Thank you Salua. The pleasure is all mine.

Thank you Manfred for your advice. I will keep this contact in my mind.

Hello Lauri, 

We have uploaded your thesis on to the SuSanA Library- here is the link:  Yleisökuivakäymälöiden jätehuollon kehittäminen luonnon virkistyskäyttöaluei (in Finnish) - Development of public dry toilet waste management in recreational wilderness areas, Case: Metsähallitus - Resources • SuSanA . 

Here is the abstract: 
"Dry toilets are one of the basic services provided for visitors in recreational wilderness areas. Operational environment for toilet waste management in these areas is challenging. At the same time the growing number of visitors in recreational areas is increasing the stress and loading on service infrastructure etc. toilets. The objective of this study was to recognize the major challenges in toilet waste management in recreational wilderness areas and to find alternative solutions to solve them. Study was commissioned by the Metsähallitus Parks & Wildlife Finland.

This study consists of toilet waste management surveys done in Finland, Sweden and United States, proposed decisions on toilet waste management on Finnish nature reserve areas and calculated estimates of potential nutrient loads to the environment.

Overall duration of the visits and the management of liquid toilet waste are the key issues when estimating the potential nutrient load. Meeting the requirements of the national law and regulations are hard or even impossible to achieve with available technology. On the other hand, the special characteristics of operational environment are poorly taken into account in current waste management regulations. To reduce the environmental risks and hazards for public health and work safety, more focus should be directed into reducing the amount of liquids containing fecal pathogens, like leachate. It is suggested that using urine diversion toilets and on-site urine processing, e.g. a small septic field, should be started. That would reduce negative environmental impacts but also would improve working safety and public health in national park dry toilets."

Thank you for your input!

Kind regards, 
Salua

Hallo,
Norway has many dry toilets since Norwegians have many cabins. At the University of Live Sciences (NUMB) there is Prof. Peter Jenssen who may be able to help you. You can send him a mail: Petter D. Jenssen;  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Dear Elisabeth,
I am happy to share my thesis to SuSanA library. My thesis can be uploaded here  urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2020051410168  .

If there is anything else related on this subject, you are always free to ask.

Thanks,
Lauri

Dear Lauri,
Thanks for your posts! Could we upload your thesis to the SuSanA library (doesn't matter if it's in English or in another language). If it can't be shared, could you please copy the abstract here and perhaps the conclusions chapter?
But I hope there is nothing preventing you from sharing your entire thesis with us.

The topic is important and we don't have much material on it yet in the SuSanA library or here in the discussion forum.

Thanks,
Elisabeth

Hi Rochelle,
Somehow I have missed your messages. Sorry about that.

I managed to complete my thesis in June 2020 but I am always interested to learn more (and get more contacts) about public sanitation in wilderness areas. Thank you for your advice.

Cheer,
Lauri

Hi Geert,
Thank you for your interest towards my thesis. Unfortunatelly there isn’t any published articles about my thesis in english but I am happy to tell more about my conclusions. You can also send me aprivate e-mail if you are interested lauri.varrigmail.com.

In my thesis I found out that toilet waste management and especially preventing negative impacts from dry toilets to environment (eutrophication and hygiene) is very complicated thing. Especially when working in a cold or freezing climate. Also one big issue is the national environmental legislation and the common interest to  solve the waste problem that exists but still is in the shadows of common interest.

I recommend you to check Toilet Tech Solutions website www.toilettech.com/  and learn about their system to handle toilet wastes.

Founder of Toilet Tech Sytems Geoffrey Hill has done also an interesting research   open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/u...s/24/items/1.0073570  that you should check. Information from Geoff (earlier messages in this discussion) gave me a lot new ideas for my study.

I think that Geoff´s idea to use a small scale septic field (presented in his thesis) for urine is a best available technology for handling the liquid waste(urine) in remote sites(my personal opinion). Only “weak” factor is that this system needs the urine diverting toilet system that isn´t available on every site. Like in Finland and Sweden, urine diverting toilets that actually diverts urine outside the toilet or actually work in cold climate are very rarely seen on public sites. Normally urine and feces are mixed together and the liquid waste is leachate in Finland and Sweden. Nevertheless, I see that Geoff´s idea to treat urine in small septic field has a great potential and In my interest in a
future is to test this system for leachate.
 
In my thesis´s conclusions I am trying to emphasize that it is important to look the bigger picture and not just one toilet. How to solve and manage the toilet wastes of the whole area? How the toilets are situated in respect of service connections(roads, etc.)? In some cases (high use, near roads)  the septic tank toilets and transporting the waste to local waste treatment plant might be the best solutions  although it is quite expensive and not very sustainable. How to manage waste from remote sites? Treated on site or transported to centralized treating unit? Liquid is always problematic to transport so it should be treated always on site at least on remote sites. Feces however could transported more easily for centralized treatment units like bigger composting unit etc.

One promising system for treating toilet waste in centralized unit (doesn't mentioned in my thesis) is microthermal process that can handle also septic waste (if I have understood correctly). Finnish company (Digital Toilet Systems Oy) has available technology for this and the system can treat toilet waste in 1-2 days and turn it to a hygienic fertilizers. Unfortunately there is only website in finish www.dtso.fi/ Founder of the company is a Raini Kiukas and she has done a long career in dry sanitations related matters in Finland. The company is also on their way to bring out some new systems for urine treatment.

I hope I was able to answer at least some of our questions.

Cheers,
Lauri

Hello Lauri,

Looking to introduce dry toilets in Belgian natural parks myself, I am very interested in your thesis.

• Do you have more (articles, ...) to read in english on your conclusions?
• Or can you pass me links to the best practice examples you found?
• I wondered if you found a dry toilet system that composts urine and solids together and excludes any risk of contaminating the soil of the place where it is located. 

Thanks very much,

Geert

Hey, just saw this, but in case you are still looking, check out Crater Lake National Park in Oregon, USA

www.rogueweb.com/crater/

warm regards, Rochelle



--

Rochelle Rainey (She/Her)

Global Health Bureau, Division of Nutrition and Environmental Health
Washington, DC 20547

Thank you all for your kind support for my Master´s thesis work. I got a lot of new ideas from the discussions, material links and contacts that you shared.

I got my thesis work (Development of public dry toilet waste management in recreational wilderness areas, Case: Metsähallitus ) published in May and I graduated in June.  Unfortunately  the report is in finnish and there is only a short abstract in english. Thesis report is available here:  urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2020051410168

If anyone has any questions concerning my thesis or the subject itself I am happy to help. 

Thanks to all contributors for some very insightful perspectives on waterless toilets. This was a great thread to read.

Lauri - I don't have any ideal sources to share, but two reports on the Sanitation Technology Platform (STeP) website briefly discuss sanitation in U.S. national parks. The reports are more focused on procurement and the market size though; less so on the technical details of facilities management. For a quicker review, it might be best to search for "park" in both documents to skip to the most relevant sections. The two reports are:

Market Insights for the Reinvented Toilet: U.S -->stepsforsanitation.org/2017/12/market-insights-for-the-rt-us/
Reinvented Toilet: Early Adopter Compendium --> stepsforsanitation.org/2019/02/reinvente...-adopter-compendium/