Easy & Elegant DIY COMPOSTING TOILET - Better Than the Expensive Ones!

Here is a simple, easy and STYLING composting toilet build that works great!

[@EffieG-ez9tf]

Very nice build and saves tons of water. A note you might consider: before using the toilet, put in 2-3 generous scoops of sawdust or peat moss into the bottom of the fresh bag, sort of like a nest. Be sure not to use Cedar wood as it contains certain chemicals which are poisonous and would be harmful to any growing plants-for instance if the solid waste was actually disposed of into a compost pile that later was used to fertilize a vegetable garden. The veggies could absorb the toxins and harm whoever eventually ate them. One other comment: It looks like the white plastic insert under the toilet hangs down pretty low and into the bucket, potentially coming into contact with the waste inside. It might be easier if that piece of plastic was a little shorter, and didn’t touch the bucket at all. Just a matter of preference. Also, they say that you shouldn’t spray any odor reducer products (Clorox, room freshener, etc.) into the bucket with the solids as it will interfere with the ultimate composting function later.

[@judytinney5357]

Thanks. I have one and think they are great! I find it helpful and less 'yuky' to line the pail with tall glad garbage bags (2). When full, I tie them, and my stronger half carries the bucket with bags to a 'special spot' where he puts the bag. It sits there for a year or so, then, I take it to my raised flower bed and dump the compost and cover it, noticing no nasty smells. I do not separate feces (poo) from pee. The Humanure Handbook from amazon was a great read as well.

[@TheIntegratedGarden]

Awesome. Thanks for sharing.

[@richvail7551]

@@TheIntegratedGarden if you’re going in a bucket how do you separate the pee from the poo.

[@TheIntegratedGarden]

@@richvail7551 with this system you do not have to. As long as you adequately cover the waste with that carbon product, it is fine for them to not be separated.

[@cdevidal]

We do the same but use biodegradable trash bags. Much faster to break down, faster to decompose back to harmless nutrients as they’re made from corn.

[@TheIntegratedGarden]

@@cdevidal agreed. That's actually exactly what we do in our partially off grid RV now.

[@nickrich56]

I've been considering this exact method for my motorhome. No need for a holding tank and those headaches that follow. Sawdust is lighter than water to transport as well. Hygienic and odor free and "green" to boot! Thanks for the affirmation of using this technique!💪🏻🇨🇦

[@cdevidal]

We do it in our motorhome without issues

[@eveadame1059]

🚽Luggable Loo is an inexpensive 5 gallon bucket with a toilet seat, that you can purchase. Cedar Chips and Pine Pellets, are inexpensive to purchase at a Tractor Svpply Store. And just like adult and children's diapers, you can bag up your compost, and throw it into a trash can.

[@MrTubeman123456]

Ì do the same its great but u do have to disose of your waste ànd i dont like saw dust or pine its messy regular cat litter is better and some deoderizer spray helps and i use 2 bags at atime incase of leaks .

[@ThatAppalachian]

I built one identical to this for our off grid cabin. Works great! No clogging, no plumbing, no septic disasters, AND you get great compost!

[@u.s.militia7682]

I’ve been ripping up all my junk mail and using it. Works fine.

[@brianlopez8855]

Cutting a second small round hole in the top of the board by the side of the seat with an inverted glass jar screwed into its inverted holed fixed lid (to the board) will allow light into the box and attract the flies. If the jar has fly paper in it they will not get out but get stuck. It saves them flying up your bum when you open the lid to use the WC and reduces the flies on the poop in the bucket. It works well. Watching the flies in the jar while doing your business is also mildly entertaining.

[@JoseReyes-xs3js]

That is amazing ❤ i love it i thinking about doing this i got alot of tropical rare fruit trees in my back yard . Great idea 👍

[@MrTubeman123456]

Mine in my rv is very simular but i like another uses a bag and i keep a lid on the bucket with a handle works great .

[@TheIntegratedGarden]

Nice. Yea, we use liner bags in ours too (ours was inspired by theirs, but made that one change).

[@piotrsokolowski6535]

I like help earth (save water, do recycling and so on) and that's the reason I want to give second life for our resource 🙂 I read Humanure Handbook by Joe Jenkins (great book btw) conclusion how we should collect our resource is depend where we will dumpt it out. I have cottage on the country side and I decided to bought barel which work very well (I drill wholes to make way to enter a creature who live underground). To cover I used wood sheavings and I know for sure: If you want using that cover material should to be moisture (smell like forest after rain) In this year I start using wood dust . When I using dry wood shavings I smell a litle bit. Because our liqiud we may use right the way, I preferr separating resource. It is easy to cover smell if they are separated. Great job.

[@Stray1One]

Cheers man, I’m gonna need to build on in 5 days,

[@hummingbirdheightsfarm]

Very interesting, saw this setup in the video you had in southeast Colorado, magnificent property!

[@kathycurry761]

Thanks for sharing this video.

[@cherryyance1782]

Thanks

[@maatbastet5517]

Cat litter works well too

[@georgecarlin2656]

Charcoal instead of sawdust is even better because you're creating terra preta, but I mix mine 1 to 3 because just charcoal stains your hands.

