6 ms·

Drying urine, transporting it, this is extremely energy intensive. There's a much simpler solution: composting toilets. Easy to setup, requires very little inpu

Drying urine, transporting it, this is extremely energy intensive. There's a much simpler solution: composting toilets. Easy to setup, requires very little input (basically just some dry material like wood shavings (i.e. waste from wood processing that you can sometimes get for free) and you're done. The "humanure" mixed with the dry material goes in a compost bin, sits there for two years, then can be applied to the local garden without any problem. If you have a vegetable/fruit garden you're actually closing a loop - giving back to your garden a good chunk of what it gave your body.

kingsloi 5y ago
My wife and I rented a Yurt in Fort Collins, CO, near the foot hills of Wyoming. The owner was super eco-conscious/zero-waste. I've not camped for a while, and haven't used anything other than a toilet for years, but something about doing my business in the out house really made the experience 10x better. I think maybe because I feel guilt whenever I flush a toilet that says "3.5-5 gal/flush"... that's a lot of water. I'm not sure the owner used the "humanure", but regardless, it was one less flush.
- kingsloi 5y ago
  Oops, I meant 3.5-5L/flush.
- ldiracdelta 5y ago
  One of the weird things about compost toilet is that septic systems exist. If you're on a well in Colorado, you pump up the water, do your business, filter the water through hundreds of feet of earth and then pump up the water again.
  - sgc 5y ago
    Probably not, the water will usually migrate quite a bit before hitting well depth, depending on underlying geology. Composting toilets are also useful in the mountains where septic systems need to be extremely deep or will freeze during the winter. I do see the space for a septic system designed for rotation - ie that uses a pipe material designed to last X number of years that then itself biodegrades, and can be ploughed and the field used once a sufficient safety fallow period has passed.
Schroedingersat 5y ago
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't post flamebait. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
notahacker 5y ago
They waterless separating toilets discussed by the article literally are composting toilets. The difference is they're proposing using the diverted urine to replace more energy-intensive commercial fertiliser production, rather than treating it as the less useful waste byproduct for people's gardens. (That and they're acknowledging that people who haven't chosen composting toilets tend not to like them, because the separating takes some getting used to and if you don't separate urine from faeces the decomposition is much slower and smellier)
Scoundreller 5y ago
Composting toilets usually divert the urine and drain it separately (gray water? Garden?) because it makes the rest too wet for good aeration and decomposition.
clairity 5y ago
what about contamination? urine is not always sterile upon elimination from the body, potentially bringing along bacterial, drug, and other contaminants.
- Panino 5y ago
  The composting process destroys pathogens by several mechanisms. The first is heat: in the pile, thermophilic bacteria raise the temperature through their own biological heat, killing E. coli, Salmonella, etc. My current pile was 149F (65C) yesterday. In a compost pile, those temps will kill pathogens in less than an hour. As a general rule of thumb the following temps/times kill pathogens in compost piles: 140F/60C for 1 hour; 130F/54C for 1 day; 120F/49C for 1 week. To measure this, you get a compost thermometer from a garden store and keep it in the center of the pile at all times, year-round. (The thermometer also serves another function: it indicates the degree to which your pile is biologically active, providing hints about moisture, carbon, and nitrogen levels.) So heat is the first mechanism for killing pathogens. Another is competition: the pathogens are directly killed by other bacteria in the pile. Once my compost bin is fully built, I let it sit for at least 1 year. The only thing to be really concerned with is certain chemotherapy drugs. Some of them not only don't break down in a compost pile, but they can cause cancer in people who don't already have it. The composting process is pretty amazing. It's vastly more hygienic than sewage (lol).
  - hedgehog 5y ago
    I would also worry a bit about accumulation of drugs like lithium and other contaminants like PFCs. My suspicion is long term closed loop use of toilet compost for food crops could result in unsafe levels of contamination, have you done any research that direction?
    - Panino 5y ago
      I don't know about lithium in compost, but in general, composting breaks down many pharmaceuticals (again, apart from certain chemo drugs). Composting does destroy some anti-cancer drugs like Salinomycin. PFCs may accumulate almost regardless, although I assume composting helps. After all, composting can break down gasoline, diesel, and TNT - though of course you shouldn't add them to a compost bin! Quoting The Humanure Handbook (4th edition) page 115: "About half the sewage sludge (biosolids) produced in the USA is applied to land, providing a significant opportunity for contaminants to enter soil systems and to bioaccumulate over time..." And page 117: "For example, brominated fire retardants were still found at almost eight thousand times higher concentrations than background concentrations in soil samples twenty years after the last application of biosolids. In another study, fifteen out of nineteen pharmaceutical drugs were still present in soil six months after being irrigated with contaminated wastewater." So PFC accumulation is already happening but not because of composting. It's happening because sewage sludge is being added to farm fields and new housing developments. This is part of why I cook with clay (in solar cooking) and stainless steel on the stovetop. That way my nutrient loop (eat, excrete, compost, grow more food) has the absolute minimum of PFCs and other contaminants. For more information, read chapter 10 of The Humanure Handbook (4th edition) by Joseph Jenkins.
somethoughts 5y ago
Kinda of reminds me of this fun video about a net zero desert house(/commune?). They proposed/demostrated a cycle that is basically Shower -> indoor plants -> toilet -> outdoor plants New Earthships capture more energy, water & food at lower cost https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVp5koAOu9M&t=1m45s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVp5koAOu9M&t=1m45s

kingsloi 5y ago

My wife and I rented a Yurt in Fort Collins, CO, near the foot hills of Wyoming. The owner was super eco-conscious/zero-waste. I've not camped for a while, and haven't used anything other than a toilet for years, but something about doing my business in the out house really made the experience 10x better. I think maybe because I feel guilt whenever I flush a toilet that says "3.5-5 gal/flush"... that's a lot of water. I'm not sure the owner used the "humanure", but regardless, it was one less flush.

