Now that we are talking toilets: lets talk about the composting ones!
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Last weekend was the midsummer's celebration here in Finland and we were at the family cottage. We use a composting outhouse there and it's really brilliant! I prefer the thing to a regular toilet: it's more private, the styrofoam ring is quite comfortable and I find the technology (if you can even talk about technology as it's basically nature doing its thing) interesting! Normally outhouses are disgusting and awful, so it's surprising how such a simple upgrade makes all the difference!
It's very common in here to have one of those at summer cottages. I wonder if these are used elsewhere?
Anyways, for those who don't know a composting toilet is basically a big plastic bin with a hole on top, simple ventilation, a drain for excess moisture and a hatch in the back to remove pre-composted waste. After doing your business you throw some compost litter (store-bought one is made from a mixture of wood bark chip and peat or dried moss or similar) in to absorb moisture and smells. It's usable during winter too, although the compost eventually freezes, but it will start again once the cake thaws.
When it's working as it should and the usage is within its capabilities the toilet doesn't smell bad and also the stuff coming out looks and smells like, well, pre-compost. Once removed from the toilet bin it needs to further compost in another bin for at least a year before it can be safely used for crops and such.
The maintenance is quite satisfying: open the hatch from the back and take out a few buckets of pre-compost. The stuff is usually packed well enough to not drop down even though some of it is shoveled off from underneath. Close the hatch and push with a log or similar through the toilet hole to drop the cake to the bottom. Add some litter. There shouldn't be any need to mix the insides etc when used properly, except occasionally pushing the tip of the shit cake to the side to make room in the bin.
This time however there was an ant nest inside the toilet bin, in the middle of the stuff, which was quite surprising. One would think that environment is pretty hostile for ants, but I guess they like the warmth and easy food source (bio waste from kitchen is also discarded in the toilet). It seemed that the pre-compost was unusually moist, which could be the reason for uninvited guests, so I made a batch of compost litter mixed with some bark chips and other chaff to see if that helps.
