Dealing with Human waste .

In the event of a disaster it is possible to deal with human waste in the short term can dealt with in a simple manner. Two methods come to mind a chemical Toilet and a bucket with a lid. However in the long term some problems arise once the Toilet or bucket is full .

What do you do with the human waste ?
You have to avoid poisoning water supply and having sewage around for health reasons.

Any thoughts on how you hygienically depose of human waste ?

Well, if possible, burn or bury it. But both should be done a bit away from your shelter to avoid disease carriers like flies or rats close to your living space.

If you are dealing with a longterm SitX, you might want to recycle your waste, put it on a compost to let it rot and become good soil and use that to grow food.

Or, if possible, you could try to build a biogas plant. Something like here.

I imagine that in event of a disaster depending of the type of disaster human will go back to the primitive ways of life, including food consumption becoming natural.

Once the body get rids of all the toxins of mother life, like processed food, prescription drugs and others, human waste will not be that harmful anymore.

It could be used for fertilizer.

LOL - not sure id use human waste as fertilizer, even if you are eating organic food. I may be wrong but i think only plant eaters waste (cows, horses etc...) should be used as fertilizer.

With regards to waste i believe it all depends on the situation...

If you are in a nuke shelter you need to limit your exposure to fallout. In this situation you will need a lot of plastic bin liners (trash bags) Once the waste is in the bag pierce the bag a few times and throw it as far from the shelter as posible. If you do not put holes in the bag the gas, that is released from the waste, will cause the bag to go pop!!! not very nice... It also doubles as a way of attracting flys... If the flys are busy with the bag they are not busy with your stinking body!! hehe

Once you are in a situation where you can venture out more i would recomend burning or digging a hole far from your camp site/base and not near any streams/water sources you may need to use.

I would like to add that i am no expert in this... so please feel free to correct me

If you don't trust your poop as fertilizer directly, you can collect it with other organic waste in a compost and use the decomposed endproduct as fertilizer.

Thanks for the replies.
A compost bin seems like the most practical and useful method of deposing of human waste. The only problem that needs to be dealt with is transporting the human between your toilet and your "processing" point.
This seem to be the only link of any usefulness
link that I came across via Google.

[edit on 29-12-2006 by xpert11]

The oldest public health law in the United States required its citizens to dispose of their waste by burying it under the ground. The soil is a natural filter for the bacteria and viruses which are found in waste as well as converting the nitrogen, phosphorus, etc into forms which are not harmful for humans. Their is however a limit to this filtering capacity. I.E. Dilution is the solution to polution.

In Iraq we had this problem at first. We cut 50 gallon drums down to about 2 ft and put them under our toilet seats in a makeshift wooden out house. When they were about half full, we would pull them out, mix in some fuel, and burn it. The problem was that it was hard to get it all to burn. The solution was to take turns standing over it and stirring it with a stick while it burned. If you ever have to use this method be aware that it will "pop" and you can get splattered with small drops of burning crap. Other than that it worked well.

LIke some one said above it depends on you situation. If you are trying to survive in the woods byyour self or in a group of three or four I would say dig a pit far away and down stream from you. nature will deal with it. If ur in a large group, then I would say burn it unless u are trying to hide from some one because burning it would make smoke. If you are farming use ur waste for the live stock's food and the live stock's waste for your food.
If you on the run I am not sure I know groups like the SAS actualy carry their waste out with them to reamain undetected.

Sounds like a small slice of Heaven! Plus, I'm thinking, What about the backsplash over that half-drum y'all were using!


But seriously, If I was on the move, I wouldn't worry about it too much. If I stayed around my castle, I'd go with an outhouse. Course I could use my toilet till the septic filled up. Just gotta hall water from the creek and not flush as much.

The best way to deal with human waste is to bury it or to compost it. It does indeed make great odorless compost if you do it right. "Night soil" as it was commonly called has been used for centuries around the globe. In some areas there was even competition to get travelers to use outhouses as the farmers valued the nutrient addition to their soil. If you are thinking long term then perhaps it would be wise to invest in a modern composting system. They are very simple, proven to be effective, and the best environmental solution.

Here is a link to the best manufacturer of composting toilets: www.clivusmultrum.com...

Thanks for that Terapin, good laughs keep me young and healthy, isn't learning fun? I REALLY would like to find out more about this subject. I'm going to check out that link right now!

EDIT: The system seems to be set up using fans and water insertion. How did they do it in the Old Country? Or maybe I missed something, I love low tech!

[edit on 30-12-2006 by HimWhoHathAnEar]

You can do it with no fans ... if you don't mind the smell. The composting may take longer as well as the fans help to dry it out. Basically you need to let nature do its work. Add some roughage like grass clippings or popcorn, drain out the liquids and in no time you will have good fresh smelling soil.

I would just start filling up the car of someone I didnt like with it.

man I am getting more evil as time goes on.

Yep burn it or bury it or start a compost pile. All great choices.

Composting is really the best possible option. Mix with sawdust to make it easier to handle.

However, one must ensure that the compost pile is getting adequately warm. Once the thermophilic bacteria take over, and heat the compost pile, all human pathogens will be killed off.

Temperature is key in composting animal waste... needs to be hot enough to kill pathogens.

So no composting in winter I take it? Direct sunlight is spring/summer be enough? Thanks

My pile steams all winter... the temperature of the inside of the pile is what's important, not the ambient temperature. While I would imagine ambient temperatures affect the degree to which a pile can heat... the interior of the pile should be pretty hot irrespective of the temperature outside... this is of course dependent on the size of the pile.

[edit on 1-1-2007 by kallikak]

So it will heat on its own then? Maybe leaving undisturbed is the key? How often to turn over? Thanks

Yep... the bacterial metabolism makes the heap quite hot indeed. As far as turning over... honestly... I do mine kind of sporadically... maybe once every 2 to 5 weeks is probably the best estimate. I would imagine that you can do it more, but I just kind of do it when I get around to it. To a certain extent, letting it sit longer might be better in terms of heat generation. Though there is a fine balance between allowing heat to generate and letting the most active organisms run out of food. The trick is to keep metabolism maximal via disturbing the pile infrequently vs. keeping a fresh supply of food available for thermogenic microbes.

I do let the chickens rummage around in there as well... they help to turn it over quite nicely believe it or not.

I remember as a child my father telling me that the reason human excrement was toxic was because we were omnivores, and that the problem didn't exist for herbivores or carnivores. Coming from a long line of gardeners/country folks I tend to agree and would be very nervous about using human excrement as fertilizer.

I remember in the Girl Guides (and please don't ask how many years ago this was ) we used to dig a trench, place buckets with seats over the top, and they would keep 30 or so of us going (bad pun there) until the end of camp a week later!

Smelt a bit towards the end of the week, but by then we'd learn't the technique of breathing through our mouths!