[cspackler]

There is actually such a thing as a "dry toilet conference"? Don't get too silly, though. Any lib worth their salt could eventually extend the crapola argument for our current "reduced flow" toilets (the ones we flush twice) to try to make a logical argument for forcing dry toilets on us.

[jimtorr]

They'll pry my high-flow water using toilet from my cold, dead......

Well, ahem, they'll have a hard time convincing me to install an "inhouse".

It's doubtful that Eastern Maryland or Western Oregon would ever get dry enough to worry about it.

[herkbird]

We should export are modern flush toilets that are modified to save water. The great design fails in flushing most excrement, in the meantime requiring many more water wasting flushes, a nasty plunger and many foul words. After using such a modern toilet in a recently built home. I'm so thankful that I still have the older model. Which I believe saves much more water than these useless water saver's, which just don't work. Place more than two sheets of toilet paper in them and they become plugged and very frustrating.

A dry toilet full of bugs, forget it. Most bathrooms are filthy enough no matter how well cleaned, that having the thought of bugs coming from a dry toilet, reminds me too much of the outhouses that used to be called rest areas in this country at one time. Todays children have missed a great part of the biggest technology change that ever took place in the United States of America. Although the overflowing Porta-Potties used at certain Venues may give them a vision of the past.

I find it insane for people to say that the flush toilet coupled to a well designed and maintained sewer system is a poor system. I remember the waterways in this country when sewer systems were in their infancy. Many waterways were cloudy and stunk to high heaven nearby any city. I have been back to places of my childhood where the water once was foul. It now looks extremely clean and no longer smells like diluted human sewage.

To each his own, but I'll take the 20 year old toilet that flushes, over anything else currently on the market. It's as close to perfection as most things I use on a daily basis.

[mewzilla]

So what do you do with the dried waste?

[DoctorMichael]

BTTT

[wildbill]

At the risk of being derided or flamed, I'll give Y'all some information on the "dry" or "composting" toilet. I've actually done some research on it, looking for a solution to building an indoor toilet on a remote desert mountainside where flushing is simply not an alternative.

It's not at all a simple "two-holer" like I knew at my grandma's. I believe the original concept and patent is Swedish and was given to the Clivus Multrum company.

The reason these toilets are more expensive is that they require some lateral space--a chute that has a slope in it--and should have a vertical pipe chimney that carries odors (and bugs) outside, using the venturi effect. They also have to have a door at the end of the chute for removal after the period needed for composting. However, the initial higher cost may be offset by the fact that water is not necessary or used in great amounts forever.

Human and other household waste slides down the chute and becomes part of a compost pile full of enzymes that reaches high temperatures, high enough to sanitize the waste material. This usually takes about 4-6 months, depending on the average outside temperatures.

Properly built there is no danger from disease and this type of system provides the only sanitary method to dispose of human waste in areas where water or infrastructure are not available. That's why there was a Third World conference.

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.

Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

---

If this is taxes with reprsentation
Give me taxes without representation
I much prefer a tax on tea!
Instead of everything else.

[SamAdams76]

"No matter what I tried over the years there were always times when one could not lift the lid without several flies lifting off and heading for the kitchen," wrote Dave Keenan. "The flies were of two main kinds, the tiny drosophila or fruit fly and some larger wasp-like black flies."

You've got to be kidding me!

No thank you! I'll stick with my flush toilets.

A friend of mine who is a plumber tells me there's a very lucrative black-market for the pre Al-Gore toilets that use more than two and a half-gallons of water to flush. Those were the days! When you could flush the toilet just one time and see everything go down all at once. With these "water-saving" toilets, you have to either flush in stages or get out that plunger. Either way, you waste far more water than with the old toilets.

(No comment on whether or not I procured one of these "black-market pre-Algore" toilets for myself!)

The following, you can file under "More-information-than-I-need-to-know":

Since going on a whole food, low-carb diet, I can get everything down in one flush even with the Algore toilets. It doesn't smell that bad either. All that processed food that I used to eat...man, did I stink up the place back in those days.