Composting toilets are an advantage over flush toilets and supply gas, heat and fertilizer for farming. To make a composting toilet, build a wooden box (about .75X.75X.75 meter) out of scrap plywood with a toilet hole on top and a hinged door in the back with a latch. Add vegetable waste, earthworms, campfire ash and soil to your waste and mix it with a pitchfork biweekly. (The bacteria in the compost eat the vegetable matter and heat the compost to 40-60 deg. C). A polyethylene tube can be inserted in the box as a vent to release methane gas (which is burnable and can be used for heat or a flame). A polyethylene pipe (or a series of pipes) filled with water can run horizontally through the compost, heating the water to 40-60 deg. C for hot water and showers. The trick with this is that you need to make sure that you don't allow compost to leach into the pipe at the junctures. I suggest that if you experiment with this that you do it with a plumber. See also The Humanure Handbook: a Guide to Composting Human Manure by Joe Jenkins for more on composting human waste (highly recommended). In Earthship, Mike Reynolds describes a composting toilet and 5 systems of water reclamation (which is very useful for using water over and over in arid areas). A book on the 5 greywater systems is; Create an Oasis with Greywater: Your Complete Guide to Choosing, Building and Using Greywater Systems by Art Ludwig (highly recommended).
One of the primary reasons for death due to disease is caused by mixing human waste in drinking water. This can cause diarrhea and death due to dehydration. Therefore, it is important to note that in all toiletry issues it is important to keep your waste at least 66 meters from a running water source, and if it is not contained (like in a composting toilet) it should be underground by at least 1 meter. This means digging a latrine to a 1 meter depth or deeper, at least 66 meters from any water source, and not uphill from a water source. The reason for this is that our waste unfortunately carries bacteria that can pollute the local water. If the local water is polluted (including water well and pumped water) it will make you sick when you drink it and you can die from dehydration due to diarrhea. Ask your local hospital or university biologist about human and animal waste and the best local method for keeping water clean.
Caution: Remember when digging to contact the utility company to make sure there aren't power lines or water lines where you are digging.
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