kingsloi 5y ago
Oops, I meant 3.5-5L/flush.
ldiracdelta 5y ago
One of the weird things about compost toilet is that septic systems exist. If you're on a well in Colorado, you pump up the water, do your business, filter the water through hundreds of feet of earth and then pump up the water again.
- sgc 5y ago
  Probably not, the water will usually migrate quite a bit before hitting well depth, depending on underlying geology. Composting toilets are also useful in the mountains where septic systems need to be extremely deep or will freeze during the winter. I do see the space for a septic system designed for rotation - ie that uses a pipe material designed to last X number of years that then itself biodegrades, and can be ploughed and the field used once a sufficient safety fallow period has passed.

Schroedingersat 5y ago

dang 5y ago
Please don't post flamebait. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

notahacker 5y ago

They waterless separating toilets discussed by the article literally are composting toilets. The difference is they're proposing using the diverted urine to replace more energy-intensive commercial fertiliser production, rather than treating it as the less useful waste byproduct for people's gardens. (That and they're acknowledging that people who haven't chosen composting toilets tend not to like them, because the separating takes some getting used to and if you don't separate urine from faeces the decomposition is much slower and smellier)

Scoundreller 5y ago

Composting toilets usually divert the urine and drain it separately (gray water? Garden?) because it makes the rest too wet for good aeration and decomposition.

clairity 5y ago

what about contamination? urine is not always sterile upon elimination from the body, potentially bringing along bacterial, drug, and other contaminants.

Panino 5y ago
The composting process destroys pathogens by several mechanisms. The first is heat: in the pile, thermophilic bacteria raise the temperature through their own biological heat, killing E. coli, Salmonella, etc. My current pile was 149F (65C) yesterday. In a compost pile, those temps will kill pathogens in less than an hour. As a general rule of thumb the following temps/times kill pathogens in compost piles: 140F/60C for 1 hour; 130F/54C for 1 day; 120F/49C for 1 week. To measure this, you get a compost thermometer from a garden store and keep it in the center of the pile at all times, year-round. (The thermometer also serves another function: it indicates the degree to which your pile is biologically active, providing hints about moisture, carbon, and nitrogen levels.) So heat is the first mechanism for killing pathogens. Another is competition: the pathogens are directly killed by other bacteria in the pile. Once my compost bin is fully built, I let it sit for at least 1 year. The only thing to be really concerned with is certain chemotherapy drugs. Some of them not only don't break down in a compost pile, but they can cause cancer in people who don't already have it. The composting process is pretty amazing. It's vastly more hygienic than sewage (lol).
- hedgehog 5y ago
  I would also worry a bit about accumulation of drugs like lithium and other contaminants like PFCs. My suspicion is long term closed loop use of toilet compost for food crops could result in unsafe levels of contamination, have you done any research that direction?
  - Panino 5y ago
    I don't know about lithium in compost, but in general, composting breaks down many pharmaceuticals (again, apart from certain chemo drugs). Composting does destroy some anti-cancer drugs like Salinomycin. PFCs may accumulate almost regardless, although I assume composting helps. After all, composting can break down gasoline, diesel, and TNT - though of course you shouldn't add them to a compost bin! Quoting The Humanure Handbook (4th edition) page 115: "About half the sewage sludge (biosolids) produced in the USA is applied to land, providing a significant opportunity for contaminants to enter soil systems and to bioaccumulate over time..." And page 117: "For example, brominated fire retardants were still found at almost eight thousand times higher concentrations than background concentrations in soil samples twenty years after the last application of biosolids. In another study, fifteen out of nineteen pharmaceutical drugs were still present in soil six months after being irrigated with contaminated wastewater." So PFC accumulation is already happening but not because of composting. It's happening because sewage sludge is being added to farm fields and new housing developments. This is part of why I cook with clay (in solar cooking) and stainless steel on the stovetop. That way my nutrient loop (eat, excrete, compost, grow more food) has the absolute minimum of PFCs and other contaminants. For more information, read chapter 10 of The Humanure Handbook (4th edition) by Joseph Jenkins.

somethoughts 5y ago

Kinda of reminds me of this fun video about a net zero desert house(/commune?). They proposed/demostrated a cycle that is basically Shower -> indoor plants -> toilet -> outdoor plants New Earthships capture more energy, water & food at lower cost https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVp5koAOu9M&t=1m45s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVp5koAOu9M&t=1m45s