Toilets That Make Compost Low-cost, Sanitary Toilets That Produce Valuable Compost for Crops in an African Context

About this book

Most People in rural Africa do not have access to safe toilets and their health and well-being suffers as a consequence. There is an urgent need for the construction of simple, low-cost, affordable toilets that are easy to build and maintain. Toilets that make compost provides practical examples of toilets that, in addition to providing a safe sanitation option, also recycle the nutrients in excreta to produce compost.

This compost is valued wherever wherever households have enough space to grow fruit and vegetables in their back gardens; the designs are suitable for regions where there is no high water table or prolonged wet season. Toilets That Make Compost provides detailed instructions for constructing a range of toilets from the simplest and most affordable to the more sophisticated ecological toilet.

Contents

Acknowledgements

1. Introduction

2. Compost-Making Toilets
2.1 Arborloo - The simplest single pit compost toilet
2.2 Fossa alterna - The double alternating pit compost toilet

3. Arborloo - The Single Pit Compost Toilet
3.1 How to build the single pit compost toilet
3.2 How to make ring beams
3.3 Building the toilet house (superstructure)
3.4 Making an Arborloo fitted with a pedestal
3.5 Types of superstructure
3.6 How to use the single pit compost toilet
3.7 Planting trees in a filled organic pit
3.8 Growing vegetables on Arborloo pits
3.9 Making compost in small single shallow pits

4. Fossa alterna - The Double Pit Compost Toilet
4.1 Managing the double pit compost toilet
4.2 Examples of double pit composting toilets
4.3 Building the double pit compost toilet
4.4 Superstructures with rectangular slabs

5. Low Cost Pedestals for Simple Pit Toilets
5.1 Very low cost pedestal
5.2 Low cost pedestal with concrete seat
5.3 Low cost pedestal with plastic seat

6. Urine-Diverting Toilets
6.1 How to build a single vault urine-diverting toilet
6.2 Making the vault, step and lintel
6.3 The urine-diverting pedestal
6.4 Sequence of making a homemade urine-diverting pedestal with urine outlet pipe above slab level
6.5 Making a simple urine-diverting platform
6.6 Urine-diverting toilet installation details
6.7 Urine-diverting superstructures
6.8 Use and management of the urine-diverting toilet
6.9 Processing the faeces
6.10 Stages of building a twin pit composter for a single vault urine- diverting toilet
6.11 Routine maintenance of the urine-diverting toilet

7. Upgrading the Toilet System
7.1 Upgrading using a round slab and ring beam
7.2 Upgrading using a rectangular slab

8. Odour and Fly Control
8.1 Odour control
8.2 Fly control

9. A Matter of Hygiene and Hand Washing
9.1 Simple hand washing devices

10. How to Use Toilet Compost in the Garden
10.1 Testing crops in toilet pit compost
10.2 Testing compost from a urine-diverting toilet
10.3 Growing trees in toilet compost

11. How to Use Urine in the Garden
11.1 Crop trials using urine as a fertiliser
11.2 Effect of urine use on maize growth on poor sandy soils: A field trial in Epworth near Harare
11.3 Effect of urine treatment on trees

12. Summary

13. Conclusions

Bibliography

Customer Reviews

Biography

Peter Morgan PhD has been working in the rural water supply and sanitation sector for 25 years and has also developed several pioneering approaches to ecological sanitation. He was connected to the Blair Research Institute, Zimbabwe, developing a number of low-cost, appropriate sanitation options, Peter now works with the consultancy company Aquamor (Pvt) Limited, Zimbabwe and is a consultant to the Stockholm Environment Institute.