Here’s another “Too Green for Me” moment:
I was searching the web for more green ideas for my home. I can across this little gem of an idea. How about a Compost Toilet!
Now from what I understand, it’s definitely not an outhouse. It is a dry or waterless toilet that allows natural processes to change your poopies and pee-pees into usable compost or “humanure”. They will have chambers, usually one for collecting and one for composting or resting for one year before use in your yard. They are supposed to have little to no smell (I find that hard to believe. I don’t think they have met my family.)
The positives of a compost toilet: No water waste, usable waste, sends no sewage sludge to landfills***, if your children swallow anything valuable you can always dig through the storage unit to retrieve it, a great conversation starter (”Hey, my name is Chet, I compost my own crap. What’s your name?” or “Those are nice shrubs, Chet.” Reply: “Thanks, my poopies do make prolific peonies”.) and can be installed almost anywhere.
The negatives of a compost toilet: feel like you have a strange new hobby (poop collecting), eventually you would have to deal with the same crap, just on a different day and you would have poopies, poopies, and more poopies.
I can recognize that it would benefit the environment. But please, I will keep my low-flow toilet right where it is. I have enough poop issues over here and don’t want to deal with it twice. Plus, these suggestions scared me. One site recommended creating a natural flycatcher to collect any flies which may be hanging around and one site noted that most pathogens will die off but roundworm eggs may hang out for a year. So don’t spread the compost in your garden. Hmmm….tasty.
You can decide for yourself, but this is too green for me!
****My environmentally friendly husband works to design some landfills and wanted to share that sewage sludge is instrumental in the operation of bioreactor landfills. Because, the bacteria from the sewage sludge is needed to increase the rate of waste degradation, accelerate the generation of methane gas (which can sometimes be used or converted for power - green energy), and ultimately decrease the need for new landfills by creating more space through degradation in the present landfills. (Does he sound hot or what, ladies?)
some links on compost toilets: http://compostingtoilet.org, www.compost-toilets.com, www.composttoilets.net
