonia and stinks.
Whether you provide drainage to carry urine through a tube. You can use two large buckets above each other, and punch the bottom of the first.
If you don’t keep urine apart, emptying becomes a dirty job.
Against odors and insects feces are sprinkled with small, dry, natural materials: straw, pine needles, sand, rose petals, sawdust, soil, grass clippings...
If the tank is three times as large as annual output, then you should (almost) never have to empty it: after 5 years, the volume is reduced to 1-2%.
The composting must completely demolish all material, and therefore more harmless pathogens. The compost is after a short time already suitable for ornamental gardens. After the first year you have a dry, woodsy smelling compost that can be used for fruit and vegetable gardens.
You can also other organic (kitchen) waste put in, al long as you cover it.
The effect of medication is not conducive to the composting and odor.
A temperature of +10°C is good. Less than five degrees is the activity of micro- organisms possible, but very low. With every ten degrees that the temperature rises, bacterial life doubles.
Commercial versions have a valve just under the seat, which opens as soon as one takes place, and that is closed with a lever. As the pedal toilet in a train. That deprives the user unpleasant view of the digested food.
The 12 Crafts (Netherlands) developed the Nonolet. (As in Pecunia’s non olet (money does not stink)). It works without flushing water or sewer connections. The separated urine you can pour on the compost heap. The stool is covered with paper, and compressed with a pestle. And can later with the semi permeable compostable plastic bag also on the compost heap.
A family so saves 35% on water and we would lower all together the cost of sewage and fertilizer dramatically.
(Photo caption)
Rotted leaves are fine humus, real vegetable mold.
Oakleaf, especially of American oak, decays very slowly, after years.
Hedgehogs find a fine place to overwinter below the leafs.
Dried leaves can be used as bedding in stables or as cover in compost toilets.