Septic tank alternatives

A pair of composting buckets and one of the bins.

So, if you don’t have a septic tank or sewage connection, WTF? Turns out there two obvious alternatives to dealing with that: 1) Incinerating toilets, 2) Composting toilets. Here’s some quick notes on each:

1. Incinerating Toilets – Looking like a small toilet with a stove-pipe coming out of them, incinerating toilets seem to use a disposable liner system that drops waste into a reservoir that is subsequently (electrically) turned to ash for later disposal. Seem to run about $1800 or so. Pros include super easy no-mess cleanup (just ash). Cons would be cost and power draw. A fast search turns up a number of options, two of which are linked here:
   • Incinolet
   • Ecojohn
2. Composting Toilets – Basically a 5-gallon bucket with a toilet seat on it. As you use it, you scoop in sawdust to control the liquids and odor, moving it to a long-term, specialized compost heap when you empty it. All accounts indicate that this option is surprisingly easy and non-stinky, and we will likely experiment with it. Pros include the fact that it’s super cheap, and results in awesome compost (after a 2-year cycle) for the garden. Cons would be the potential “ick” factor (which seems minimal, actually), and the need to deal with a bucket every week or so per full-time human.The authority on these is the guy behind the Humanure website. He has literally written the book on the subject (as well as a number of other water/waste subjects). I’ve got his book inbound now, and will report back on it.
   1. Report on the Humanure Handbook

The long and short of this is that we are unlikely to find affordable land that is sewer-ready, and a septic tank might be such an expensive option (if we can do it at all), that we should seriously explore alternatives, even if it’s just as a cost-saving measure. All my research so far suggests that it can be relatively easily done, which opens our options out considerably!