THE POO FACTOR

 

Our outhouse

Regardless of where you live, there are certain things that are required of you. One of those things is the elimination of bodily waste.

In city areas, your poop is flushed down the toilet for anout of sight/out of mind reality. Most folks never consider where there body waste goes.

No problem. There are many people and processes involved in disposing of our waste—trash, garbage, poop—in a manner that eliminates any concern over our excesses.

Outside the city, but still in an urban setting, most houses will have a septic tank to receive the flushed elements of the toilet. Generally speaking, a septic tank requires a leach field for the overflow to "leach" out into the yard. These places usually have a well-defined path of green grass due to the fertilization and irrigation effects of the lines of the field.

In the off-grid lifestyle there are other methods used for the same necessities. Some people use composting toilets, some use an outhouse, and a few still use a latrine, which must be covered over and moved regularly.

However, there is still the eventual build-up of waste material that must be disposed of. What is done with this build-up varies among homesteaders. Those who opt for a permaculture design find ways to use almost every bit of "waste" they may produce so that nothing goes to "waste."

The outhouse pictured above is the first step in our system of disposing of human waste. It is not a two-person squatter, but a part of the system for composting the excrement.

One is used until it is full. When it is full, the other is put to use and the other sits until the second one is full. In our situation, this takes about 18 months.

Composted poop

The one which has sat "idle" for this time has not been idle at all. It has been working to produce some exceedingly fertile dirt. The photo to the right is a picture of the pot which sat "idle" for more than a year.

Enough heat is generated within the box receptacle to kill off any harmful bacteria which may be present in the composted matter. This could be incorporated directly into our gardens—flower and vegetable.

However, to insure maximum destruction of harmful microbes, the contents of the 'toilet' were added to our compost bin for further treatment. A layer of fresh chicken manure was added to the top of this dirt, and will "cook" for at least another 60 days. It will then be available for our vegetable gardens.

The photo at the left shows the texture of what was once human excrement after it has decomposed. We use sawdust to cover a "dump" instead of water to flush it away.

We gained much of our understanding from reading "The Humanure Handbook" 20 years ago. It is now in its fourth edition as people have learned about the realities of this resource.

Yes, there are other ways of disposing of your personal waste, but this way makes the most sense for us as we venture further into learning about living off the land.