Humanure is a word coined by Joe Jenkins author of the excellent Humanre Handbook see http://www.humanurehandbook.com . Human manure is a taboo subject in our society where we seem happier to flush it away out of sight around a U bend using precious treated drinking water. Composting poo might not be high on everyone's agenda but it is ridiculously easier and not an unpleasant experience at all - far from it!
I wanted a composting toilet in our house when we bought it in 1990 but lack of funds (those Swedish compost toilets are very expensive) and space - you really need a basement or loads of space to fit one in, stopped us from getting one installed. Then I found Joe's book and I was able to set up a system really easily.
All you need is a bucket and a lid, under the stairs is where we have our humanure system, in the house, this sits in a box with a wooden loo seat on and we have a bucket of 'soak' - absorbent material to cover the deposits. We use well rotted woodchippings/sawdust etc - you can use dry soil, compost leafmould too. Then every few days this bucket is emptied onto a large garden composting system and covered with fresh material, whatever is at hand, in the depths of winter it could be soil if nothing else is to hand.
When I saw pictures of the Tsunami and shortly afterwards visited india I thought how amazing this system would be for so many people in the world. It's so simple and means you don't get the faeces and urine in watercourses and instead get a useful product. You do need a 'soak' or mix materials but these are generally easy to get from cardboard to all manner of plant matter. All the smells and many of the problems with toilets come from the fact that we are using water as a transport mechanism and therfore all the air is excluded and it cannot compost, instead it putresces and smells awful!
But my Hot Box has plenty of air fibre and a good mix and does not smell and I get great compost!
