Permaculturing in Portugal

Projects	• Basic facilities	• Growing things
	• Building renovation	• Sanitation
	• Energy generation	• Water supply

Sanitation

Blog entries on this subject > >

We'll be building composting toilets along the lines of the system popularised by Joe Jenkins, author of The Humanure Handbook (downloadable free online). I like this system the most of all the ones I've looked at so far because it doesn't require the construction of a separate building (or allocating sufficient space) to accommodate a twin-chamber toilet and its composting bins below. There is no requirement to separate urine from fæces, and the composting system is efficient and designed for optimum thermophilic decomposition. It's also beautifully simple and easy to construct and maintain, and it's convenient and portable.

People became so enthusiastic about this system and their home-made units that Jenkins' toilets got dubbed "Loveable Loos" and he's now been persuaded to manufacture them for people who don't want to build their own.

Here's a video about them.

The only disadvantage to this system is that it's necessary to empty the collecting bins and wash them out on a regular basis, but the modern squeamishness about human waste products seems a bit odd to me. This isn't really any different to cleaning out the chicken coop.

Jenkins' composting method has been developed over nearly 30 years of use. He uses bins rather than heaps as the efficiency of the composting process relies on keeping the waste well contained in the centre of the material, surrounded by other organic matter and with a substantial 'sponge' of material below. This prevents smells and the likelihood of the waste leaching into the soil or watercourses in a raw state. The human waste is also well mixed with other organic material, vegetable peelings, cooking scaps, etc, which results in a more nutrittive compost than human waste + woodshavings alone (which Jenkins doesn't recommend using).