Hello Detlef SCHWAGER,

Thanks very much for your interest. With the urine intercepted (thus kept pathogen free), and with the feces mixed with a little dry soil and kept quite dry and odorless, I believe there are various quite easy manners to deal with both the urine and feces so they do not need to pollute but rather can enhance the environment. The urine from good UD toilets really have no feces mixed with it and the urine could immediately be drained into small slots in the ground in a future garden, or after a month storage inserted in the ground in a growing garden. Regarding the feces and soil mix, it could simply be piled for a year or more, to allow most all if not all the pathogens to dissipate. Since actually around 90 percent of human waste is liquid and does not need to be composted at all, the minimal 10 percent of waste being the feces, even if only good for trees or grass would not be such a big loss or issue. Yet I would hope there is a way with time and ageing, and without much labor and much heat, to attain safe garden compost even with the feces. Yet it appears some types of pathogens are hard to get rid of without quite high temperatures.





My main goal has been to find a simple and quite labor free manner of toilet sanitation as well as enhancing soil with the waste, rather than polluting the environment (especially for the most poor). The system I would really like to see tested is shown below as it would almost be labor free. I don't know if it is wise to drain the urine into the pile (as shown in the below diagram) as I now question whether the full fertilizer value of the urine would be preserved in the compost while the urine would also be infected with the feces. The below diagram is several years old and before I knew how pathogen free and valuable urine was. Even in the system shown below, greens and browns could be added to create the best compost and create some heat.



Regarding your question about the 4 cell container and keeping it sanitary, with a little soil added it keeps both the feces and container quite odorless. In testing I have poured the "feces soil mix" into a larger container inside our house and with little odor. I have been using dryer topsoil and with such the 4 cell container never needed washed and when emptied is largely odorless. Obviously this waste container would be more difficult to clean with the 4 cells, but it does not need cleaned after emptying. People do not worry about dirt in a flower pot and I consider this system and container a bit as such. Further the gate remains closed even when urinating and most always blocks this container. Above the gate it is quite easy to keep the toilet bowl white and appearing largely like a normal flush stool. Even when you open the gate to defecate you basically just see soil, and yes even with the gate open the odor and appearance is far improved over most or many pit toilets!

Regarding Terra Preta Sanitation" (TPS), I don't know much about such but one of my toilet designs might work well for them.

Again thanks for your interest.

Blessings
Amos

Dear Amos,

First of all, thanks for your generosity by sharing your experiences on toilet designs and others very open to all (The world!). I hope your example will follow many and constructive discourses come up more.

I understand your toilet design is basically a collection system and the actual composting is going on away from the toilet, like others (eg. Separett) doing so. I guess your collected liquids are a mixture of 95% urine and parts of the faeces ( I call it kake, you call it solid waste). Where is it going to after collection? I guess as well in the compost?

In this regard, might it be possible to use your toilet as well within "Terra Preta Sanitation" (TPS)?

As I can see many corners inside the toilet dropping area, how you can keep it clean, from the aesthetic point of view?

Regards,

Detlef SCHWAGER

Hello Forum Readers,



I thought I should possibly give a introduction to myself and my involvement with sanitation research. My interest in seeking simple sanitation and composting manners especially for the poor began after Google advertized for ideas that could help the most people. This happened a little over 3 years ago and at that time I had no idea that this valuable forum and organization existed, which was already working on that vital need. Thanks to those who started and are operating this organization and forum, which gives us the opportunity to share our ideas and combine our efforts in seeking and promoting better sanitation especially for the poor. Although I at first thought I was possibly the only one to advocate UD toilets I very much found out others were promoting and building what I believed was vital. It was not till just recently that I learned of this organization and forum and of the good work it is doing!

I thought I would share this video of one of my earlier toilets, although recently I have found some more simple manners to largely do the same thing.



I have been a baker and builder for many years but now have taken off for a time, to focus more fully on developing and furthering sanitation systems for the poor. Some systems I have been working on can be seen at www.exnapo.com . I have often been discouraged because it seems I can come up with good things but lack the ability or needed contacts to get them beyond the design stage. Thus I am not withholding any rights to any of my designs, so if someone or organization sees something or a feature they want to copy, feel free to do so. I would be happy to learn that my efforts were doing some good somewhere, so if someone copies some design feature I would appreciate it if I at least was told about it. I then also might be able to further improve the design to fit the very application the system is being applied to.

I have been very inventive from a child and sometimes I wonder if it is a curse or blessing. My mind is always searching for better ways to build it or do it, and almost cannot be prevented from that search. Further I tend to almost endlessly see improvements and new possibilities insomuch I sometimes can hardly get out of the design stage.

