It’s been over a year since I’ve had a flushing toilet in my house! Instead, I use a composting toilet. Over the course of my time living on the road and now settling down onto our land, I’ve learned a lot about setting up the proper system to meet our changing needs. We started out using an expensive purchased toilet and have now converted over to a simple, 5-gallon bucket system. While I may further refine my process, one thing’s for sure- I’m never going back! Even if I lived on the grid, I would still use a composting toilet. In my opinion they are cleaner, easier, cheaper, and less wasteful of resources than any other option. This is especially true for traveling and off-grid living.
So, what is a composting toilet and how does it actually work? A composting toilet is one where human waste is deposited onto a bed of absorptive material such as peat moss or wood shavings. There it sits and is allowed to decompose. Over time, bacteria will degrade the feces and it will eventually become dirt. This does take a long time! So composting toilet systems are designed to be emptied before this process is finished. The waste is either disposed of or allowed to finish decomposition outside of the toilet. There are many different designs. Some have a holding tank for liquid waste to be kept separate from solid waste, and some combine the two. Some of them require mixing of the solid waste, and some do not. All designs are surprisingly simple and easy to put into use!
I love the composting method and think everyone should look into whether or not it would work for them. But, to be honest, there’s literally nothing I wouldn’t endure over a flushing toilet, a septic system, or a black water tank. The issues with those systems for waste disposal put them undeniably out of alignment with my values and what I’m willing to put up with. The first and most haunting fact I learned in college microbiology is that flushing toilets literally spray fecal bacteria all over within 6 feet of the toilet when flushed. It’s so disgusting! Fecal bacteria have appendages that can spin, allowing them to travel long distances. I envision it the way Sonic’s sidekick, Tails, flies around. But that may or may not be technically accurate. In any case, that piece of knowledge prepared my brain for accepting alternatives to flushing toilets. I’ve truly never been able to look at a toilet the same way since. And then of course there’s the water use. In my neighborhood in California, as in most places, it was potable water that was used to flush the toilets. What a waste in an area where the government places water restrictions on water use for gardens, and citizens put up with constant increases in their water bills! Septic systems are common for land owners, but they aren’t our style considering the government permitting. Also, we would have to maintain a leach field, which can be difficult to troubleshoot and manage without professional assistance when something goes wrong. So not ideal for us. Since we live in a camper, a black water tank would be an option. However, it wasn’t viable for living on the road in national forests. Even now, between hauling the weight of it, paying to empty it, and all the disgusting emptying videos available online, that’s out.
Converting to a composting toilet had been in the works for over a year before we hit the road and finally said goodbye to municipal sewage. I remember early in our dating, my now-husband had me watch a video about a homemade composting toilet. I remember how he pretended to be casual as he put it on for me. He cooked us dinner and scrutinized my reaction out of the corner of his eye. I was immediately intrigued! That video changed so much about my world view. I had felt for a long time that conventional toilets make no sense. But I never knew how to get out of that system. When it came time to move into the camper the choice was clear. We splurged and purchased a beautiful Nature’s Head composting toilet.
Our Nature’s Head toilet is one of the more complex toilet designs. It works by separating the liquid and solid waste. So, it has a removable, 2-gallon jug for catching pee. Poop goes in a separate compartment and is mixed in to the peat moss with a foot pedal. This design is perfect for being on the road! I absolutely recommend it for traveling adults. The biggest advantage is that there’s nothing to do to prepare for travel days. Empty or full, it is completely secure and doesn’t add much weight. As far as emptying, when we were living in National Forests, we needed to dig a hole and bury the solid waste at least 6 inches below ground, according to USFS guidelines. While not a big deal, it’s not something we wanted to do all the time. Since pee is the bulk of the volume, having them separated meant we only had to bury the poo about once a month. It’s also legal to dump the solid waste into a trash bag and throw it away. But we never used that option. As for liquid waste, it’s completely legal and ethical to distribute the pee around a forest campground. This is the bulk of the volume, and needed emptying every couple of days. Especially when I was pregnant and peeing constantly. It’s simple, easy and really no big deal. In fact, dumping the pee before bed has been the reason I looked up at many incredible views of the stars I would otherwise have been too cozy and warm inside to bother venturing out for. And a perimeter of dumped pee is an effective way to mark territory and keep predators away.
Okay so now for the downsides of this design. One of them is that you have to aim. There’s only a small poo hatch, and even smaller holes to pee in. It isn’t always possible to be completely accurate, and that’s the only times it’s gotten a bit gross. You also have to pay attention to how full the pee jug gets, or it will overflow. We had to learn that the hard way…twice. Even though in practice using the toilet is simple, I’ve found that guests are intimidated by the instructions. This is a bigger problem being stationary than it ever was on the road. Anyone who visited us on the road brought their own toilet system or just went outside! Also, with potty training our child looming on the horizon I wasn’t sure how I’d ever succeed while needing them to separate liquid and solid waste. By the time we switched methods, the poo compartment had been allowed to get disgusting. Which was entirely our fault. When we switched to living in our winterized camper, Brandon never installed the fan. And, well, that really needs to be done. We were extremely busy and it would have required cutting a hole in the camper to vent outside. We got away with it for a while, but once it got full of wet solid waste that wasn’t mixing or composting properly, it really got bad. That’s all I’m going to say about that.
When we were on the road, it was so freeing to be able to dispose of our waste ourselves using the Nature’s Head toilet! The downsides I’ve discussed just weren’t an issue in that setting. But being stationary at the homestead, they started to seem worse. And so, Brandon researched other methods. I’m still shocked at the beautiful simplicity of what he found. He built our new composting toilet as simply a wooden box with a toilet seat on the top and a 5-gallon bucket inside. We put down an initial bed of pine shavings and no longer separate the liquid and solid waste. After doing our business, we toss another handful or two of shavings on the top. It’s so much simpler! Other improvements are that it’s a much larger hole, so aiming isn’t an issue. And, unlike our original toilet, it’s okay to put toilet paper into the bucket. Previously, we needed to have a trash can for toilet paper. So far, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how cleanly everything dumps out and the lack of any odor in the camper. When the bucket is getting full, we take it out to a very large hole on the property and dump it in. Since it needs to be emptied more often it’s fairly light and not difficult to haul over to our hole. Luckily, I haven’t noticed any bugs or stench when walking past. That hole already existed when we moved in, so it made sense to fill it up with the toilet compost. But once it is full, we may opt to pile the waste from the bucket above the ground. According to our research it will take a year to fully compost after we stop adding to it. We would need to make a fenced-in area somewhere out of the way for long-term decomposition, and eventually, we would have two piles. One to dump fresh buckets, and another that is finishing its composting process. That’s totally achievable if we choose to do that.
The main downside of the new toilet is comfort. It’s too tall for me to sit on without my legs dangling, and the back of my legs press uncomfortably against the wooden edge of the box. I’m sure that those things can be modified, and eventually will be. But for now, at least I’m much less likely to waste time on the toilet scrolling on my phone! The only other thing is that removing the lid each time is annoying when I really have to go! I’m afraid that one day I’ll be in a hurry and forget to open it. But so far so good on that!
The positives of the new composting toilet far outweigh the downsides. I’m so happy that I took the leap and converted to this style of toilet. Do you think a composting toilet could work for you? Comment your thoughts below!
