Our Compost Toilet: Closing The Nutrient Cycle

Today I will show you a simple way to set up a compost toilet in your garden and how to handle the involved materials in a responsible way. Compost toilets save a lot of water, do not need a centralized sewage system and close a big gap in the nutrient cycle. So let's start! Our compost toilet is mostly built with reclaimed wood and has a metal roof on top. We used some polycarbonate as windows and the gaps at the bottom and the top provide good air ventilation. In the sink we wash our hands with collected rainwater and the lamp on the ceiling helps to use the toilet when it's dark outside. The compost toilet system itself is very simple. Underneath the toilet seat is a bucket where all the materials collect. After every use of the toilet we flush it with one shovel of sawdust. The sawdust binds excess moisture and unpleasant smells. The bucket underneath the toilet seat is where all the materials collect. To separate the solid material from the liquids there is a sieve about 5 to 10 cm above the bottom of the bucket. The solids gather on top and the liquids drip through the sieve and gather at the bottom. The sieve inside the bucket is made out of a piece of plastic with a few small holes drilled into it. As a spacer I use an old plant pot where I cut off the top part. This spacer prevents the sieve from sliding down too far and the sawdust from clogging the tap and the garden hose. The liquids at the bottom then flow through the garden hose to a nearby reed bed. The plants inside the reed bed clean the liquids before they flow into our meadow. Once the bucket is full with solid materials we take it out of the toilet and bring it to one of our two compost bays nearby the compost toilet. Here we compost all the materials that we do not want to have in the compost for the vegetable garden. Like grass clippings with lots of nettle and thistle seeds in them and of course the stuff from the compost toilet. So I empty the bucket into one of our compost bays and clean the bucket. A bit of sawdust on top and the bucket is ready for the compost toilet again. The next step is to start a fast decomposition process in the compost bay. For this purpose I simply collect some grass clippings and mix it into the material from the compost toilet. Some water on top and the composting process starts. It then takes about 12 months until the materials have turned into beautiful soil that smells like forest floor. So what do I use the finished compost for? I shovel it into a wheelbarrow and spread it along our hedge to fertilize it. In this way we build some nice soil with our humanure compost around our property. The hedge is trimmed regularly throughout the year and after I shredded the material with the wood chipper, I use it for composting in our chicken composting system. These small wood chips are a fantastic material that you can mix into your compost heaps. The compost from our chicken composting system is then used to grow strong seedlings and healthy and nutrient-rich food in our vegetable garden. And after we harvested and eaten this food, it once again lands in our compost toilet. The nutrient cycle is complete and no nutrients left the property during this process. And that is why compost toilets are so important. They turn something that is considered waste in the modern world into something valuable for nature and the soil, while saving a lot of water and other resources. If you liked this video, please consider giving it a like and subscribing to the channel. I very appreciate it. Thanks for watching and see you next time.