How to Make Humanure Compost with a Composting Toilet

So with a flush toilet basically you take really nice clean drinking water and our poo and mix the two together both wonderful resources when you mix them together you create a toxic problem. So with a compost toilet system you're able to capture that amazing resource and take care of it and treat it in a way that removes any pathogens or problems and create a wonderful resource you know why would you buy in manure when you've got this resource right here. We basically use the style of toilet described by Joe Jenkins and his Humanure Handbook which is essentially just doing your business into buckets and covering it with a nice cover material usually sawdust and then we hot compost it in a pallet framed compost. Composting toilets like composting your own poo processing your own toilet waste is a real basic fundamental thing that we should all practice. It's a a simple way of being of demonstrating self responsibility it took us a long It took us a long time to lose our shitphobia our phobia of fecal matter we've lost that now not that we handle it we don't have to handle it. So welcome to our toilet for a start it's composting toilet bucket batch system. We've got cover material which we use old sawdust from the mill it's already got bacteria and a bit of fungus in it it's good. Our toilet is here it's full it needs emptying so I'll put a little bit more cover material on the top just to top it off and that will just get lided and then placed over here until we have about 10 of them and then we'll make a compost and so we put a bit of cover material into the bottom of the bucket and then back in here and it's that easy. So you make your deposit put but a bit of cover material on and leave it. And then when we've got a certain amount of buckets we go to the compost and add straw and garden waste and kitchen waste and we make it, build it. And this is one I did maybe a week ago and we'll put the compost thermometer in here and see what we're looking at we're still looking at 50 degrees, it's going up. It got up to 65 degrees the other day I recorded it at that. You know there are pathogens you have to consider there's roundworm eggs and all these different kinds of worms eggs that you that can exist in your manure and if you do a hot compost that's the safest way because you can nuke all those things within hours. If you can't heat it up if you don't get to that hot temperature then you can just let time and microbial competition do it's magic so you have to leave it for an extra year rather than nine months has to be left for two years if you don't get it hot. So you build a dish under there you build a dish so any juice that goes on here goes into the middle rather than out the sides because you want to keep it clean then you build I go over to the willow trees and get some sticks and put a network of sticks underneath to keep it up off the ground and then I use straw or grass dry grass over the summer I cut grass and dry it out and make a pile and use straw when I haven't got enough of it and then make a nest and then put the humanure into the nest in the middle and then layer of grass or a bit more straw and I usually chuck a little bit of old compost in there too to sort of seed it and you don't need to do that but I do that and then more buckets more of a nest more buckets and then cap it off with weeds and straw and stuff and then I put the thermometer in it because that gives us an accurate reading as to whether it's fired or not. So we've got 52 degrees after a week so that's going to start to move down now and over here is what you get. I put it in a bag but you don't need to. That there is about a year old it's got lots of worms in it. We put all our garden waste and all our kitchen waste in here but the worms are a good sign if you've got worms that means it's not too acidic. Mmm yum, good stuff. And that goes straight on the garden and the plants love it and we love the plants. So we've been sort of doing this style of composting for about four years and yeah it creates a wonderful resource that we use on our garden. I mean when it's finished composting it doesn't look like or smell like anything like poo it's just beautiful black compost. Okay so I'm just adding humanure compost to our lower bed and I just dug that garden up and I'm just going to sprinkle it around like that and then I'll dig it in and we'll just dig that in and it should be ready to plant, it'll be perfect. We can use it on our garden because we've monitored it closely, we've watched the temperature we know all the pathogens have been nuked and we feel confident in our process and so we feel safe to use it in our garden. Composting toilets are integral to a closed-loop system where waste is captured and reused rather than being sent away for someone else to deal with through expensive, polluting, and energy-intensive processing. A well-managed composting toilet does not smell or attract flies and many people have them inside their homes. The first step in composting humanure is overcoming our socially conditioned fear of poo and viewing it as a resource rather than as a waste product. It's for everyone. Anyone who wants to take more responsibility for themselves and not pass it off. Everyone who values their poo. Anyone can can do this it's just really a matter of being engaged and wanting to do it and getting the knowledge it's a knowledge based system. Love it. Wouldn't go back. Once you start composting you don't go back. I value my poo. I value your poo too so you're welcome to leave a deposit before you go it's sort of expected actually, no pressure. You don't get stage fright do ya? Hey guys thanks so much watching this shitty film I hope you all enjoyed it. If you want to be notified when the new films are released be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel or you can sign up to the mailing list at HappenFilms.com. I want to say a special thanks to Mike Davey and Patrick Mckinney for their generous donations to Happen Films. So thanks again for watching guys and I'll see you all in the next film.

Channel: Happen Films

Views: 155,774

Rating: 4.9389977 out of 5

Keywords: permaculture, compost, toilet, composting, humanure, composting toilet, fertiliser, fertilizer, how to, tour, veggie garden, vegetable, gardening, garden, growing food, sustainability, sustainable, growing, food

Id: JAcEvs3Bxjs

Length: 7min 14sec (434 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 21 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/BellisBlueday]

Great to see the end result - I'll be using a composting toilet today at the allotment but I haven't yet seen what comes out at the other end

My local allotments received a grant to add some facilities a few years ago - including the composting toilet. It's not a bucket system, but rather a long drop directly into the compost pile. There are two pits, so once one fills up, they move the toilet bowl to the other side of the toilet cabin and start again

[u/yWZOQfT1p]

Now how to convince my county to let me do it.

[u/birch_baltimore]

The Thermopile Project in Marin County, CA, (the website has not been updated in at least several months, but the project is very much alive). Studying how well outdoor thermophilic composting destroys pathogens and degrades micropollutants like pharmaceuticals.

[u/pholly]

Up shit creek with a paddle, nice one Greg!

[u/[deleted]]

Check out the progress being made at OAEC in Occidental, CA. They (Miriam Volat and staff) received county permits for continued research and development.

https://oaec.org/our-work/projects-and-partnerships/compost-toilet-project/

[u/PermaPerspectives]

Awesome video! I've used many a composting toilet and never had a bad experience. Don't let regulation stop you people! There are creative ways to get it done! Esp. on a small scale =)

[u/woodshouter]

I know people went away from night soil some time ago as a fertilizer as it was the cause for the hookworm issues that plagued the Southern United States during the 1800s and early 1900s. Does the composting toilet resolve that issue? I know modern plumbing, sanitation and shoes should resolve a lot of the issues, but, I know this is how a lot of the regulations against night soil came to pass.

[u/d6x1]

I'm thinking, If I ever have this, I'd have to install next to the compost toilet a bidet or a conventional toilet with water spray hose for cleaning up. Dry wipes don't suffice for me

[u/untg]

Thanks, I was literally talking to a friend about this the other day!! He has a property with no sewage system so I mentioned the composting toilet idea to him.