Humanure Toilets: Compost Networks
If you happen to be one of the several billion people who do not own land, then you may want to access a humanure composting network. There are 3.3 million people in urban Haiti who do not have access to a toilet (OurSoil 2022). In Cap-Haitien and Port-au-Prince, the U.S.-based non-profit, SOIL, established a humanure composting network called EkoLakay. EkoLakay is a container-based sanitation service that rents humanure toilets to Haitian citizens for $4 per month. EkoLakay pick up the toilet contents from approximately 1500 customers weekly and bring customers a bucket filled with carbon-based cover material. All toilet contents are transformed into nutrient-rich compost at a SOIL composting facility using the thermophilic composting process. (Remington et. al. 2016).
A team of engineers, agronomists, and, laboratory technicians monitor the treatment process for 7-9 months, after which the compost is branded by SOIL as Konpos Lakay and sold to Haitian citizens to recover costs (Remington et. al. 2016) (OurSoil 2022). In addition to household toilets, SOIL has public urine-diversion toilets in urban and rural settings that have provided 2,700 people with access to toilet facilities (Remington et. al. 2016) (OurSoil 2022). More than 50 metric tons of humanure are transformed into agricultural-grade compost each month at SOIL’s two composting facilities (OurSoil 2022). EkoLakay wooden household toilets are produced for 55 USD and a ferro-cement model is produced for 22 USD (Remington et. al. 2016). Although EkoLakay has provided thousands of citizens with a hygienic and affordable toileting system, there is a dire need to develop composting to a mainstream method of humanure treatment.
Humanure toilets sold in the United States are Certified by the National Sanitation Foundation and are made to last for a considerably longer time (GWA 2022). Many of these toilets such as the Separette Villa, Nature’s Head, and Airhead will cost you roughly $1000. These toilets are erroneously referred to as compost toilets, despite the fact that compost is never made within the unit. It is more accurate to call toilets such as the Sun-Mar or Biolet compost toilets because they at least feature containers in which the composting process begins. These models cost approximately $2000 and require energy inputs to power the compost bio-drum and foam-flush components. Many who own tiny homes, boats, and campers will invest $1000 in a retail toilet though there is often more maintenance required and the end result is the same – humanure turns into compost.
The Bronx Zoo installed large Clivus Multrum composting toilets when faced with an expensive city sewer connection plan (GWA 2022). Prospect Park managed to spend $2.34 million in taxpayer money to install 4 computerized compost toilets (Licea and Paul 2017). The humanure in this system is expected to decompose over the next 10 years using vermicompost (worms) and be spread across the park grounds as fertilizer.
This comes as the city with a population of over 8 million is in dire need of more public lavatories. There are about 1,100 public restrooms in NYC: 670 are maintained by the Parks Department, the MTA has 78, 14 are Privately Owned Public Spaces in Manhattan, and public libraries have 200 (Ricciulli 2020). This impacts all New Yorkers but is hardest on the more than 3,000 unhoused who rely on public restrooms. Toilet access is a basic human need that improves the quality of life tremendously. Rather than finding costly ways of providing that service, the city must make humanure toilets widely available and initiate humanure composting networks to generate revenue from a resource that is currently designated as waste.
Sources:
GWA. (2022). About Composting Toilets. GreyWaterAction. https://greywateraction.org/composting-toilets/
Licea, M. and Paul, B. (2017). Prospect Park spends over $2 million to collect human poop. https://nypost.com/2017/06/18/prospect-park-spends-over-2m-to-collect- human-poo/
OurSoil. (2022). oursoil.org. https://www.oursoil.org/humanitarian-sanitation/
Remington, C., Cherrak, M., Preneta, N., & Kramer, S. (2016). A social business model for the provision of household ecological sanitation services in urban Haiti. WEDC Conference 2016, 1–6. https://www.oursoil.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Remington-Cherrak- et-al-WEDC-2016-.pdf
Ricciulli, V. (2020). New York Needs a Place to Pee in Public So Bad. https://www.curbed.com/2020/12/nyc-public-bathrooms-locations-problem.html