Emptying a composting toilet is a straightforward process.
Begin by opening the top of the compost toilet, remove the seat panel and take out the waste container. You can proceed to dump the human waste.
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After that, clean the composting toilet and replace the waste container. For commercial composting, you can empty the finishing drawer after three months.
Does emptying a compost toilet scare you? Well, most people think that handling human waste is completely disgusting. On the contrary, composting toilets utilize a technology that separates solid and liquid waste.
With the waste separated, emptying the toilet becomes easy since foul odors are not produced. This article gives you more details on emptying a composting toilet and how often you will have to do it.
How Do You Dump a Composting Toilet?
The model of composting toilet you have determines how you will dump the com[opsting toilet waste. There are many makes of compost toilets in the market. As you pick one convenient for your needs, make sure you seek information from the seller on how to use it.
There are general guidelines that you must follow in emptying all types of toilets with or without that information. Here is how you empty a composting toilet.
General Guidelines to Emptying a Composting Toilet
For sanitation and protection purposes, make sure you always have a dust mask on. This mask will protect you from bacteria in the compost pile.
The second precaution is wearing rubber or protectives gloves. The protective gloves’ role, just like the dust mask, is to prevent any bacteria from finding their way onto your skin.
After emptying the composting toilet, use soap and water to wash your hands. It would be best to use running water since the dirt will not stagnate in a basin, giving you a more efficient hand washing method.
During the emptying process, request someone to help you carry the toilet from the house or RV to the place you will be emptying it at. You will also need help moving the heavy pile and returning the bathroom to your RV.
If you are burying the heap, make sure you dig a hole or trench of about ten centimeters deep.
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Composting Toilets for a Tiny House, Caravans, and RV’s
People who live in tiny houses, RVs, or caravans have composting toilets that have bio bags. The same bio bags in an RV are in motorhomes and boats. The bio bag is a small bag that is usually in the composting toilet.
To dump the composting toilet waste, remove the bio bag in the RV or tiny house and dispose of it in a general waste facility or trash bin.
Models for Big Homes
The toilets for these types of houses come in two distinct types. The first unit is batch composting, and the second model is continuous composting.
For homeowners with batch composting toilets, you will need to open your compost toilet’s top part. Now remove the seat panel, which will give you easy access to the waste container. Remove the waste container and replace it with a new container,
If you want incredible results, condition your heap before taking it to the garden.
Conditioning is all about leaving the heap in an open area for about two months. Make sure you do not cover the stack. that way it can get sufficient air and heat from the atmosphere.
Homeowners with continuous composting toilets usually have a tray at the bottom of the composting toilet. To empty this tray, pull it out and dump the waste accordingly.
The compost heap loses a lot of its bulk, meaning you will need to empty the tray after two to three months. The emptying rate depends on how often you use the toilet and how many people use the same compost toilet.
Whenever you are emptying the tray, you will note that the material on the tray is soil-like. It is up to you to decide whether you will add the material directly to your soil or put it in a worm bin.
Emptying a Slip System Compost Toilet
The style and size of the slip system compost toilet determine the ways you will empty the toilet. The Clivus Multrum range toilet, for instance, requires you to open its hatch.
This hatch leads you to the composting chamber. Now use a shovel to scoop the human excrement and dump them on a wheelbarrow for more comfortable transportation.
The Sun-Mar system, on the other hand, has a finishing tray at the bottom. The tray holds finished compost that is separate from the fresh human wastes being added.
This system’s advantage with a finishing drawer is that your finished compost remains clean without being contaminated by the incoming compost. You can, therefore, compost continuously without any worry.
Remove the tray from the finishing drawer and empty it into a different waste container. Alternatively, dump the waste into a wheelbarrow, which will ease the transportation process.
How Often Do You Have to Empty a Composting Toilet?
How often you empty composting toilet depends on the number of people who use it as a full-time toilet. It also depends on the performance criteria and usage of the restroom in your home or RV black tank.
The commercial composting toilet needs to be emptied after every 3 months.
This is because by around this time, the composting chamber is usually full of human feces. Since there is a heating element added to the composting toilet, urine evaporates, leaving you with a reasonably moist content for the composting process.
If you do not divert the composter’s urine, it will mix with solid waste and water to produce a stench. For this reason, heat is needed in the composting chamber to facilitate the evaporation of urine through the vent hose. This creates room for more solid waste.
Do Composting Toilets Smell?
No, composting toilets do not smell unless you leave them unattended for too long. To help your compost toilet remain odorless, prepare the toilet for you first. Add coconut fiber to the composting bin, which some people refer to as coco coir or coconut coir.
Alternatively, use peat moss in the waste tank to prevent foul tank odors when the decomposition process begins.
Make sure you hydrate the material before spreading it at the bottom of the composting bin. Repeat the process using peat moss or coco coir after every dumping of the compost material.
For two people using the same composting toilet, one block of sphagnum peat moss will serve you for a whole year. The trick here is to ensure the compost pile in the tank is not excessively wet. Turn the handle of your composter every time you add solid waste into the composting toilet. By so doing, you will not get urine odors.
Where to Responsibly Empty Your Composting Toilet
Emptying a composting toilet without endangering the lives of others requires you to be careful by following a couple of procedures. Here is a list of the responsible places to empty your composting toilet.
A dumping station is a good location for the safe disposal of pee collected in the toilet’s urine bottle. These dumping stations will treat the waste liquid in a waste treatment plant and have regulations for dealing with sewage sludge.
To responsibly empty a compost toilet, think about the location you want to dump the urine. Is it a place you would normally urinate? If yes, then feel free to empty the urine in that location.
Remote areas are great places to dump urine. But before you do so, look at the environment and reason out if dumping the composting bag will benefit that area.
Be sure to avoid surfaces that are paved such as a parking lot. Instead, pick a place that is in the wilderness. Spread the urine over a wide nature area to reduce concentration on one site.
Do not empty the composting toilet near waterways or water bodies. Ensure you have at least a two hundred feet distance between your dumping position and the nearest waterbody.
When it comes to dumping solid composting materials, you have to be extra careful since the pile is not usually fully composted and needs additional time in the open for further decomposition.
Empty the composting toilet in a trash can found in a public park or campground. You can also dump the solid human waste in a trash receptacle. Ensure you place the solid human waste in a compostable bag before you dispose of it in the trash can.
If you have a garden, bury the waste in the soil. Use small amounts in each cat hole to allow faster decomposition. If you have enormous amounts, dig deeper holes. If you continuously have to bury the compost in your garden, spread across different spots to distribute the nutrients evenly.
Wrapping Up
Emptying a compost bag is not complicated, as identified in this article. All you have to do is ensure you wear protective gear and responsibly empty the compost toilet.
Be sure to clean the toilet after emptying it to prevent odors. Also, avoid washing the toilet with chemicals since they may produce a foul odor.
