I played with my poop

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John61CT said:
The need to wash out the container responsibly **so frequently** creates issues on so many levels?
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(I think she might have been jerking his chain....)

The Dire Wolfess
 
John61CT said:
Definitely illegal on most public land.

May get away with it on your own land, depends on the town / county enforcement and (especially) your neighbors.
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You'll see these latrines around many dispersed campsites in the Coconino NF. They seem to be preferred by hunters in that area. They even bring commode chairs to sit over the pit, leave them from year to year. Disgusting, but doesn't seem to be illegal, or at least not enforced.

The Dire Wolfess
 
QinReno said:
If you had read the stories I wrote on the other thread, you'd know that all the neighbors here (being women, BTW) already dislike Q quite a lot, and largely because their dogs all love Q so much. Any of them would turn Q in in a blink. When a dog turns and starts barking at its owner, well ...
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No, Q, we really really love you, because you're....Just....so......Weird.....[emoji1787][emoji1787][emoji1787]

The Dire Wolfess
 
highdesertranger said:
ok this thread has convinced me that many of you need to report to the "You Ain't Right Club"(YARC) thread and fess up your YARC story. highdesertranger
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LMAO!!!

The Dire Wolfess
 
wanderin.pat said:
One of the "minimalist"/off-grid approaches to house-building is using cow manure.  Human waste might smell a bit.  But , you know, one man's ceiling is another man's floor.
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Hmmm, maybe a change in diet would help. Cows are ruminants, of course, and they eat cellulose, which is indigestible, which is why they have a rumen full of friendly bacteria to digest the undigestible cellulose. Being humans, we do not have a rumen, nor do we have the proper bacteria. And unlike cows, we do not have a large cecum to absorb the nutrients....so perhaps what we need to do is to borrow some technology from the cows. That way we could crap cow crap, which can be dried and used for fuel (it burns nicely) and building materials. But remember, most BLM requires weed-free certified hay.

The Dire Wolfess
 
RowanFae said:
I wonder how bad the odor would be? If there was a way to neutralize the odor it would be something to consider for the Tiny House I'm looking at to build on my son's property.

I wouldn't want to stink up my son's property lol. Although! Couldn't be worse than when the farmers around us spray manure on their fields.
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I had one of those incinerating toilets. The stench was unbearable. Ended up not using it at all. Interestingly, poo was not as awful as pee. As long as the wind was blowing, I could burn poo and it was OK. The first and only time I burned pee, I had to vacate the whole vicinity!

The Dire Wolfess
 
Cammalu said:
I went on an earthship tour at least 20 years ago up near Taos. The toilet was a solar toilet which burned everything up into ashes.
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New Buffalo?

The Dire Wolfess
 
I saw on a video of the van build that they are building custom "composting" toilets for people with vans. Sizing them specifically for the spaces available. I assume they have some standard design, but no idea what it is.

If Moxie disses the incinerating toilet, that's good enough for me. Poo on that. But I like the idea of bringing along a cow, as then you can have fresh milk, and dry out the cow poop and use it for cooking. Moxie has good ideas. In my mind's eye, I can see her cooking over a fire pit in the desert and milking the cow.
 
lenny flank said:
Poop from even one backpacker would be a problem in an environmentally-delicate area like an alpine meadow or a desert. 
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When I was up at Whitney Portal in July, they were even making the "day hikers" take wag bags. I remember when I climbed Whitney back in the 70s that the entire basin below the summit had little piles of poop and toilet paper under every damn rock. It was like a cow pasture up there.
 
^^^ I have been told that deserts don't usually have enough bacteria to break down poop, so one's pile might last there a long long time.
 
QinReno said:
When I was up at Whitney Portal in July, they were even making the "day hikers" take wag bags. I remember when I climbed Whitney back in the 70s that the entire basin below the summit had little piles of poop and toilet paper under every damn rock. It was like a cow pasture up there.
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I've seen the same thing paddling around the Georgian Bay archipelago. There are lots of places where a cat hole could be properly dug but people are either lazy or uninformed. Maybe both.

So instead of correctly returning our waste to the environment to be broken down in a diluted natural way, many places require that it be brought back out to where it will be collected, concentrated and cause problems for the future.
 
I've seen many piles of poop in desert areas. When I was boondocking on BLM south of Lake Havasu, this woman was living in her car and going out leaving little piles all over the place on top of the ground. It will dry out in the desert and sit there for who knows how long.

I doubt that it is really much of a biohazard once it dries out, but it's extremely unsavory to make no effort whatsoever to be conscientious. Plus, you don't want piles and piles of it all around the areas that are popular boondocking places. That's even grosser than playing with your poop.
 
So years ago I'd heard that rock climbers "back in the day" used a method called "smearing" to dispose of solid waste on long climbs. IT SHOULD BE NOTED THAT THIS METHOD IS NO LONGER RECOMMENDED.

Here's what I found recently in looking for references to this outdated method - "These are little-used methods of disposal for special circumstances. Smearing involves taking solid waste and smearing it thinly on a rock that is off the trail and will receive direct sun, so UV rays cook the pathogens and dry out the dung, and the wind can blow it away.

“It's no longer supported by Leave No Trace, in part because it doesn't seem to be done properly,” said Martin. “The proper way to do the smear technique is to smear it on extremely thinly. A lot of people smear it on like peanut butter.” The thicker the smear, the longer it takes to dry and disappear, meaning there's a great chance of other hikers coming across it. This method should never be used in popular, high-use areas."

From the following website - https://www.trailspace.com/articles/backcountry-waste-disposal.html

The whole article has some very useful information that overlaps quite often with the subject matter on this thread. It perhaps doesn't contain as many sh*t jokes, but it's still well worth the read, IMO.

I think it'd be awful to be on a lovely hike in the middle of nowhere come across rocks just painted with feces. I'm glad this method is no longer used widely.

Also as mentioned several times previously in this thread, the above article recommends that you pack out any waste and TP in areas of desert, alpine, and arctic environments, due to the fragile nature of these places.

~angie





Sent from my VS501 using Tapatalk
 
Thanks, ~angie, you're gonna the YARC Grand-Poobah Award if you keep this up.
 
It's all about knowing the environment you're in and dealing with waste appropriately. Around fresh water you learn to stay far away from water sources when disposing of your waste. But if I'm not mistaken, in coastal ocean areas it is preferred that people defecate in the inter tidal zone where it is quickly broken down and washed away. I've never been in a situation where I could take advantage of this, but someone do let me know if this is a falsehood.
 
QinReno said:
But I like the idea of bringing along a cow, as then you can have fresh milk, and dry out the cow poop and use it for cooking. Moxie has good ideas. In my mind's eye, I can see her cooking over a fire pit in the desert and milking the cow.
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The problem with cows, though, is that they're not very portable.  Perhaps someone could make a folding cow?
 
 
QinReno said:
I've seen many piles of poop in desert areas. When I was boondocking on BLM south of Lake Havasu, this woman was living in her car and going out leaving little piles all over the place on top of the ground. It will dry out in the desert and sit there for who knows how long.

I doubt that it is really much of a biohazard once it dries out, but it's extremely unsavory to make no effort whatsoever to be conscientious. Plus, you don't want piles and piles of it all around the areas that are popular boondocking places. That's even grosser than playing with your poop.
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And I don't want my dog finding that and eating it, either.
 
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