The Brown Revolution - Monday Magazine
Posted By: Samantha Magnus
05/19/2009 8:00 AM
Composting toilets may be the flush of the future
Ashlie Ferguson appreciates poo. One Monday night in February, the UVic student hosted a poo party in her James Bay home, complete with turd cookies (okay, macaroons) and chunky chocolate-dipped bananas. The celebration was for Ferguson’s new self-built composting toilet, so the treats had the secondary function of, uh, fuelling the endeavour.
The guests’ reaction was a mix of fascination and disgust. “The initial concept was a little off-putting, but all aspects of queasiness have been subdued,” says fellow student Brendan Anderson. Since he lives close by, Anderson jokes that he now comes over just to contribute to the project. But for Ferguson, recycling her refuse is the next step in living an environmentally conscious life. “It’s a whole new way to walk the talk,” she says. She is simply extending green eating to the follow-up; that is, what to do with food ex post facto.
Ferguson is not alone.
Eco-gurus Ann and Gord Baird—the couple behind Eco-Sense, the aggressively green home and lifestyle in the Highlands—are already veterans of the composting toilet. They adapted their home model for the Highlands municipal council, which recently rubber-stamped B.C.’s first public composting toilet to be built this summer at Eagle Lake.
And yes, all aforementioned compost will be used to grow food, an idea that is both new and “ew” to most. “People have this thing attached to human waste,” says Ann. She quotes Joseph Jenkins’ The Humanure Handbook, which calls this “fecalphobia.” The stigma, as explained in the book, comes from early industrial days when diseases were bred by poor waste management. Worse, spreading raw feces or “night soil” over farmlands was once practiced in China, which made many people sick.
No wonder we limit our excrement exposure, preferring the system of what Ann describes as “push a button and it’s gone.”
Even the Highlands council’s first response was “very cautious,” according to Bob McMinn, former Highlands mayor and current parks and recreation association chair. But for Eagle Lake, a clean composting system was the very best option; an outhouse would risk contaminating the lake, and a port-a-potty’s favourability lessened when the existing unit was vandalised and chucked into the water last summer.
According to McMinn, it was “both progressiveness and the applicability of the situation” that motivated council to approve the composting toilet, which also features cob-construction and a living roof. The contents will be emptied by a volunteer team and added to the Bairds’ own compost heap until another secure site can be made.
As well as being productive with poo, composting toilets save water. For many people who tour the Bairds’ home, Ann says that the “water conservation aspect” is often a bigger highlight than the composting itself. According to the province’s Living Water Smart campaign, we drink only three percent of our potable water, while 30 percent gets flushed; Canada also use more water per capita than any other country besides the USA—largely because of our toilets. “Four percent of the world’s water is fresh,” says Ferguson, “and we’re shitting in it.”
The favoured model works like this: the toilet is a cabinet or even just a box with a typical seat and lid on top and a bucket inside to catch number ones and twos, plus toilet paper. Another layer is added after every deposit—wood shavings or sawdust work best, but leaves or even shredded newspaper will do the job, absorbing moisture and odour and creating a nice loose framework that will allow plenty of air inside what will become the compost pile. Good layering is essential to keep the whole operation from getting gross.
The bucket gets emptied outside onto a compost pile, then blanketed on all sides by hay; this keeps in the heat while the aerobic thermophilic bacteria pig out. And yes, the pile really does get hot: up to 60° Celsius in the summer. Each heap piles up for a year, then sits for a year, before it is used as compost—all following The Humanure Handbook recommendations—with the end product being rich, dark dirt. For the Bairds’ family of four, the buckets in the bathroom need to be changed every four to five days, and yes, humanure is perfectly legal. “There are no laws against buckets,” chuckles Ann.
The bacterial analysis of the Bairds’ compost (which includes kitchen scraps as well as the family stools) reported zero risk of pathogens. Thermophilic composting works with or without poop, doesn’t smell (no methane, which is an anaerobic product), and can decompose almost anything, as the Bairds testify through a favourite anecdote about composting their late pet chicken, Spring—whose body disappeared within four days of being added to the heap, leaving “a few bones, a few feathers and nothing else,” says Gord. “It’s the cycle of life,” adds Ann. “Things die and things decompose. It’s completing the nutrient cycle.”
True, manufactured composting toilets can be bought, yet none rate as highly as the simple bucket system. Models like the Biolet (starting at $1,499) heat up to evaporate urine, while the Ecolet (from $1,699) is electricity-driven, Sunmar (from $2,285) requires you to add peat and turn a crank and the Destroilet (no longer on the market) incinerate everything inside. According to online consumer reports, all are prone to failure and all demand Al Gore-class budgets. “I’ve used one of them,” says Ann. “I won’t say the brand, but it was a lot of work. If you have moving parts and human waste, things get messy.”
Indeed, the Bairds’ bathroom’s simplicity is part of its cleanliness; there’s no clogging, no plunging, no splash and, without water, no chance of overflow—which inspires the couple to use terms like “waterless toilet” or even “earth closet” to describe the technology. “How we talk about it all depends on who we’re talking to. If we’re writing policy we call it a ‘no-flush toilet’,” continues Ann. (“It raises less eyebrows,” adds Gord.)
Clearly, the Bairds are big advocates of both the policy and philosophy of composting toilets: the output must be good for finances, the environment and future generations. “That’s the three bottom lines right there,” says Gord. Ann puts it this way: “Human beings are terrestrial animals and our waste belongs on the land.” When we dump our dumps, she explains, the nutrients are lost and the land is depleted.
This is also an important point for Ferguson, whose is eager to replenish the land in her own garden. “People are so disconnected from their food,” she says. “This is the ultimate reconnect.” True, she’ll still have to wait two years before she can reap the harvest, and although she’s both a renter and a rover, Ferguson is committed enough that if she does have to move, she’ll pack her compost pile with her.
Not all her friends match her enthusiasm, however, and prefer the standard flush-toilet when they visit. Ferguson isn’t fazed. “I think it’s just a habit thing,” she says.
Meanwhile, Ferguson tries to hold her stuff in whenever she’s out of the house. “It’s money in the bank every time I go at home,” she laughs. “It’s the coolest thing I’ve ever done.” M