Ok, I think there needs to be some additional information added to this to be useful.
First, it needs to give much greater emphasis to the importance of carbon addition to produce good compost (and also to disinfect adequately the dangerous pathogens present in the sewage sludge). Generally speaking you need twice as much carbon-rich material as sludge, which can be difficult in a situation where carbon rich material is expensive.
Second, there is no mention of bioaerosols, which are a significant health hazard, particularly in confined spaces.
Third, it may need to be said about safety issues with the use of composted sludge - generally speaking it is not a good idea to spread onto crops you are actually going to eat (eg salad crops etc). Usually you'd be wanting to spread long before you're planning to sow, wherever possible.
I'd say that composting sewage is a viable option, but you really have to know what you are doing (particularly if the sludge gets wet at any time) otherwise you are just providing a fantastic incubator for the pathogens.
editing
This page is pretty horrible as it stands. I am going to try to improve it soon. Joeturner 04:01, 16 January 2013 (PST)
Links
These seem redundant, move to other articles or remove
- Wikipedia:Constructed wetland
- RILES: A U.S. organization working on issues related to sustainable sanitation
- Compost toilet building workshop in Essex, England
- A photo essay on the construction of a 'DIY' compost toilet
- 'The Humanure Handbook' (Webbook)
- Biolytix video - composting in action
- podcast by Paul Wheaton and Jocelyn Campbell on food matters discusses composting toilets between minutes 34-51
KVDP 07:47, 3 October 2012 (PDT)
- What do you mean by "seem redundant," here? Are these things better covered by other links?
- I clicked through each - some are off topic, but a few are useful and I restored them. --Chriswaterguy 21:12, 23 February 2013 (PST)
check contacts
tagged as needing contact details checked. plus detailed check of what is being said Joeturner 13:40, 7 February 2013 (PST)
Reorganisation of information
I have decided to do the following: this page contains general information regarding the use of composting toilets; construction, maintenance and operational issues to be put on Composting_Latrines. I did consider merging the two pages together, but that would make one really long page. So intead I have moved temporarily some of the content from this page to A:Incubator/composting_toilets_extra_info with a view to trying to work out where it should be put. Joeturner 01:56, 12 February 2013 (PST)
reorganisation of page
I have decided that I am going to try to reorganise this page so that it is easier to understand by someone coming to appropedia to find out about composting toilets and acts as a signpost to other useful information on appropedia. I have moved the original page to Appropedia:Incubator/composting_toilets. This process might also involve some kind of merge with Composting latrines as I don't think it helps to have a distinction that is not in common usage. Most people talking about a composting toilet are meaning the whole system rather than just the toilet part. I think that it should help to have the avkopedia pages I have been porting to link to in the text. Joeturner 01:29, 14 February 2013 (PST)
are VIP latrines the same as composting toilets and ecosan?
Jim Dauster posted this on facebook
except that VIPs and pit latrines literally aren't composting toilets or ecological sanitation. they don't kill pathogens.
I think there is a legitimate argument to say that VIP latrines are not composting and are not ecosan. However, I can also see with convergence of these terms in academic literature and use within WASH circles. Personally, I'd be very happy to say that one should assume absolutely nothing is happening in a VIP latrine. Joeturner 04:27, 25 February 2013 (PST)
- So, if the terms are used imprecisely within academic literature, should the Appropedia article aim to define the terms clearly, while noting that others might use the terms differently? (I think that's what we should do.)
- I see you've done some more work on improving the choice of external links in the article - cool. I also changed a compostingtoilet.org link (a site sponsored by Envirolet) to its quite good FAQ, which seems more useful than the rather vague and somewhat promotional front page of the site. You might want to just check the FAQ, as I haven't gone through in detail, and you've got the knowledge on this. --Chriswaterguy 02:03, 26 February 2013 (PST)