How exciting! A blog. I've never really had anything to blog about in the past, but with all the projects I've been working on, I can't wait to share what's going on with everyone. Hopefully, I'll have the time to update regularly with photos and text showing progress on the projects. It should be fun, as all good projects should be.
The next project I'm working on is building a composting toilet. To clarify, a composting toilet is basically a wooden box built around a 5-gallon bucket with a toilet seat on top. The toilet is used as usual, except that instead of flushing and using up to six gallons of water, the user finishes by pouring sawdust over the "droppings" to cover smells and begin the composting process. When the bucket gets full, someone puts a lid on it, carries it outside, and dumps the contents on the compost pile. After a year, this becomes some of the best fertilizer you can use, rich in nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon.
Now, I know this sounds pretty disgusting, using human waste as a fertilizer, but it's actually very sanitary once fully composted and if done correctly doesn't leak any foul smells into the house. Tomorrow, I'll be cutting the boards for the toilet and putting it together. All I still need is a toilet seat. Definitely beats spending $4000 to put an up-flushing toilet in the basement. Not only do we conserve hundreds of gallons of water per year by using the composting toilet, but we don't contribute to the sewage waste that is eventually dumped in the landfill or ocean by waste treatment plants. Nor do we make use of the chemicals that the treatment plant does. Plus, we derive the added bonus of an awesome fertilizer.
I'll ensure to take lots of pictures during the building process and give detailed instructions in the next post just in case anyone else is inspired to build their own composting toilet. Stay green!
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