Burn Your Shit

I don’t know where I heard about incinerator toilets before, but I thought about them today and thought I’d check them out.

First post I found on the net was on this blog.

Here is a little excerpt,

“The gateway to Hades opens up and everything within a couple inches is sucked into its gaping maw. The toilet then incinerates your thoughtful gifts at a very high temperature. I’m guessing somewhere around 8,000 degrees Fahrenheit or the surface temperature of the sun, whichever is hotter. The manual says 1,200 degrees F. For those of you recipe freaks, that’s 1,200 degrees for one hour, then cooled to 130 degrees over the next 45 minutes.”

nice.

I’m looking into off-the grid options for human waste disposal. I looked into composting toilets and composting shit before. But I like the more elegant solution of grey/black water wetland systems much better. Now, if you don’t live on your own land or in the woods, the thought of walking around with a bucket full of shit and thinking about where to dispose of it, gives me kind of a headache.

But there is another option, incinerator toilets. I just had a quick look at them and they seem pretty cool. Clean and handy, you only have a little bit of ash to deal with, less smell and disgustingness then with other sustainable toilet options. The drawbacks are that you have to buy and burn paper liners, that it uses electricity and that it may create some slight air pollution.. to me, the positives seem to outweigh the negatives here. As a on-the-go solution that is. Still love the wetlands idea best I think.

And with under $2000US I think those toilets are pretty affordable.

This is how it works.

And here is a nice instructional video.

Have you heard of incinerator toilets before? What sustainable solution for toilets do you prefer?

 

The Pee and Poo Show

The title of this video was just too great to pass up!

I about heard people using humanure before and i thought that would be really, reeaaally gross!! Like crapping into a field kinda gross. But the method the woman in the clip is using looks actually pretty straight forward. Not straight forward enough for me mind you, i’d prefer it if the grey water from showers and washing machines was hooked up to the toilet. Doesn’t make sense to me that that isn’t standard by now..

I think the clip is great though. Really hands on. Literally!(Watch it!) If you hear people talk about sustainable living, people mostly talk about growing a vegetable patch or re-using building materials, but you hardly ever hear people talk about crap. Now i know having a composting toilet would be pretty hardcore and you have to start somewhere and it’s not for everyone, but if you wanted to live sustainably and off the grid, that would be one of the major items to think about. Also, this is obviously not a subject people talk about as enthusiastically as for example how their new tomato plants are doing..

I heard about a filter system before, but i haven’t really seen how it works yet, where the human waste is filtered through different garden beds and the plants(obviously not plants meant for eating) filter all the shit out. If you know more about that or have any links to it post them in the comments! Also if you know of other sustainable ways of dealing “with your shit”, post them too! What method do you prefer?