Hello Friends,

Attached is a PDF file of a toilet I have been working on. And as always some improvements have been made since. Below is a one page description of it.





If your time is limited skip the italicized text. Simple sanitation (abbreviated SimSan), can be attained by an inexpensive urine diversion (UD) toilet and a common five gallon bucket. The SimSan BucketMate UD toilet, which hopefully will not cost much more than two buckets to produce (or $8.00), could bring vital sanitation as well as fertilizer to poor countries who greatly need it. The SimSan BucketMate UD toilet should be inexpensive enough to be a private toilet for one or several poor families, and who would not donate $10.00 to give one to a poor family who has no place to go? All this toilet system requires is a standard bucket, a hose, and the SimSan BucketMate toilet, which could be enclosed in a simple three pole Teepee, which then possibly should be called a Weepee. In this system the urine is intercepted and drained away in the hose, and very little urine enters the toilet bucket which is intended for the feces and covering material only. Urine is by far the greater of human waste (about 90 percent), thus diverting it, not only prevents much mud and mess, but saves much space. Further when the toilet bucket is divided into four individual cells, it then only takes around 1.5 to 2 cups of covering material to sanitarily cover the feces, while further the bucket then can hold up to 30 times of defecating before needing to be emptied because the bucket has four separate cells to fill. The feces and soil mix without the urine has been found to be quite dry and easily to pour out of the small cells, and even quite odorless when poured out indoors. . We have tested toilet systems similar to what is explained here in our house for over a year, and know for certain that we could get rid of all our flush toilets and quite easily continue to have odorless indoor restrooms with various simple flush less toilet systems.

The SimSan BucketMate toilet not only intercepts the urine but also has a gate that fully isolates the feces bucket, which provides additional sanitation. With normal usage the SimSan BucketMate toilet intercepts over 95 percent of all the urine, thus keeping the feces dryer and easy to manage without adding much covering material. Regarding males this toilet intercepts all the urine even with the gate open, and regarding females (according to tests so far) it intercepts around 80 percent with the gate open. This calculates out to a 95-98 percent urine interception rate because most times the gate does not need opened and most times the toilet intercepts all the urine. The SimSan BucketMate toilet can be seen at this link dl.dropbox.com/u/16411607/SimSan%20BucketMate.pdf. Note many preliminary and different toilet designs relating to it can be seen at www.exnapo.com. What can be more simple for the most poor, and yet workable, than a simple BucketMate toilet as this? Does it not seem like it should be one of the world's most popular basic toilets and yet it appears it is not being made.

An interesting quote says, "Hurry up two billion people need to use the toilet and have no place to go" and which is sadly true Any help with getting this simple toilet to those who need it would be much appreciated and may you be rewarded for it. Below are some very good links!

susana.org/
www.sswm.info/category/implementation-to...cesses/urine-storage
permaculturenews.org/2012/02/23/the-howa...e-management-system/
www.ecosanres.org/index.htm
kabook-i.com/ .

Dear Amos,

Congratulations to this innovative toilet design! The solid waste gate and the mechanism to open and close it looks pretty sturdy and well designed. It is just the question if users will be able to open it always at the right moment J If an accident happens and the user misses to open the gate at the right time, it might be a reason to loose user confidence in the toilet. Do you therefore recommend to open the gate right away when siting down for a “long call”?

You seem to not use any kind of ventilation system. Aren’t there problems with odour since you seem to store the faecal matter inside the toilet for a while?

Best regards,
Christian

Hello Christian,

Thanks for your interest! This is my most simple model and to open and close the gate I usually use the tip of a squeeze bulb to slide the gate, which squeeze bulb is also used to flush the toilet bowl. For defecating you open the gate before you sit down, otherwise you simply leave the gate closed. Regarding odor you simply cover the feces with around one to two cups of soil and close the gate, and if covered properly there is no odor problem ever. A more expensive model would have a lever outside to control the gate.

I have been flushing our test model a couple of times daily using about a 1/4 cup of water (with a little bleach) and have had no odor, I now am testing flushing only once a day using only 1/4 cup of water with a little bleach in it. It appears one careful daily flush as this might keep the bowl odor free. A squeeze bulb works very nice as you can squirt in all around the bowl. If one daily flush as this works it calculates out to using one gallon of flush water in 2 months, and while a gallon of bleach would last 6 years. I am excited about this system as those who cannot afford a outside toilet could afford this inside model. As far as odor while being used for defecating it is very similar to a normal flush toilet. Odor is lessened because the waste falls into such a small cell. The four cell bucket minimizes odor, saves soil, and allows up to 30 times of defecating before all four cells are full. Obviously the bucket could be divided into 2 or 3 cells rather than four if more course covering material is used.

One bucket of soil would last a family of four around a week if figuring everyone defecating twice daily. Further composted material from the past likely would work for the covering material. It is hard to get people to change but I believe this could be a very good thing for those who can change and good in many applications.

God Bless
Amos Bender

Hi Amos,

Thank you for presenting this interesting system. In which country are you testing it ?
What is it made of ?
I am surprised when you say it should not cost more than 8$. From my (little) experience, producing plastic items (but what material is it exactly) such as toilet seats is not cheap, because you need to make the mould first. Where did you produce the first units ? Are they already on sale ?
Thanks.

