Building a Vermiculture Compost Toilet

Reader Contribution by Kiko Denzer
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Adobe Stock/Kaleb

Learn how to build this simple, low maintenance compost toilet for composting human waste that makes instant fertilizer by separating solids (worm food) from liquids (fertilizer, ready-to-use).

A compost toilet can be as easy as pooping in a bucket, but a bucket system means another weekly chore emptying and managing smelly buckets. When I moved into my cabin in the woods 20 years ago, I started out with a bucket that I just emptied direct into a hole-in-the-ground, but after I got comfortably moved in, I started thinking about a pooper even mom would be happy using.

Friends of ours (also permaculture teachers: see Proyecto San Isidro) recommended building my toilet over a divided concrete vault, and separating liquids from solids. The separator was just a funnel placed low at the front of the seat, where it would catch and divert urine from any (seated) male or female.

We pee more than we poop. In a compost pile, every unit of high-nitrogen pee needs 40 times as much high-carbon (woody/fibrous) material to keep the little compost bugs happy and making sweet-smelling compost. So keeping pee out of a system reduces stink and volume.

I was mulling things over when another permaculture acquaintance, a brilliant guy named Tom Watson (developer of the low-water Watson Wick septic system), affirmed that compost worms would be just as happy eating my poop as my kitchen scraps.

  • Updated on Jun 13, 2022
  • Originally Published on Jan 12, 2015
Tagged with: compost toilets, Kiko Denzer, Oregon, Reader Contributions, vermiculture
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