[Cob] Re: composting toilet (was outhouse)

[Barbara Roemer]

We moved onto very rural property where most landowners still have
outhouses, and were ecstatic at the opportunity to try out the Humanure
composting toilet.  It's great when you have no bears.  During the winter,
when we have no ursine visitors in the neighborhood, it's pretty cold for
the kitchen waste and the human waste/straw mix to compost much.  As soon as
the weather warms up, the bears are most interested in the kitchen trimmings
(no meat, bones, or cheese), and they're also familiar with garbage cans as
vending machines due to neighbors who include tasty morsels in their plastic
cans.  If we exclude the green waste, there is too much, well, brown, and we
have no lawn clippings to include.  Ours doesn't get much use now, because
we put in a flush model even with our earthen floor (there, I worked it in!)
in the bathroom.  But before the bears came, it was FAR preferable to an
outhouse.  We still keep a composting toilet in our unplumbed guest studio.
Properly maintained and composting, it won't smell at all.

Barbara