Cecile

Hello Cecile,

Thanks for your interest. I am from Ohio USA. It is made of plastic. It is still in the prototype stage. I believe it would take around the same amount of plastic to make this as a 5 gallon bucket and such a bucket retails for $4.00. Yes molds cost a lot and to make these BucketMate toilets for $8.00 they would have to be mass produced. I can hardly believe myself how well this works. Just a little soil just a little water, just a little bleach, and no odor indoors with a system that should be very inexpensive. This link shows various models I have been testing and developing in the past few years and which lead up to this most simple model www.exnapo.com.

Blessings
Amos

Hi Amos, very interesting indeed. Might be interesting as well for the Terra preta guys.
I don´t understand the idea of water. From my understanding this has to lead to failure. Your observation, that it could be done without ventilation....did you try it out for one year in your house? That would convince me. I have problems to trust a solution without ventilation.
Really interesting your solution. I didn´t quite understand how it opens up, I thought it opens while sitting down.
Yours
Christoph

Hello Christoph,

Thanks so much for your interest. It needs so little water to keep it flushed it should not be a problem. Right now I am testing flushing with 1/4 cup once a day with just a little bleach in it. At that rate a gallon would last 2 months. So far no odor in the bowl. I had been flushing several times as such daily, using a gallon in around 3 weeks. I have been testing similar models in the house for over a year and if the feces is coved reasonably with soil and the gate shut their is no odor. Often times the toilet lid is even left open yet the gate needs shut. Regarding the gate you do not open the gate unless you need to defecate. On this cheap model you move the gate by pushing it with the tip of the squeeze bulb which you also use for flushing. Below is a photo of the model we are testing at the present. It shows the squeeze tube and flush water container as well as the soil system. This link displays other designs I have been working on www.exnapo.com.



God Bless
Amos

Hi again Amos,

Is the bucket underneath removable ? How often do you empty it (I mean,when it is full or every xxx days) and what do you do with the faeces + soil mixture, do you then compost it together with kitchen waste ?
What about urine ? What do you do with it ? Reuse ? discharge to sewers ?
(The exnapo website is still under construction)

"
Christoph, in France, most common toilets are composting toilets with no separation. They are made of a simple bucket and you add a cup of wood chips to cover faeces / toilet paper. The chemical reaction inside the buckets makes that there is no odor, even after a few days and without ventilation.
Best regards !

Cecile

Hello Cecile,

Thanks for your interest! Yes the bucket is removable and with two people using it only needs emptied around every 10 days to 2 weeks. As far as composting or conditioning the feces I have simply allowed the feces and soil to condition with age and without mixing. Tests should be done after a year to know the pathogen content, although by then the feces soil paper combination all looks like compost and good soil.

Regarding the urine I have simply have been putting it into seepage beds which I have been testing, yet it should be used as fertilizer as urine is safe almost immediately. Regarding www.exnapo.com hopefully it will work. I don't know what the problem might have been.

We have tested various unvented models for over a year and have been amazed how odor can be controlled with a little soil and bleach water.

I can hardly imagine not diverting the urine, as without doing so, the models we have tested have a bucket full of urine with about an inch of feces at the bottom and imagine trying to add soil or saw dust to absorb all that! If the urine is not diverted it almost must be a liquid system unless a tremendous amount of absorbent material is added.

The feces with soil has very little odor, while the odor of the urine is terrible if not kept sealed or some bleach added. Adding 1/4 cup of bleach daily to the urine will very much help keep the odor down. Yet I am focusing on sealed urine systems rather than using so much bleach.

I hope to shortly post more information about the various systems that we have tested and which are being researched.

Blessings
Amos Bender

Hi Amos,

Thank you for the technical details. Another way to block urine smell is to use devices similar to the waterless urinals (oil sealed or rubber type).
As far as separation / non separation is concerned, this is a long debate ! Both solutions work, both have advantages and constraints ... But if well managed, there is no smell. There are many discussions on this subject already (on the ecosanres forum)
I have separation toilets at home (ventilated). For feces composting I use earthworms. You can add them after a few weeks. It speeds up the process nicely. There is also a discussion on vermicomposting in this forum here

Cecile

Hi Amos,
let me try to get it totally clear for me.


So I guess I missunderstood you? The flushing is just to clean up the urine part? Could you clarify that to me? Flushing the urine bowl would make much more sense to me.

Yours
Christoph

Hello Christoph,

Yes, the water mixed with bleach, is only lightly applied to the inside of the toilet bowl, to keep it sanitary and free from odor. Indeed the word flushing could be confusing. The water and bleach controls the odor in the bowl, and the soil controls the odor in the feces container. Three years ago when I began working with toilets I would never have imagined that something so simple could work so well. I first built sort of an out house and used sand nor did I incorporate a small cell as now, and the odor could be noticed 50 ft away. As you likely know, years ago earth closets were made and soil was well known for odor control although sand does not work.

Blessings
Amos