Nature's simplicity.

[Thales]

Down here in Australia we have an ongoing water shortage due to a prolonged drought. This got me to thinking about water usuage and ways to minimilise it. One of the large waste of water IMO is toilets.

 

Plants love the stuff we don't want, is anyone here also of the opinion that utilising most of our waste as food for the garden would not only benefit the garden but work us slowly away from the centralised infrastructure that is holding us back. It would save water, electricity and most of all money. Sometimes we out do ourselves in overcomplicating things such as going to the toilet...

[pulkit]

Its well and good to think of saving water. But really, if you stopped going to the toilet and use the garden instead I am pretty sure not many people would be willing to visit your house in the future )

[Skye]

The expensive and elaborate sewerage systems we have are designed to prevent disease. There's not much point helping to solve one problem if you then go and make a whole new one. But we can recycle water, more and more water is being recycled onto council parks, sporting fields and water intensive agriculture like hydroponics.

[Thales]

I am aware you can't just 'go' in the garden. What I am talking about is treating the waste on site and irrigating the garden with it.

[YT2095]

that would work, but you`de have to leave it for quite some time, as it`ll be too "Rich" and kill many types of plants by scortching the roots, even horse manure has to stand for a good 6 months or more before it can be used.

[drz]

composting toilets.

 

http://store.yahoo.com/sancor/enwatremsys1.html

 

The Envirolet® Waterless Remote System (120VAC Electric) is ideal when you have space directly below your bathroom either in a basement or outside. The Waterless Toilet (shown on the left) goes in your bathroom and is connected to the Waterless Remote System (shown above). The highest capacity Envirolet® System available

[Callipygous]

you can also purchase an incinolet. you crap into an envelope which then gets incinerated. my friend has one at his cabin, we now refer to it as "making a deposit"

[coquina]

is to use "gray water systems". Gray water is non-sewage waste water - ie, rinse water from washing machines, dishwashers, etc.

 

It requires two sets of piping, but gray water is superficially treated to remove soap and other non-sewage contaminants and sent to a holding tank where it is used to flush toilets in the house. In a gray water subdivision, the excess gray water can be sent to a containment pond where it can be used for irrigation. This means that only sewage has to go through the full treatment process, cutting the the volume way down, which in turn cuts the cost of treatment. It is also important not to allow runoff from storm sewers to get mixed in with "real sewage". The biggest expense is the upfront cost of a dual piping system.

 

If there was enough support, a tax credit could be allowed for those who agree to spend the extra money.

 

When I was growing up in southeast Virginia - everybody had a "graywater system". There were no city sewers, so everybody had a septic tank, and everybody knew not to run washing machine water into the septic tank. The typical fix was to dig a large trench running to the ditch - the trench was filled with oyster shells (which were available in abundance). The oyster shells filtered the soap scum out of the washing machine water, so what hit the ditch was clean.

 

It was, at least far superior to running washing machine water into the septic tank, which caused the tank to overflow and send solid waste down the drain fields, which then broke out in the yard.

 

Then - in the 70's, the "powers that be" decided it was unsanitary to run washing machine water to the ditch. Following that, there was a very distinctive odor of "Eau de pooh" whenever it rained.

[coquina]

A "Lectrosan" Is an alternative marine toilet used for boats that are kept in salt water. (It is what I have). It uses electricity to break down the sodium chloride in seawater into chlorine gas and treats the sewage with that. The drawback is that it is an electricity hog. When the boat is plugged into shore power at the dock, you're ok - if you have a generator, you're OK too - if you have to depend on a 12 volt battery, you're rapidly in deep poop - literally.

 

http://www.raritaneng.com/products/waste_treatment/lectrasan.html -

 

Seems like there ought to be a way to extract the methane and use it to burn the waste. There have been cases of holding tanks exploding - Ewwww Yuck!!!

[ydoaPs]

open the top of your toilet and put rocks in it. it will make it use less water.