Gallery: The Future of Poop

Compost Toilets

Unless you lived with one, don't believe everthing that you read about them. I had a unit in my summer place for fifteen
years. It is not all roses, believe me!!

Some points for consideration....
With lack of power off-season what happens to process?
What is the "loading" when everyone comes to visit??
During the rainy season, how well does the unit dry its-self??
During the operation does the aroma hang low it the air??
Does all the Aroma vent through the stack or back into room??
When it gets filled and the "trap door" no longer operates properly, can you raise the seat to avoid sitting directly into it??
Oh yes and let us not to forget the necessary cleaning function that must be done from time to time.
A true green eco product? I don't think so... I,ve been there and I tried to love it... but playing with this product and the bi-products is not for the weak of heart.

oao thanks

http://www.aglik.com/vb/t15161.html

Oh gross. Just gross. Composting toilets may still be a good option where outhouses and non-flushing bathrooms are the norm, but in the civilized, squeamish world, they're a no go, pretty much for everyone, as the first commenter outlined. For the rest of us, the issue is sewage and waste treatment. There's no particular reason sewage can't have wastewater extracted and the remaining mass treated and then composted just as well. A much better option for about 90% of the people who would even consider going green in the first place.
As far as composting goes, most households make plenty of organic trash that could be used for the same purposes: http://www.ez-screen.com/interior.cfm?pid=ez%201200xl

Sounds like a failing business model to me. Toilets have evolved for a reason.

http://prosportnutrition.net/?a=633808700294218750

As water and fertilizer become more valuable you're going to see more of these efforts. There is already a movement towards these types of systems in the third-world where something like 1/6th of the worlds populations live in slums. These systems remove the infrastructure burden from communities and can be run as a business; charging people for access to clean toilets and sanitary facilities and selling the resulting compost to farmers to produce food. The systems profiled by the article are largely for folks who want to feel good about going 'off the grid', but truly productive systems like Anaerobic Digestion to produce Biogas and Slurry (which is the process used by many municipal systems in the United States) and Black Soldier-Fly composting would have been nice to see. Don't forget that biology is also technology Pop-Sci. :)