composing on compost

COMPOSING ON COMPOST

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note: the donations for May, all included with Amazon commission, CD sales, Kindle sales and cash, was a smidge over $300.  Most excellent!  Many thanks to my loyal minions.  Just like April, I know it is not sustainable, but a welcome respite. 
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Back in the day, I wrote more than a few articles of disposing of your waste while living off grid.  I got a lot of minion complaints ( then, later, after I’m NOT talking about turds, I get minion complaints I’m not covering enough “country how-to’s”.  You can’t win ) because I guess it is better to talk about the best scopes for your AR than it is about your sewage.  I had to try a lot of different low cost methods, which made the discussion far more “interesting” than it had to be.  If I was a Yuppie Scum survivalist there would have been no other option than spending $1,000 on a Home Depot web site ordered compost toilet.  Which doesn’t necessarily work better than a $5 bucket except it appears more conventional and will probably keep Child Protective Services from taking your kids you drug out to the boonies ( kids don’t care-they live in the dirt happily ).  And that would have been the “cheap” option.  I love reading how Yuppie Scum think they can prep frugally-it is really quite hilarious.  Not so hilarious when I spend $5 on a Kindle book and it turns out they are full of crap and I wasted my money, but I still try to see the lighter side of their utter moronic retarded douche bag cluelessness.

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Human sewage is an easy problem.  It has its own compost pile.  That is about as complicated as it needs to be.  Keep the rain and bugs off of it and you eliminate other issues which might arise.  And urine is just like rain.  Don’t mix your solids with your liquids.  Urine diluted eight or ten to one, water to pee, makes a great fertilizer and doesn’t have the pathogenic issues that solids do.  It is just nitrate fertilizer ( if you aren’t using it for black powder manufacture, use for fertilizer ).  If you have a covered turd compost pile you eliminate most grossness factors ( besides the catching and hauling aspect ), and if you have a solar covered turd compost you eliminate the need to mix and aureate.  Dig a hole, throw in a decent size plastic trash can ( with a heavy duty trash bag inside if you want to cut down on odor absorption ) and cover the whole with a piece of glass.  Boom, solar composting toilet.

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Now, there are a few more details.  You’ll want to keep this sucker under glass at least a year after filling, to assure that all the little nasty bastards really are dead.  On cloudy and cold days the microbes lay dormant, reanimating as soon as the heat pick back up, so the process isn’t continuous.  That means you’ll need more than one hole dug.  And more than one plastic trash can.  Obviously, trash cans will be in short supply after Wal-Marts turn into charred ruins after the riots and after the last slow boat from China has ceased deliveries ( fun filled fact.  Container ships use “bunker fuel” which is a grade of petroleum UNDER asphalt.  The stuff is solid enough to walk on when unheated.  Polluting as hell, too.  Amazing someone figured out how to burn the stuff to propel huge ocean going vessels ), but the cans are just for use now to keep the appearance of your toilets sanitary should any humping county inspector show up.

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After the zoning police no longer appear, just fill the hole ( without a trash can ) and leave the glass over it unopened for two years and you should be just fine.  The difference between the compost toilet and an outhouse is that a composter is safer and doesn’t smell.  There is no need to use lime or suffer during its use.  It might fill up faster with the organic material additions and need to be moved more often, but you can use the toilet inside and transfer your waste.  No visits outside in the middle of winter and no flies buzzing around.  The hole doesn’t need to be so deep, either.  It is safer to use on human crops, should you choose ( I’d only use as a planter for a tree, rather than in the garden, but if needed…).  All you need to do is make sure you have dried material to use in a receptacle.  Dried leaves, sawdust, etc.  Fill the bottom of a five gallon plastic bucket with that, do your business ( remember, solids only ), sprinkle some more on top.  The bucket should have an unmovable seat built around and on top of the bucket.  The snap on seat for $20, made just for buckets, is easy and lasts a long time but it isn’t as comfortable as a permanent cabinet built around the bucket.  Nor as sightly.  Keep the sensibilities of the wife in mind.  Also remember that modern toilets are not as…conducive… to helping in the elimination process.  A bucket partially buried in the floor, still in a cabinet, or a foot rest raised quite a bit up, allows the position of the body to be more natural.  In other words, sitting in a chair is unnatural for the act of defecation.  The ass closer to the feet than the knees is much better.  So they say.

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Partially fill a bucket with dried organic material, fill, dump in the composter and leave undisturbed otherwise, then leave unopened a year after filling.  Make another spot to use in the meantime.  And that is about it.  I would suggest a plastic liner, if available, for the bucket.  Thrown away after every filling. It keeps the bucket smelling fresher.  The pee bucket?  Don’t take too long in between cleanings as the urine smell gets horrid.  And of course don’t fill too much before disposing of.  And don’t dump undiluted urine in the same spot or the smell will become a factor.  Now, on to the really easy solar toilet. Not composter, toilet.  I’d advise against using in a wet and rainy clime, obviously.  This is more of a Western use unit.  A piece of plywood for a platform, then two auto tires stacked on top of that.  Then a glass sheet over the tires.  Leave your turd in the middle and allow to dry.  Baked to a completely moisture-less lump.  Throw away somewhere relatively far away off walking trails.  Safe and non-stinky.  Leaving them unburied is better as it keeps them mostly dried out with no microbes brewing ( you’d probably want more than one turd oven for cold overcast weeks ).  I know there is methane manufacture, and is actually the best use of your turds, but I’m really not conversant on the building methods ( I don’t like the tire tube method as those aren’t long lasting.  Perhaps a sealed five gallon plastic bucket and a copper tube to a propane tank?  I’m not sure.  Perhaps a future article, but only if you are lucky ).

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