The Royal Horticultural Society has unveiled the Greener Skills Garden at RHS Garden Wisley marking the first time a batch composting toilet has been installed within a permanent RHS garden.
Designed by award-winning garden designer Dave Green the garden demonstrates how sustainable design and off-grid infrastructure can operate as part of a circular low-impact system. At its centre a composting toilet supplied by WooWoo Waterless toilets supports the garden’s environmental aims while providing a practical learning opportunity.
Landscaping works were delivered by Blakedown Landscapes including land formation and installation of a covered leachate area while Longreach Design constructed the garden buildings from the original design concepts.
The Greener Skills Garden is a collaboration between ‘RHS Science & Collections’ and ‘RHS New Shoots’; developed to support careers, education, sustainability research and community engagement with the garden curated and maintained for outreach programmes schools and adult learning.
Lewis George RHS Horticultural Engagement Manager said:
“We wanted to have a toilet in our new learning space for practical reasons, however the fact the garden is off grid provided an amazing opportunity to incorporate extra composting capacity. As a society we have become ‘feacalphobic’ and forgotten how we can (safely) recycle valuable nutrients within our own environment through the wonder of composting, whilst also saving precious drinking water and avoiding adding to the problem of excess nutrients in our environment by helping to limit sewage entering our waterways”
The WooWoo Waterless composting system will safely process waste for use in ornamental planting areas helping to close the loop within a broader garden system that includes composting bays, rain water harvesting and natural fertilisers.
The Greener Skills Garden will serve as a living classroom demonstrating how horticulture skills sustainability and responsible resource use can be integrated in practice. RHS New Shoots and Science and Collections will maintain the garden for their careers outreach programmes as well as for use by communities outreach, schools and adult education.
To see the Garden, the link is here: https://www.rhs.org.uk/education-learning/greener-skills-garden
Find out more about the WooWoo GT batch composting toilet here: http://waterlesstoilets.co.uk/woowoo-gt/
