Moldering privy
During their jaunt on the
Appalachian Trail, Shannon and
Dawn ran across a
composting toilet, so (of course) they took photos to share with
me. Here's the explanation from the sign:
This composting system is maintained by the Nantahala Hiking club of
Franklin, NC. Proper disposal of human waste is one of our
primary concerns in the backountry. Pleaase help us run this
system effectively:
- Pee in the woods. This will help keep odors in the outhouse down and provide the proper moisture balance for full decomposition.
- Pack out your trash. Including tampon applicators, maxi pads, food waste, paper, etc.
- Throw in a cup of dry duff or leaves. This also keeps odors down and assists in the decay of the waste.
In this privy, redworms and
other common soil microorganisms decompose the waste mass of mixed
leaves and human manure in aerobic conditions (using oxygen) above the
ground level. This is why the outhouse is elevated.
Pathogens are destroyed by bacterial and invertebrate competition.
Shannon added in:
"There's an interesting story about the
privies in the trail. There was a handicapped man who hiked part
of the AT. He was wealthy and his only complaint was that the
privies were not ADA compliant. So, on the AT through NC, he
funded helicopter drops of the supplies to build ADA compliant
privies. At least this is what we were told by the folks that run
the inn that did our shuttle. So, there are hand rails and
wheelchair accessible privies on the AT now."I find the similarities between their privy and our composting toilet intriguing. Speaking of which, the latter has been waiting in a nearly completed fashion for weeks since Bradley's trailer broke down and we didn't have another way of getting roofing tin from the store to our farm. With Everett's help, the tin is ready to install, so we'll be posting more about our own composting toilet system soon!
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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I spent a few minutes googling around for verification of the story on these privies. I found this, which might have a lead I'll have to follow up on later when I have some time.
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/mar/18/toilet-talk-volunteers-build-state-of-the-art-on/?print=1
Mom --- I don't remember the mold, but I do see lots of white mycelium in our wood chips as they rot happily.
I think in this case, the "moldering" term was used to distinguish it from fast, hot composting.
Shannon --- Thanks for the extra information (and the original photos!)