[@jimderksen1653]

I have coal on my land very fine coal. I wonder if that would work?

[@georgecarlin2656]

@@jimderksen1653 not a soil biologist but imho it wouldn't, I watched hundreds of biochar/charcoal youtube videos and none of them ever suggested coal. If you're allowed to burn stuff you can make charcoal out of many things - tree branches, bark, corn stover, basically any dried plant that is thicker than regular grass because when you burn grass it's so thin that it burns straight to ashes.

[@sherrybradshaw6504]

great video. what do you do with the full buckets contents?

[@TheIntegratedGarden]

They empty the buckets into areas on their large property that need enriching (but not areas they are planting a vegetable garden at any time soon) to build future soil.

[@blumelia6332]

Really great to see how you are promoting a sustainable lifestyle :) We also liked your video about fungus gnats and have a question about it. Unfortunately we've had fungus gnats in our appartment for more than 2 years now and so far we haven't been able to get rid of them. We now tried your approach using Neem pellets solution for more than 5 weeks now. We let the solution sit for at least 3 hours, sometimes longer. To reach all the larva we watered the plants from the top as well as bottom watered them afterwards. In the end we let them drain thoroughly to get rid of excess water. The plants seem to be well, it definitely doesn't harm them, however we were not able to notice any reduction of the adult fungus gnats. When you started your battle against the fungus gnats about six years ago did you do anything besides using the pellets? Did you only bottom water the plants? Would you recommend continuing with this procedure after 5 weeks of not much progress? Thank you so much and continue your inspirational videos

[@TheIntegratedGarden]

Hello and thanks for the kind words. I would say that something is not right if it's 5 weeks implementing as you have described, yet no reduction. By pellets, do you mean those bigger dunks they sell? I don't specifically have experience with those. I can only vouch for the type that I buy, known as meme cake or meal. I definitely watered from the top in order to flood the top in order to get down into the larvae, similar to what you described. Sorry if any of that is less than helpful, but I hope you can get to the bottom of it!

[@blumelia6332]

@@TheIntegratedGarden Thank you for your reply :) We used neem cakes/pellets looking quite similar to those you used in the video regarding fungus gnats (unfortunately we could not copy in the link to the product, since youtube removed the comment). We used one tablespoon per liter plus one additional one. Stirred it repeatedly and crushed some of the pellets so that the ingredients could dissolve into the solution. How long would you let it sit? Way longer than 3 hours? And did you use the rests of the pellets (the solid residue) or did you filter that out, which we normally did. Do you have any other recommendations against those gnarly gnats that you might have implemented 6 years ago? How did you initially come about the neem cakes? Thank you so much

[@TheIntegratedGarden]

@@blumelia6332 I can only say that I am very surprised you had the experience you had and I'm sorry to hear. I'm sure there is an explanation, but just don't know where. I hope you can get to the bottom of it. 3 hrs should be plenty.

[@blumelia6332]

@@TheIntegratedGarden After just watching your older video about fungus gnats from 6 years ago, I have the theory that the concentration of the solution we created with the pellets might have been too low to treat our long lasting infestation. Maybe the grounded neem cake version is needed as well for lightely sprinkeling on top of the soil once and additionally for producing the solution since it will create a higher concentration compared to the pellets. We will try this for a while and tell you if we succeed.

[@clairabelle23]

Thanks for the vid - this is great ! Does this work for pee aswell as poo without smell ? Or getting too wet ? Also, what do you do with full buckets which although neutralized, wont be composted yet ? I dont have much land but could i empty these small buckets into a large plastic compost bin and say have two of these, using in rotation ? Only i would be using the toilet, so the larger bins would have plenty of time to compost down. Years probably ! Does this sound doable ? Is it ok to have them resting straight onto the earth ? Im guessing this is best, for worms etc ? And should I only ever use humanure on non edible plants ?

[@TheIntegratedGarden]

Those are great questions. Regarding the first, I find it works great with both pee and poo mixed or whatever (they don't need to be separated), especially when you use plenty of a good carbon (woody) product, applying as much as is needed to adequately cover the waste. Covering the waste = covering the smell. Unfortunately there's not so much I can tell you definitively about what to do with the compost or what to use it for, as there are varying opinions out there and different people comfortable with different things. Many would say you want to have the compost naturally heat up to 160 degrees or close to that (in order to kill certain bacteria), which is not easy to do. Yes -- no more time is good. And I personally wouldn't use it on my vegetables, but trees and shrubs for sure!

[@clairabelle23]

Thanks ! I will designate a large compost bin in a corner of my garden and see what happens in the next couple years !

[@maybenj25]

Do you also recommend separating the toilet paper?

[@TheIntegratedGarden]

Not sure what you mean by that.

[@maybenj25]

@@TheIntegratedGarden do you recommend separating the toilet paper from the poop? I’ve had a system in operation for years where people are supposed to put all paper products in a trash can next to the toilet. Or would you just put the paper with the poo?

[@TheIntegratedGarden]

@@maybenj25 Oh got it! Sorry about that. These folks did not separate the toilet paper. And that does make sense to me, as toilet paper is simply another source of carbon, so will add to the composting process nicely.

