Home made composting toilet

campervanannie

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Mini Separating Toilet by Kayley Miles


Kayley says…
“This might help someone knock up a tiny and relatively cheap toilet. We have one in the boat already, this is for an equally tiny campervan, and will mostly be used for short weekend trips.

I couldn't find one this small and portable on the market. This setup was less than the cost of a separator.

I got the 15.5L toilet bucket for £13 on ebay but it appears to have sold out now. The same bucket is available on amazon.

The 13cm funnel is also from amazon. I've added a screenshot of the exact one.

Both the 1L bottles and 2.5L plastic tub are from H&O plastics https://buybuckets.co.uk/product/1l-light-weight-jerry-cans-with-cap/


The bottles and bucket fit perfectly. To secure the funnel and stop it wobbling about I found a cap that would fit the bottle (from a vitamin bottle in this instance) and drilled a hole to match the funnel.

The toilet roll/ sawdust holder was a bucket I initially planned to use for solids, but was too big. At least I found a use for it!”

*Vickys note: the small rectangular bucket is relatively expensive when you factor in postage and I can’t find them anywhere else at the moment, the 1litre liquid bottles are easy to find on eBay. The containers really are quite small.
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Funny enough was searching composting loo's the other day, cause I'm gonna give one ago.
Among the search results was a link to Etsy, interesting, I thought, I'll have a look.
The one for £50.13 looks interesting, but not too keen on taking it to dumping point.
 
If it wasn't for the awkwardness of a fitted shower tray/Thetford chemical toilet...

I would have gone down the 'Dry toilet' (most folks don't compost their toilet waste as the UK just doesn't have the facilities/infrastructure for folks to be able to 'compost')
And a bag it and bin it system a long time ago....
Small amounts of solid waste/dry cover pelleted wood cat litter
double bagged in bio bags in dog waste bins/urine container emptied discretely is a lot easier to deal with IMHO than the frankly nasty average chemical toilet.

And a lot are far nicer to use (especially for solids) than the equivalent porta potty.
 
I did not post this for people with motorhomes but we do have members out there who have small vans no onboard facilities I just thought it would be useful to them, I swear this forum is getting more like Facebook every day.
I really really don't get the 'proper toilet' type comments that are regularly made when the subject of compost/dry toilets crops up....
I don't know of many standard motorhomes that have a 'Proper toilet'... Big lump of porcelain and a full on cistern flush...
Most are lumps of badly designed plastic with a pathetic pump flush that need the accuracy of gulf war keyhole bomb aiming to not need awkward cleaning....

Very often the negative comments are made by folks that haven't been within a hundred miles of using a well designed dry/composting system....

A dry toilet system/bag and bin can actually be a great thing especially IF you are spending amounts of time off grid...
Certainly easier than sneaking into public toilets with a shopping bag trolley to surreptitiously empty a full cassette.
 
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Have meet a fair few people who have gone the dry route, all prefer it to conventional MH loo's. These are in proper MH's.
Have had the pleasure of using in a couple of different vans, perfectly fine.

The separate, bag and bin makes good sense to me.
 
I would buy one just for the name alone 😂
S&T started off as Kildwick (who are I think still going in their own element)

BUT S&T seem to have one of THE widest ranges of product from Basic DIY to fully finished all singing/dancing options....

Personally I'd be going for something basic for a motorhome bag and bin process (pointless having stirrers/complicated extract etc as you wouldn't be concerned about the composting process etc)

A nice big hole for those of us that don't have the best aim
And a decent sized urine bottle that's easy to carry/empty
Privacy flap/cover
And a nice bag of wood shavings/sawdust/pelleted wooden cat litter and jobbies a good 'un ;-)
 
What a clever idea and so simple …
I agree I would much rather go down the more natural route and if money and space was no object would have a more eco friendly system instead of the chemical nasty one we have now.
What chems, you should use bio wash tabs, iv done this from day one and it works 100%, no lumps or stink, just light brown water to poor down the garage loo when I get home, which will also last for weeks before doing so.
 
We have pee pots in our microcamper, a clicklock tub for her and a nalgene cantene for him. My denture steriliser has a 2nd use keeping the pee pots sweet. We are nearly always wild camping in the moors mountains and forests. We have an ice axe to dig a hole 6 " deep, off paths away from watercourses, for number 2s.
For the odd occasion where we must be urban for a night we have another clicklock tub, a bit bigger for an emergency number 2. It has a bed of soil and a bag of sand, sawdust would be an alternative, to cover the business before the lid goes back on. Next night which would be in forest we dig a bigger hole empty the poo tub, when digging our normal hole, wash, refill with soil and store away again.
The last paragraph is theoretical as in 2 years of the system there has been no urban/ emergencies.
If we are in frozen ground,/deep snow where getting to soil is difficult, we fall back on compostable bags. We have only experienced this cold problem tent camping.
I find that system cleaner, less smelly, less room taken up and no nasty chemicals (or suspiciously not really) compostable plastic bags.
It does of course depend on wilderness and would need adjustment for other overnights. The first post looks good for places where dog poo bins outnumber wild forests. Although even then separate pee pots seem easier I suppose depending on sphincter control:) and squatability, if that's a word.
 
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The clue to my reply (posted below) is "IMO" - In My Opinion, that means. So if other disagree, not a problem and that's ITO (In Their Opinion).

That's the idea of Forums .... sharing information and OPINIONS.

FWIW & IMO, one of the nicer things about having a Motorhome is a 'proper' toilet rather than a bucket.
 

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