Humanure

Being able to stay at Tane's Rest for several days at a time is now driving demands for greater support beyond water availability and the most pressing is the need for a composting toilet.

To build our new loo we have followed the principles of the humanure compositing toilet. This requires liquid and solid waste to be separated and the solid waste to be covered with a biodegradable material as it accumulates. Our near neighbour Steve operates a portable sawmill so we have a generous supply of dry untreated sawdust that is a perfect cover material.

We have built a large plywood box that fits two 30 litre buckets and has two hinging toilet seats with covers. The liquid waste bucket remains unlined, however the solid waste bucket is lined with two bags, an inner compostable liner and an outer disposable liner. The strong outer liner allows the bucket contents to be safely carried to a burial pit where the inner liner and its contents can be dumped cleanly without any spillages. The outer liner is then landfilled.

The objectionable odours that emanate from traditional longdrop toilets is due to the amalgamation of liquid and solid waste where the nitrogenous liquid waste is able to react with the biological components of the solid waste. Preventing this from happening means our privy remains pleasantly odour free, even on hot summer days, and Steve's macrocarpa sawdust has the bonus of its natural fragrance.

Currently our composting toilet is discretely positioned outside behind a wood stack with a beach umbrella for both shade and rain cover. Ultimately it will move under cover in an open air ensuite that we plan to build near the caravan to reduce the walk to answer nature's call.