Moving to Big Island Hawaii

[OpenD]

Thanks catz, but I don't think it's any surprise to say that I'm best at telling others what to do... that's why I'm a writer and teacher. And besides, I like to sleep late.

Anyhoosits, here's an informational link on composting toilets I meant to include in the last... Toilet Composting Information It's a start.

What most people don't understand at first is that when properly designed and maintained, composting toilets produce no more odor than a flush toilet does. As a matter of fact, back in the 1800s the "Earth Closet" toilet system successfully competed with the "Water Closet (WC)" system for many years. It required no water or drain, and automatically dispensed ashes after use instead of flushing with water. It had a feature that has just been rediscovered by the composting toilet designers... it separated urine disposal and feces disposal into separate systems. When these two types of waste are handled separately, there is little odor. The stench associated with privys, cesspools, outhouses, and porta-pottys is a result of mixing the two types of waste, where they interact to become nasty.

Damp, not wet, feces decompose quickly and with fairly polite manners in an aerobic system. (Septic tanks are anaerobic). Urine is inherently sterile and nitrogen rich, and has little odor, so it can be diluted 8:1 with water and applied directly to fruit and vegetable gardens as fertilizer. See the book "Liquid Gold," by Carol Steinfeld for details. She also co-authored a very good book called "Composting Toilet System Book: A Practical Guide" with David Del Porto.

For greywater systems Art Ludwig's books are tops, such as "Builder's Greywater Guide."