Some of the basic toilet designs and features that I been working on and feel have the most potential are spoken of and shown below. Many of the below toilet systems or features have been built and tested while some have not gotten that far.

One feature is a unique gate in the toilet that helps intercept more of the urine, and which only needs opened for defecating, and therewith most always nicely blocks out feces waste area. This toilet intercepts all the urine except when used by females with the gate open for defecating. Tests and calculations have shown as an average up to a 98 percent urine diversion.

Another development is a unique toilet with a gate, that simply sets on a common bucket, and efficiently intercepts the urine draining it elsewhere and preserves all the bucket space for feces only. If mass produced this bucket top toilet should not cost much more than one or two buckets to produce.



For more information click here
dl.dropbox.com/u/16411607/SimSan%20BucketMate.pdf

A third development or valuable feature is dividing the feces bucket into, up to 4 cells, which allow less soil to do the covering and further allows the bucket to have up to four times the capacity. A five gallon bucket has capacity up to 30 times of defecating with the covering soil, before needing to be emptied.



A forth development is a simple portable toilet that has a feces bin built in the back that can very easily be emptied (sort of like an ash tray on a wood burning stove) and a urine storage in the front that can be emptied through a attached hose in a sealed manner. This toilet also can be set up as a indoor toilet and where the liquid automatically drains away.


For a larger photo click here dl.dropbox.com/u/16411607/photos%20in%20...tained%20m%20l_4.png

A fifth toilet we have made and tested is a toilet which uses no covering material at all, and where the liquids and feces both enter the waste container. This toilet also has a gate that remains closed except for defecating, and with the help of the gate the toilet has been found to be odorless indoors by adding only around 1/4 cup of bleach a day to the waste container. I also made and tested a mixing system for this style of toilet, which mixes or blends the paper and waste, by rapidly twisting the toilet back and forth by twisting the handle one way and then the other, and which then allows all the waste to nicely be emptied through a 1 inch hose, and while the toilet gate remains closed. Such can make the toilet very convenient and sanitary to empty. We have also tested using floating oil rather than bleach as an odor control, and it worked quite well but seemed to slightly increase splash when defecating. I wonder if some type of long lasting soapsuds could be developed or discovered that would float in the waste container and cut odor and even possibly minimize splash when defecating.

A sixth development especially pertinent to dealing with larger volumes of feces and covering material, is a system which rather than needing to shovel or move the waste out of a waste bin, simply incorporates a waste bin having an open back and the bin is pulled away from the waste inside of the bin. The waste then could be covered with more covering material or a plastic. In do such the feces and covering material would not have to be moved at all until conditioned and decayed and ready for fertilizer.


For a larger photo click this link; dl.dropbox.com/u/16411607/photos%20in%20...und%20system%20l.jpg

A seventh development is a very simple elevator system to move the soil and waste from the toilet to an attached soil waste bin and which system also at the same time automatically adds soil to the toilet. By moving a large lever in the toilet room the waste and soil is moved back and up into a waste bin, while on the return of the big lever it would automatically add a little soil into the toilet.


For more information see this link.
dl.dropbox.com/u/16411607/new%20big%20lever%20toilet%20LD.pdf


I recently have been working on a simple soil scoop and soil container to use with small compositing toilets. It is a square scoop thus naturally having a flat front with which one can slightly press the soil and feces down (to thereby save covering soil if one desires). The special flowerpot container that goes with the scoop nicely holds the scoop so the flat front of the scoop always rests in the soil, and assures that the scoop will never fall out of the soil container making a needless mess. The end of the scoop handle has a little knob that fits through and behind the slot shown in the photo making so the handle of the scoop cannot fall in any direction. The little soil container shown can hold enough of covering material for a around a week for two people.



Presently we are testing minimum possibilities and are only flushing once a day with 1/4 cup of water which has just a little bleach in it. We had been flushing a little oftener but even after cutting back as this we have not yet had an odor problem. At the rate of 1/4 cup of water daily, a gallon of water would last 2 months and a gallon of bleach 6 years. Such minor flushing together with just a cup or two of soil after defecting, provides that so we have no odor indoors and with an unvented system. We have been testing systems similar to this for over a year.

Although this list of various toilets and features could go on I will stop here for now. As said before I am not withholding any rights to any of these designs so feel free to copy them in any way you wish. I just would be happy to learn that some of my efforts are doing some good somewhere! Again thanks to this forum for making this sharing possible. Your comments, questions or suggestions are very welcome. Further designs can be seen at www.exnapo.com .

Blessings
Amos Bender