The wheeled bucket idea sounds like a great innovation – thanks for sharing, and let us know how it goes!

Margaret

For more information about the humanure toilet, visit humanurehandbook.com, or just read the humanure handbook, which is free on the web.

- I have links to both your published and online handbook on the “resource page” and encourage visitors to read your book on other pages of the site as well.

You will find that the book clearly states do not let humanure receptacles freeze, keep the compost pile covered to eliminate flies (which it will do entirely), etc. The receptacles do not leak and cannot contaminate water supplies. They also produce no odor whatsoever when properly used.

- True, but I am simply reporting how the community actually used the receptacles and the humanure composting system. The containers leaked because they had developed cracks (probably because of improperly storing them outside during the winter) which is why they ended up contaminating the cistern. The containers did smell, although this was probably due to improper cleaning and their age (some buckets were several years old at this point). Members did know they should cover the compost bins well, but the actual adherence to this policy (and interpretation of it) varied quite a bit by individual. There was also an additional problem with animals getting into the compost bins.

To be done right, the community would have had one person or a dedicated crew doing the humanure composting, or else each family doing their own. The compost bin does not need to be a quarter mile away for obvious reasons. It should be near enough for easy emptying of compost material, including food scraps.

- Absolutely agreed. As I mention in the article, the community had many difficulties in how they implemented the system which I don’t blame on the system itself, but on community organization. If you read the post carefully, you would see that at the end I actually recommend that small family units may find this a very useful system. I do not think that it is useful for larger units, however, without considerable social approval and organization (which our community did not have on this matter).

Also, I have heard of people caliming to splash themselves with “human waste” when emptying humanure receptacles. People who can’t empty a toilet container without splashing themselves should not be doing so. Having emptied them myself for 30 years and never had that problem, I can only wonder what the cause of your problem could be.

- Nearly every individual in the community complained of this problem during the summer months, and it is not only in this village that people have experienced this difficulty. Instead of coming across as insulting and condescending, perhaps you could try to come up with a more productive take on resolving this problem that many seem to have?

Or is this web site intended to promote commercial compost units?

- Quite the opposite. I actively support the use of humanure toilets in many sections of the site, but I do want to give a balanced and honest view of both my experience with the system and prepare people for using the system – or suggest they consider a manufactured model if that is in their best interest.

In which case, providing incomplete, erroneous or misleading information about the essentially free humanure toilet would be to your advantage, but unfair to the humanure concept. Humanure toilets have been used with good success at large music festivals – no flies, no odor, no contamination, no waste, no environmental pollution. You can see video clips of these systems at humanurehandbook.com.

- Thanks for the plug again for your book and website, but I don’t think there is anything misleading about providing an accurate report on an individual’s personal experience with the system.