Best media for composting toilets..........

[Hawaii stealth van]

I confess that I have been using a bucket and double/triple bag toilet for many periods in my life............when building and no toilet, when camping etc and I have used sawdust, soil, lime and even 'rid-x' and never had an odor problem when layering it properly.
1] sawdust [or soil], 2] poop, 3] a sprinkle of rid-x, 4] then more sawdust[soil] to top it off.
Then I leave the bucket with a cover for a month or 2 and it becomes the best top soil/fertilizer for my trees and no smell at all.
Just thought I'd share my poop experience with you guys..................

 

[maki2]

I tend to prefer magazines to read for my toilet space media versus music or movies. I am a traditionalist

 

[Hawaii stealth van]

I knew that reply was coming my way in using the term 'media'................I asked for it LOL!

 

[maki2]

OK serious answer this time. Making a choice means you need to put on your thinking cap and do some analysis of what works and why certain products work better than others for a composting toilet where urine is separated from the poop.

Clay based Kitty litter is heavy to start with. It does absorb moisture but then instead of only helping dry out the poop it just keeps hanging onto the moisture for quite a while longer as holding onto moisture is one of the properties of clay. It does eventually dry out but not rapidly enough. Of course if you are just using it to bag and solidify urine as well as poop and then toss those single use bags into the trash it works well for that because it absorb the liquids quickly so that the urine absorbs into the litter.

But if you are using a compost type of toilet where you are only dealing with covering poop and you are not going to change the bag out immediately then....
Sawdust and the cedar animal bedding and the wood based kitty litter formulas pull the moisture out of the poop and then will release it off the surface of that media to evaporate into the air around it. It will work best for evaporation if you have the toilet vented to the outside air. So those media make a better choice for a separating compost toilet than clay based kitty litter. Saw dust will hold onto moisture longer than the flaked cedar chips but it will also be more effective at coating the poop than the larger chips of wood used for animal bedding. So I think the finer sized flakes of wood chips used in kitty litter are perhaps the best compromise, it is better than sawdust and better than animal bedding size particles. Think things through, try to understand what is happening during the whole process from A to Z, that will allow you to make an informed decision rather than just looking at the most common answers given. This is science, engineering and product development thinking time added into making decisions, it is not just about what other people do when they copy what other people in forums say. The best choice of what to use is based on the physics of evaporation. Wet poop equals odors.

There are some paper based litters. I have not tried them, I do know they will absorb the urine rapidly so they will work for the use it and bag it right away toilet setups . What I don't know is when used in a composting toilet how quickly they will pull the moisture out of poop and then how quickly the paper will release the moisture into the air.

Of course the least expensive source for compost toilet material will be free sawdust collected from cabinet making shops and lumber yards or construction sites. Oh and some people use leaf litter that they collect in the woods but that can contain bugs and spores. Other people use peat moss but there are some environmental concerns about harvesting it. But the wood litter and sawdust are by-products, made from waste wood from other milling processes.

 

[jacqueg]

When I was using my humanure bucket, I tried several things, including sawdust and plain old topsoil/duff I scraped off the ground.

In the end, I preferred stall bedding pellets, like this - https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/tractor-supply-pine-pellet-stall-bedding-40-lb
Many brands available, just about any rural hardware or feed store will carry one. I liked it because the size of the pellets allowed plenty of air penetration at the beginning, which is vital for a clean, non-smelly aerobic process. A single bag goes a very long way. When my bucket was full, I dumped it into a trash bin, kept it stirred with a compost-stirrer, and let it process for a year. A month is not nearly long enough to be safe.

To do true humanure composting, you need a real compost heap somewhere. Because when your bucket is full, the contents will not be compost, or even close to it. It is very unsafe - not to mention disgusting - to just dump it anywhere. And if you are intending to just roll up your plastic bag and dispose of it in the nearest dumpster, you want something that is much less bulky, like the bio-gel that double doody sells.

A true composting toilet produces actual compost, and AFAIK, there isn't one that will fit in a cargo van. A toilet that produces true compost requires a vault and may use electricity to keep the contents warm and stirred.

If you are interested in this, the bible is The Humane Handbook by Tom (?) Jenkins. It is available online for free or close to it, and last I knew, he was running a forum.

 

[user 22017]

When I was using my humanure bucket, I tried several things, including sawdust and plain old topsoil/duff I scraped off the ground. <snip>

If you are interested in this, the bible is The Humane Handbook by Tom (?) Jenkins. It is available online for free or close to it, and last I knew, he was running a forum.

I first learned about The Humane Handbook on this forum about a year ago. I found a free online version of it. It was pretty interesting to me, because I have been composting (for my garden & flowers) in my back yard(s) for about 30 years. I'm kinda interested in trying it in my camper, but I'm not totally convinced yet. The biggest issue is disposing of the contents. I can handle driving around with poop in a bucket (with a good seal on the lid), but at some point you gotta dump it. I know the book says you can use it on plants not meant to be eaten, but still... I'm not there yet

I do like that link you provided for a composting medium. Thx.

 

[maki2]

When I was using my humanure bucket, I tried several things, including sawdust and plain old topsoil/duff I scraped off the ground.

In the end, I preferred stall bedding pellets, like this - https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/tractor-supply-pine-pellet-stall-bedding-40-lb
Many brands available, just about any rural hardware or feed store will carry one. I liked it because the size of the pellets allowed plenty of air penetration at the beginning, which is vital for a clean, non-smelly aerobic process. A single bag goes a very long way. When my bucket was full, I dumped it into a trash bin, kept it stirred with a compost-stirrer, and let it process for a year. A month is not nearly long enough to be safe.

To do true humanure composting, you need a real compost heap somewhere. Because when your bucket is full, the contents will not be compost, or even close to it. It is very unsafe - not to mention disgusting - to just dump it anywhere. And if you are intending to just roll up your plastic bag and dispose of it in the nearest dumpster, you want something that is much less bulky, like the bio-gel that double doody sells.

A true composting toilet produces actual compost, and AFAIK, there isn't one that will fit in a cargo van. A toilet that produces true compost requires a vault and may use electricity to keep the contents warm and stirred.

If you are interested in this, the bible is The Humane Handbook by Tom (?) Jenkins. It is available online for free or close to it, and last I knew, he was running a forum.

That is available in Pet stores in small quanty bags....It is being sold as Feline Pine Cat litter, the pellet size might be smaller or it might be the same,too hard to tell from photos on the Tractor supply bag.  But it might be identical because if you look at the Tractor supply bag in the photo it shows a cat and a rabbit both of which are small animals compared to a horse. But the price is considerably better at Tractor Supply even though that is not a quantity I would want to carry with me on the road due to the weight restrictions of my tow vehicle which is only a 4 cylinder. Of course if I needed to supply a cat litter box as well as my own litter bucket it would be a good size to have for the cost savings.