(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.)
Proper Two-Year Composting System
There are various types of composting toilets but the remainder of this article refers to the inexpensive types, not the fancier commercial ones that compost in a chamber below the toilet. I’ll let you explore that option on your own.
Proper humanure composting uses a two-pile system and only a small percentage of the material in the pile will be humanure, especially considering that your poop on average is only 25% solids. Once your compost pile has received humanure material for a year, plus kitchen, farm, yard, and garden waste, it then begins its resting/composting year. You’ll typically have it in a bin or “compost corral,” covered by a thick layer of straw, grass clippings, or leaves, and you won’t access it again until the resting year is over, during which you’ll be using pile #2.
By the time the pile is disturbed again at the end of the second year (I use March 21st as an easy-to-remember move date for each compost pile), it will be 100% pure humus, E. coli-free, black gold ready to improve another patch in your garden. I wouldn’t hesitate for a nanosecond to let my grandchildren help me haul it out to the garden and spread it around, or drive their toy trucks through it before I till it in. There is nothing bio-hazardous about it and it’s no longer humanure, but humus.
With the two-pile system you never turn the compost, thus minimizing contact with the humanure before it’s converted to harmless humus. Reaching elevated composting temperatures is also not a concern as long as you are using the two-year rotation method. E. coli, which does not form spores, can only survive outside the human body for “weeks to months,” not years. Salmonella on the other hand, referring to the type which occurs in the majority of bird and chicken digestive tracts as well as on their bum feathers, can survive 400+ days in compost and soil and is a much bigger threat in composting. Yet we think nothing of letting our chickens and our children run free range all over our homestead, putting a bird feeder up on the back deck, or cleaning the chicken coop and tossing it all into the compost pile where it will almost certainly end up in the garden. The vast majority of human sickness from E. coli comes from animal dung, yet we feel no threats when we use their manure in the garden.Continue reading“TEOTWAWKI Toilet Options – Part 2, by St. Funogas”