Composting toilets are one of the hottest new trends in green living. Not only are the fixtures economical to buy and install, but they're also great for the environment and your pocketbook.
Compost toilets are not only an eco friendly way to do your business,
but they're economical, too, saving homeowners hundreds of dollars annually on water and sewer costs. Gone are the primitive fixtures of the mid 20th century, the days of toilet seats fitted on top of 5 gallon buckets. Today's compost toilets are sleek, modern, and completely odorless, blending seamlessly into even an upscale residential bathroom setting.
With water shortages on the rise in developed countries like the United States, composting toilets are suddenly coming into vogue. It's estimated that the average American family of four flushes about 46,000 gallons of water down their toilets each year, making the potential cost savings of a waterless system very tangible. In some communities, tax incentives can even subsidize part of the cost of a new compost toilet system, meaning that the unit will pay you back in even less time.
Composting toilets have long been routinely used in rural areas where public sewer lines are not accessible. When building new homes or cottages in these areas, the old standard was to install a septic tank. Depending on the location and ground conditions, the cost of a new septic system today can range anywhere from $5,000 to $25,000. Comparatively, a whole house composting toilet system can run anywhere from $2,000 to $4,500. With figures like these, it's no wonder that rural homeowners are seriously considering composting toilets as an alternative, not only for new homes but also for existing homes when old septic tanks begin to fail.
So what are the real environmental benefits of compost toilets? What makes these fixtures so eco friendly? We've already explored how a waterless system can save thousands of gallons of water annually. Consuming less freshwater also translates into large scale energy savings, because municipal wastewater treatments plants use huge amounts of electricity to process all that unsanitary water and dispose of the sludge removed from it. Often times, the solids from our wastewater end up in a landfill; therefore, compost toilets prevent the unnecessary filling of landfills with fecal matter, where it decomposes and produces methane gas, a major cause of ozone depletion.
The real environmental benefit of using a composting toilet is the fact that you have a self-sustaining system, not dependent on any public service or utility, that recycles waste right back to nature in a clean and non-polluting manner. What makes these systems non-polluting? This has to do with the way waste is processed. Inside the unit is a specially designed drum that aerates the material, allowing oxygen to feed the aerobic bacteria that break it down. Conversely, at a wastewater treatment plant, the processing methods are largely anaerobic, a slow and wasteful process that produces smelly and dangerous methane gas. Aerobic bacteria, on the other hand, do not produce methane gas, one primary reason why modern compost toilets are odorless.
When a composting toilet has done its job properly, you'll be left with clean, dry, sanitary compost that looks and smells just like ordinary garden soil. This rich, fertile dirt can be tilled into your garden or applied to your landscaping, providing excellent nutrients for flowers, trees, and bushes.
The entire process of owning, using, and maintaining a composting toilet is clean, easy, and non-offensive. So what are you waiting for? If you're building a new home, replacing an old septic system, or if you're just in the market for a new toilet in one of your bathrooms, now may be the perfect time to explore one of these economical and eco friendly systems.
