What is a waterless toilet?

Maybe some of you (guys) have seen waterless urinals in the bathrooms of newer, eco-conscious buildings and thought they were a pretty good idea. Well, for solving world sanitation problems around the world, there is something even better: the waterless toilet.

A waterless toilet, as you can probably guess, does not need any water to function, which is important in countries with chronic water shortages or where the high costs of plumbing are prohibitive. Instead of water and plumbing, these systems use organic compounds to break down fecal matter into compostable material.

Typically, these systems need no pipes or sewer connections, they have no need for a flushing mechanism, they are low odor, and they don’t use chemicals.

As you can see in the diagram at right (thanks to Ecosan), the human excrement falls down a vertical chute (2) and into one end of a specially designed helical screw conveyor (3). Every time the toilet lid (1) is lifted, a mechanism rotates the conveyor. With each rotation the human excrement slowly moves along, taking approximately twenty-five days before falling into a reusable collection bag (4). It takes six months for the bag to fill with dry and odorless waste. Through the uniquely designed ventilation pipe (5), adequate airflow is provided for the dehydration / evaporation, deodorizing process.

Over the course of several months, the human waste is dried out using these 100% contained systems, which keep the environment clean throughout the entire process. Since the waste is mostly moisture to begin with, the dried out material is only a fraction of its original size and is completely odorless.

Once it is dried out, the waste can be easily (and soundly) disposed of, used as fuel, or turned into manure. People can then either use the manure to fertilize soil and improve their agricultural yield, or sell the manure and make money.

Different types of waterless toilets have been “field-tested” around the world with great success. To read one person’s account, click here: water.org.

OneTribe.com is proud to support socially and environmentally responsible companies. When you buy one of our shirts that supports water.org, you supply one person access to clean sanitation for the rest of their lives. To do so, click here: OneTribe/water

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Special thanks to EcoSan, Water.org, and Gramalaya for information used in this blog.