compost toilet how to dispose of it

The people who get hepatitis in developing countries (or here) get it from the drinking water or sex or iv drugs or blood transfusions. Aside from eating fresh poop it would be pretty tough to get from dried out poop used on vegetables a few weeks or months before they are harvested and then rinsed before eating.

So my advice is that using humanure compost on your row crops is less dangerous than having a leaky septic tank too close to your well. But of course make sure you don't process the humanure compost too close to your well either.

And if we ever do humanure we'll use it on our bushes and trees not row crops. But our dog and cat manure gets all over our yard so we rinse our veg pretty carefully.

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I'm looking into the use of a composting toilet. I am recently widowed so I now live alone. The amount of compost I'm likely to produce according to 'the Humanure Handbook' is about 80# per year. I don't think that's enough to worry about. I can use it all in the rose bushes.

Compost. Read "Humanure Handbook".

Once composted, spread around the base of trees and shrubs.

When I build I'm going to install a composting toilet.

Lester Brown makes a good argument for getting away from the 'flush and forget' mentality in his free book "Plan B 4.0" because of all the water and energy it wastes. He also brings up the important point of reusing the nutrients instead of turning them into the Dead Zone or other pollution problems. That would reduce our dependence on fossil fuels used to make fertilizer.

I've read that outhouses are actually better at preventing the spread of bacteria and phosphorus than indoor plumbing because there is little water to carry them away from the site. The same should apply when dealing with the products of a composting toilet.

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I really don't understand the 'it's nasty' attitude against humanure. Composting it is a heck of a lot better than the flush and forget that is common.

Humanure for Dummys (Like Myself)
I read the “Humanure Handbook” and it presents a very complete analysis of all aspects of the subject. It is actually much more thorough than I needed or wanted. I found myself skimming through most of the technical stuff. I understand that it is very helpful to understand all that is going on in the compost pile but I tend to look for simple applications vs. complex theory. What I took away from the book is: wasting water is bad...creating a hazardous waste is bad...utilizing resources is good... the use of the resultant product in growing food is unnecessary.
This, of course, is based on my circumstances. Your mileage may vary.

Wouldn't the high ph of an addition like peat or the low ph of an addition like lime kill most human pathogens?

For those who don't want to eat any produce grown in human waste, don't eat anything from China.

I think the biggest issues with Humanure is heavy metal contamination isn't it???

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Heavy metal contamination? I am not getting rid of my cast iron pans... No way no how...lol

I apply it to my naturalized food/forage plantings that I don't plan on harvesting for the next 1-2 years.

I'm pretty sure NO diseases will survive out of the human body for long such as through composting.

Actually tape worms (or something similar to them) on initial ingestion from pork go to the intestine and setup shop, not to terrible, but their eggs are released in excrement. Ingestion of said eggs allows them anywhere, even inside the brain. Second time around is alot worse than the first time.


Granted this can be avoided, either by heating to proper temperature to sterilize everything, or by allowing aging to the point all risks are past prime and dead, but that requires alot of research into the various fecal bourne issues.

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I'm not an expert on this, but I think the heavy metal concerns are more related to municipal sewage sludge, because industrial waste water goes to the same sewer as human waste. As far as home scale humanure composting, it can't have any more heavy metals in it than are in your body already. Might be a problem if you have high levels of mercury in your body or you're doing some kind of chelation therapy or herbal heavy metal flush program. In that case, I would probably use the compost only on non-edible plants.

Absolutely, OLF.

People have been taught that there own excreta is somehow the equivalent of toxic nuclear waste. They don't stop to actually think through what are, in actuality, prejudices learned at mother's knee.

Poop properly composted and applied to one's garden - yes, even the vegetables! - is far better than poop going through the sewer system, being treated with all sorts of fascinating and unpronounceable chemicals that, while they do render the water drinkable, leave behind some questionable by-products.

Boo-boo, I'm a little surprised by your "third world" comment, and by your refusal to at least consider that our "Brave New World" may have the wrong concept when it comes to The Circle of Stuff.

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