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All your questions shall be answered

We’ve been doing some housekeeping and have moved many of the manufacturer-specific FAQs to the bottom of the  associated manufacturer pages – click on the links below to see them!

General

Not at all! Way back (well actually, just over a hundred years ago), people didn’t fully understand the relationship between diseases and sanitation, hence the streets were often open sewers and preventable disease was rife.

Modern compost toilets are far removed from open sewers! And whilst the Victorians may have pioneered the flushing toilet, it’s now clear that when you flush, you just move the problem somewhere else.

In the UK, like many other parts of the world, we use clean, drinking-quality water, to flush our ‘business’ down the sewers, only to find it popping up in rivers and seas as our treatment systems are unable to cope. With increasing populations, pressure on farmland to produce more food, and climate change, we increasingly find water scarcity issues in the summer, together with flooding in the winter. Our absurd use of high-quality water as a ‘flush’ should be questioned more and more.

A compost or composting toilet provides a clean and sanitary solution to our toilet requirements, whilst the whole process retains many of the nutrients that would otherwise be lost. This not only decreases our reliance on fossil-fuel based fertilisers but can create business opportunities within local, circular economies to collect and safely process the otherwise lost nutrients.

We believe that compost toilets are a step forwards towards a better future for everyone and the environment at large. It’s a win-win for everyone!

Technically yes. Providing the composting process is thorough (time and/or heat), then it should be safe from pathogens. However, there are other factors which might make it better to use it as mulch around trees and shrubs. Find out more on our composting process page: https://www.waterlesstoilets.co.uk/composting-process/

Yes. Almost all types and makes of toilet paper are fine – they are typically made from wood pulp so will break down and compost over time, adding carbon into the mix. With a domestic toilet (ie not public or shared), you can place ‘wee-wipe’ toilet paper in a separate bin for later burning or binning. This will increase the overall capacity of your compost toilet.

WooWoo has supplied and installed waterless toilets across the UK and works with manufacturers that have experience in all conditions, from National Parks in Iceland to hot deserts in Australia.

As mentioned in other FAQs, and explored throughout our podcast series, some of our waterless toilets are compost toilets – essentially collection units for later composting (away from the toilet), whilst some are composting toilets – in other words, the composting is taking place within the toilet itself.

With a compost toilet (ie not composting within the toilet), the temperature will not affect the toilet in any way. When the contents are transferred to the composting bin (or whatever container or system you are running), then the ambient temperature will have an affect on the speed of composting.

Below around 7ºC composting will naturally come to a halt because it’s too cold for the composting bacteria to do their work. With a large enough mass of material, composting could carry on, but in most cases (apart from commercial scale composting operations), there simply isn’t sufficient bulk of material to allow this to happen.

The ventilation systems will still work in all temperatures, taking odours away, but the raw material will sit there, waiting for the temperature to rise, at which point, everything starts again.

Find more information on composting in our ‘the composting process‘ page and also in this blog post.

Properly installed and maintained, a compost toilet will smell no more than a flushing toilet, and in some cases, even less (due to the active ventilation system)!

We sell a variety of different types of compost toilet, and each type has it’s own methods, but some of the general principles are as follows:

Separett and Air Head products are relatively small and separate the urine from the faeces at the point of use with a special design of toilet bowl. Keeping the solids relatively dry within the container is the first step in odour control for small toilets. A low-powered electrical fan, running continuously, draws fresh air into the toilet and pushes any foul air outside where it quickly dissipates in the atmosphere. In addition, the Air Head uses a coir block and a mixing system that breaks up solids, aerates them and coats it in the coir medium.

WooWoo GT models actually compost within the container (which is why we supply two containers – one to fill and and the other ‘resting’ and composting. To do that, they use a carbon-based cover material (added either at point of use, or weekly by the operator). This works with the nitrogen in the faeces and urine to start the composting process. In addition, the amount of moisture is automatically regulated by the unique false base which lets excess liquids down into the lower base. When the container is around one third full, composting will be happening automatically – this will also reduce the odours as the bacteria that do the composting also consume the odour producing elements. A fan (wind powered or electric according to your needs) takes away excess moisture and odours.

Alectura works in a similar way to the WooWoo GT. Excess moisture passes through the system and out of the bases. A powered ventilation fan takes away both odour and moisture.

