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  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Composting toilet for Community Garden
  • Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 12:01:37 -0500

On 2/23/2011 12:17 PM, Neil Bertrando wrote:
I followed this train of thought through till we hit some financial
setbacks. still on the drawing board for county approved toilets, although
we have some engineered plans we can share if you like....still need some
feedback on them too.

I may need to build one of these myself for use by intern-market-gardeners working part of my land I am loaning to a local food bank.

A few questions:
1) what to do if the CT is not a squat type but has an elevated seat:
how to deal with the possibility of the presence of black widow spiders
- distasteful question but necessary in constructing a working system

- I'll post more questions later today when I have more time.

I have several documents I can send you off list if you like as well.

My thoughts on high levels of use are either large batch chambers or a
removable batch container (ie. wheelie bin, 55 gal. barrel, etc.) so you can

The wheelie bin sounds like a good idea; has this ever been used?

manage for various use levels that may be unpredictable during the design
phase. In the latter case, you need to find a place to store these (an
passive solar, insulated cob closet???) In either case the system could
have a large footprint.

I prefer to avoid the urine diversion systems and balance with good
ventilation, a significant carbon sponge, and behavioral systems (i.e. guys
pee in the bush when possible), then drainage if necessary. for balancing

Always save pee in buckets to pour down gopher and vole holes and spread around gardens to deter deer.

moisture look at the wet tropics compost toilet systems.

also "the composting toilet book". by david del porto is a very useful
reference.

for temperature, insulation is important, you could also consider some solar
thermal air heaters, flat plate or tube collectors can be fabricated with

I would like to see some good flat plate and other solar thermal collector designs. What is a tube collector?

mostly recycled materials. not sure how well they would work at your
latitude, but you could set up some louvres to manage the system... here's
a website for more info and some designs.
http://www.knowledgepublications.com/heat/solar_air_heating_full_product.htm

RE: some resources here's the text from another email thread

best of luck,
neil

As per Request, here's the links I recieved, which demonstrate recent trends
around this issue in various states. Good starting places for contacting
people who are dealing directly with the process.

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/cities-contemplate-the-composting-toilet/
http://www.sonomacountygazette.com/blog/2009/12/sonoma-county-composting-toilet-project.html
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1945764,00.html

"Call the Inyo County Planning Department at 760-878-0263. Years ago a
strawbale house was put up in Independence, Ca that had the first permitted
composting toilet in California, I believe"

The Washington State Document was really helpful since they have best
management practices and codes as well as design criteria (although not
engineered specs).
the PDF link is
http://www.doh.wa.gov/ehp/ts/ww/Water_Conservation_8-29-07.pdf
also they have a whole array of documents listed alphabetically here:
http://www.doh.wa.gov/ehp/ts/ww/pubs-ww-all-bytitle.htm




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