compost

The water toilet is truly one of the greatest miracles of modern life, a frothy disappearing act; now you see it… now you don’t. But washing human waste away requires huge sewage treatment infrastructures in cities, and extensive home septic systems for rural dwellers. Compost toilets, though in their essence as old as human civilization, have evolved to a point of technological sophistication whereby they tackle the minutiae of composting details to create optimal conditions for recycling human waste.

Take a look at the compost toilet tech out there for the non-flushers among us.

Nature is good at dealing with organic garbage: Bacteria turns it into plant food. Rural residents use this phenomenon to generate free fertilizer in compost piles. Rotting trash attracts rodents and repels neighbors, however, so those of us off the farm tend to throw out our organic waste along with everything else. But the NatureMill Automatic Composter ($400; naturemill.com) is like a Mr. Fusion for your garden. The size of a normal trash can, it produces enough compost to sustain up to a 400-square-foot plot, while a charcoal filter scotches any odor.