During the winter here (central Ill.) when its too cold to keep the bins outside because the worms would freeze, they get stacked off to the side in my one room “home” next to the barn. And the bins are simply the 30 qt. totes they sell at Wally’s for $5 or $6. Drill a few vent holes above the level of the material and your done. Not to mention that over time you wind up with a lot of worms which can be used for feeding poultry or other composting jobs. It is so simple, so easy to manage and the end product is to die for. What’s not to love?

I am, of course, bracing for an eruption of “it absolutely must reach thermophilic temperatures to be safe” and so on. I don’t have scientific data to prove the point, but I’ve found it to be completely safe and not in any way offensive anywhere along the line. I handle the end product with my bare hands all the time and its just not an issue. It is, after all, just poop (before its processed), not nuclear waste or something. Its not any more biologically threatening than a dog’s waste or that of a pig or any other non-ruminant and none of those products is treated in any way. In fact lots of folks use the pigs to till the garden for them.

So I’m hoping this can be discussed as another option, but I’m also kind of expecting that there may be some strong disagreement.

David

people all around the world have done this forever… cloth diapers may seem like a “natural” option, but there weren’t fuzzibunz 1000 years ago, lol! and not everyone in the world today has the money and time to acquire and wash lots of cloth for diapering.

of course you still need to figure out what to do with their pee and poop anyway, but reducing your waste stream of sposies or washing resources for cloth (and resources to make the cloth diapers!) can only be a good thing.

This design works in Colorado (more sun than some places). But the idea is sound. Basically use solar radiation to heat the place where you sit as well as the compost. Solves a key humanure problem in cold climates, keeping th epile working over the winter.

For those that can use it, something along these lines seems like a very sustainable solution…

There a quite a few posts- best idea is to search for THWASPCO, and “potty house”.

This is not a short term solution- it’s a long term, even permanent one. Substantial construction required. The outcome, though, is a fully sanitary facility which composts the poop- and you don’t ever even have to shovel it out. That was a surprise to me, but after 20 some years, it’s true; the 3 composting pits have so much extra capacity that by the time we need to rotate to the next pit- the material in it has had time to decompose entirely to water and carbon dioxide- which just disappear up the stack.

The value of human poop for fertilizer is substantial, to be sure. Processing it to remove disease threats requires vigilance, though. The THWASPCO basically puts disease organisms into a dead-end world, where most will just disappear, die, and- compost. A few things might survive- bacterial spores can be nearly indestructible- that aspect is untested. Since we never shovel it out, though- it’s a moot question.