Kazuba has a basket under the toilet bowl that initially catches everything. Due to the well designed airflow system, fresh air is drawn down the toilet bowl and over the basket, where it will evaporate much of the liquids and carry away any odours. When the first basket is full, it’s slid to the rear of the chamber, where it sits in the airflow for a further period of time and the contents are dried out.

With all waterless toilets, it’s important to ensure you get the right one, matched to the expected use and maintenance expectations. WooWoo has a great team of people who will be able to help you make the best choice – get in contact to find out more.

It depends on several factors. The things to think about are the number and health of the people using the toilet, the thoroughness of the composting process and to an extent, where you are located.

If the toilet is used primarily by your family, and you know they are in good health, then we suggest composting over at least a six month period that includes summer (for good ambient temperatures), and then leave the fresh compost to mature for a minimum of a further six months.

If the toilet is used by members of the public, and therefore, their general health is not known, then it’s important to adopt a precautionary approach and ensure the primary composting process happens over a twelve month period, with a further six months maturation (ie emptied from the composting container).

For users located in tropical regions, where there is a higher risk of intestinal parasites, the UN recommend a two-year primary composting process to ensure all potential pathogens and parasites are destroyed in the composting process.

The composting process can be accelerated by ensuring a good balance of carbon and nitrogen (see our blog post), ensuring the container is neither too wet or dry, and potentially mixing/aerating the contents. However, if all of this sounds like to much work, don’t worry, time will have the same effect – just leave nature to naturally do the composting for you.

Yes it is. In 2010, the Building Regulations for England were changed to permit composting toilets as part of a drive to reduce domestic water consumption. There may be planning and building regulations to navigate, but they are legal.

For various reasons, people can have strong views on whether urine should be separated or not based on their previous experiences. We believe both separation and non-separation of urine can work equally effectively in the right situation, so it’s important to consider the setting and typical user base of the toilet, together with any location and size restrictions and go from there. Naturally, we’re happy to help guide you to make the most appropriate choice.

In some circumstances, separating the urine is a good option as it allows you to reduce the volume of the material to be composted and can make aspects of the management easier.

For public and semi-public toilets, we recommend toilets where the separation is done automatically, deeper within the toilet (ie not with a urine diverting bowl). An example of this is the Kazuba system where excess liquid falls onto an evaporation plate, so the user is not aware of it, and isn’t required to sit in a specific position, meaning it’s simple to use without the need for complicated instructions.

For homes. mobile users (boats, motorhomes etc) and where the use is low and/or space is limited, you can opt for a toilet with a urine diverter, such as those made by Separett or Air Head. Users will need to be given instructions (such as always sit fully down on the toilet), however, most people will easily adapt to this.

The WooWoo GT composting toilet is an example of a non-separating toilet (technically, you could argue that the urine is being separated through some evaporation, consumption in the composting process and ultimately some leachate discharge).

Our preferred method of dealing with the solids (faeces) from a compost toilet is always to compost them in a compost bin (see our page on composting) as they ‘close the loop’ and return valuable nutrients safely to the earth. However, there may be situations, such as in motor homes or boats, where it’s impossible to compost on the go or store anything for later composting at home or on land.

In these situations, you may be able to dispose of small amounts (under 7kg) in municipal waste bins or official council waste disposal sites (the waste will be classed as non-recyclable and is typically used in an energy recovery process) provided the contents are double-bagged and clearly labelled (you can buy ‘tiger bags’ for such a purpose). The contents are referred to as ‘offensive waste’ and come under the same waste classification as used nappies and adult incontinence pads.

If you’re on a canal or river, never discharge urine or faeces into the water (we hope that’s obvious!), and don’t use the bins provided by the CRT (Canals and River Trust) as they prohibit compost toilet disposal in their bins (it’s a long story…).

Whatever method you choose, always dispose of solid waste safely and responsibly

That’s a great question. In essence, all of these words describe a toilet that doesn’t use any water to ‘flush’, so it’s waterless or dry.

However, not all toilets produce compost – some just capture the ‘ingredients’ that might be composted later, away from the toilet. Generally, they try to keep the solids as dry as possible so often separate the urine in some way. We call these compost toilets (as opposed to composting toilets), but you might prefer just to say waterless or dry. An example of this would be the Separett Tiny, Separett Villa or the Kazuba products.

If the toilet actually does the composting (ie you empty compost at the end of a period of time), then these are composting toilets. These tend to be physically larger (but not always) as they need to contain more material to enable composting to take place. As example of a composting toilet would be the WooWoo GT or the Alectura.

You can also find out more by listening to Episode 2 of our podcast series.