[@maybenj25]

@@TheIntegratedGarden yeah ok thanks. That’s the change I’ll be making going forward. Trying to streamline the process to make things easier for camp guests. Thanks a ton!

[@SailingwithMaury]

Does bucket fill quicker with pee included since it would hydrate the bulk causing more expansion ?

[@TheIntegratedGarden]

Yes, I believe it does a little bit faster, but that wood material didn't expand that much, surprisingly.

[@john-roywattie1483]

I'll be making a similar thing to this except I'll have a shoot with a sealed off opening & small door for it slightly on the side above toilet that you put the sawdust etc in to beforehand with a lever that will release it in to the bucket with out having to look back in to the bucket to scoop the saw dust etc in so all you need to do is pull the lever when you're done & walk away like you're flushing

[@nnovaroza]

What about urin? I saw some DIY compost toiletes that separete the two. If you don't separate them and use it in your compost what hapend? Do you have any experiences. Regadrs drom Slovenia😊🤗

[@TheIntegratedGarden]

These folks use the urine together in the same way, and do not separate them. Very simple. They let it all compost together, and then move it to certain parts of their multi-acre property to add organic matter and enrich the soil for future use (they do not use it in near-term food-growing beds for obvious reasons, even though it does compost fully and properly). Hope that helps.

[@nnovaroza]

@@TheIntegratedGarden thanks. I will make my own researche 😊 as I alweys do 😊.

[@libbyholt3863]

Hey, beautiful Slovenia! USA here. Nice to hear f/your neck of the woods. I had wondered same thing. Other KZbinrs do seem to be promoting urine diversion or separation, as you said. Problem is, not many of them say what they do with the urine other than divert it to their "black water tank," whatever that is. If you're nowhere near a place where it's OK to dump your black water, then what? I'm thinking there's a way to compost the solids that, done properly, will make it safe even for a vegetable garden, but I don't know for sure & I'm at an even bigger loss to know what to do with the urine. I know that heavily diluted urine can be a good source of nitrogen, but that's a LOT of nitrogen! We don't all have multi-acre homesteads upon which to spread it around! Lol. Recently, I ordered a book titled Humanure Handbook. I'm hoping it will go into more detail about what to do with the "end product" (bad pun?) from even as elegant a system as the one shown here.

[@nnovaroza]

@@libbyholt3863 hy, you can mix urin with water, 1/10 ratio, and use it for watering your plants. If you use pure urin it will damage, burn, plants even the tree. I did a researche. In 6 months I fill 2 buckets(cca 20l) with excrements and 50l urin per month. I already used the urin part because it is hard to store it. Excrements are in a separate compost. It takes 2-3 years to become usefull, somebody told me that. Well, I had a terrible 2022 year and I my garden didn't work as usual. I will take more focuse on it this year. I'll inform you😉. Wish you a fantastic year.😂🤗🤗

[@libbyholt3863]

@@nnovaroza Thank you! And, good luck to us both with our 2023 gardens. I, too, am hoping to do better. Lol.

[@daileypractice]

Where’s the liquid go? Mixing 1 & 2 is bad, right?

[@TheIntegratedGarden]

These folks do not separate the two, and it works just great.

[@daileypractice]

@TheIntegratedGarden I don’t recommend mixing liquids and solids.

[@TheIntegratedGarden]

@@daileypractice All I know is my family and I used it that way for 3 days and it worked perfectly. No smell. Just need to use enough carbon/wood product.

[@hmmm2564]

​@@daileypractice it is fine

[@victorjcano]

What about the P?

[@TheIntegratedGarden]

All works and absorbs well.

[@cbdislife2514]

That aerosol can on the counter isn’t good for the environment either. Lol. Use matches. They are compostable m

[@canigetahoooyyyaaaaa7319]

It’s pressurized room air. It doesn’t have propellants. Also all aerosols are fine for the environment now this isn’t the 1920s with cfs in hairspray 🤦‍♂️😂

[@canigetahoooyyyaaaaa7319]

And the match thing is a giant myth. It doesn’t make any sense and doesn’t work at all. 🤦‍♂️

[@funkarola]

I'm pretty sure you can't mix poo and pee...

[@TheIntegratedGarden]

It worked all the same.

[@funkarola]

@@TheIntegratedGarden thanks good to know - I guess maybe if it's left to compost for a long time? Everything eventually composts

[@TheIntegratedGarden]

@@funkarola Yep! :)

[@SupremeNeanderthal]

This does not work. The warmer it is the worse it is. In the summer they will have maggots leaving turd trails everywhere. To cover that stank up you need to cover 4-5 inches at least. So now you're competing with horse farms who buy up all the saw dust. Shavings dont work. They make pee diverters for a reason as well as composting toilet vent(fan) kits. 12 volt or 120 volt. It also helps to have a screen at both ends. Nothing compost in that bucket, you're just crapping in a bucket and dumping it very often. Off grid former bucket crapper.

[@TheIntegratedGarden]

Well... Still working GREAT for us. And definitely no maggots.