Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

http://www.wormdigest.org/content/view/44/2/

Quite an interesting topic, even more so considering the explosion of our urban population and local councils failure to plan for it. my old home town had a MASSIVE sewage disposal problem.

For the sake of simplicity i reckon you could keep the mains connected but catch the solids and only process those in your farm.

I wonder if anyone could ever get a commercial product like this government approved and go the way of solar heating and get subsidies on installs. you'd have to do the maths on it to look at the pay back, but i imagine it'd be cheaper for government to subsidise such a thing then build new treatment plants.

It'd have to be done safely obviously, but my understanding was that pathogens don't survive passing through a worms stomach? I wonder how you would know that all the waste had been processed?

Everything old is new again.... yep the "old" composting toilet.....

I've heard of "modern" models that use human and animal wastes and utilise the methane gases produced for heating etc...

i wouldn't want one that was an outhouse. a compact version that was contained and filtered solids out and flushed excess water down the main sewer line might be a good investment though.

space and saftey would be the key issues. it would have to be small enough as to not take up valuable realestate and process the waste to a safe level that you could handle without a biohazard suit....

Sure I've got a link to a modern day version of one somewhere Timmy, I'll look for it after tea.... sure EB or anyone else that gets the "Grass Roots" or "Renew" etc should have info also ....

Here's a link for you Timmy... DIY composting toilet ....

http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/yourhome/t ... f/fs27.pdf

found a link to suppliers....

http://weblife.org/humanure/chapter6_6.html

Composting toilets available these days can be either outhouse-style or flushing style. Either one stores the waste, venting air and smells to the outside. They make use of bacteria and aeration to break down wastes. Finished "humanure" is dry, fluffy and free of offensive smells -- it is removed from the storage unit one or two times a year. It can be used on ornamental plantings.

The ones that produce methane gas I think are called "digesters", or something like that.

Your right again Janet!

The ones that produce methane are digesters, and from my limited knowledge of them, require a certain amount of water for the process to work. (It relys upon anerobic bacteria for the breakdown of the nutrients; is that De Je Vue? or isn't that something that keeps being discussed here?) The leftover residue from the digester is removed on a periodic basis, and can be used on ornamentals (like Janet said earlier) or spread onto grasslands where forage can be harvested. (Confinement hog operations have used a similiar system for years, but instead of spreading it, they keep it in a liquid suspension and inject it into the soil, usually in the fall, and plant row crops later.)

The composting toilet has been repeatedly covered in Mother Earth News and other publications. The main thing with most of them is keeping down the volume of liquids going into the collection pit, as well as only putting organic matter into it. Many of the system I have seen written about have two toilets; one for solids, and one for urine. The one for urine either passes into the regular sewer system or into the gray water collection system. The humanmanure is broken down, over time, like any other composted material. It is removed from the collection pit on periodic basis, and can either be added to other organic material in a regular compost bin or used as Janet described. If it is added to a compost bin it is assumed to be biologically safe for use on vegetable/fruit crops after a year.

Kevin

Commercial version in OZ using worms; not available WA.

http://www.wormfarm.com.au/

Perhaps another link, this time in WA

http://www.wormshed.com.au/