The Compost Toilet Handbook


Book Description

From the author of The Humanure Handbook, an expert guide to compost toilets you can build yourself The Compost Toilet Handbook is an illustrated instructional manual explaining how to make, use, and manage compost toilets, which are waste-free toilets that rely on the biological process of composting to recycle toilet material. It is based on the author's 40+ years of first-hand experience with "composting as a sanitation alternative." The 254-page indexed book has 161 pages of color photos including 203 photos or illustrations from 13 countries where compost toilet systems are in use. The 2nd half of the book includes case study reviews of compost toilet projects in African prisons and schools; Haitian schools, orphanages, and villages; schools in Mozambique; neighborhoods in Mongolia; a school and village in Nicaragua; and an ecovillage in the US. Along with the nuts and bolts of compost toilet construction, use, and management, the book covers emergency preparedness, cold weather composting, pharmaceuticals, heavy metals, health, and safety.




Compost Toilets


Book Description

Compost toilets reduce water usage, prevent pollution and produce fertiliser from a waste product. Built properly they can be attractive, family friendly and low maintenance. This DIY guide contains everything you need to know about building a compost toilet, plus proprietary models, decomposition, pathogens and hygiene, use and maintenance, environmental benefits, troubleshooting and further resources.




The Humanure Handbook


Book Description

The most comprehensive, up-to-date and thoroughly researched book on the topic of composting human manure available anywhere. It includes a review of the historical, cultural and environmental issues pertaining to "human waste," as well as an in depth look at the potential health risks related to humanure recycling, with clear instructions on how to eliminate those dangers in order to safely convert humanure into garden soil. Written by a humanure composter with over thirty years experience, this classic work now includes illustrated, step-by-step instructions on how to build a humanure toilet, a chapter on alternative graywater systems, photos of owner-built humanure toilets from around the world, and an overview of commercial composting toilets and systems.




Essential Composting Toilets


Book Description

From wastestream to mainstream, a practical guide to composting toilet systems. Composting toilets are a key feature for local resilience, money saving, water conservation, resource recovery, septic system replacement, and an improved bathroom experience in rural and urban buildings. Essential Composting Toilets is a streamlined manual that takes a practical, how-to approach to composting toilet system selection, design, installation, and operation, while meeting universal health and safety objectives. Drawing from existing regulations and research, this book dispels myths and provides tools to assess various systems. It includes: Easily-understood drawings, plans, and photos Coverage of all main composting toilet systems Selection criteria including site considerations, urine separation pros/cons, renovations/new builds, ventilation, servicing, and composting details Design and installation details. Offering a professional approach accessible to DIYers, homeowners, designers, building consultants, water conservation advocates, and regulators, Essential Composting Toilets provides key information for redesigning toilet systems anywhere in the world.




The Humanure Handbook, 4th Edition


Book Description

"This is a self-published book that no respectable publisher would touch with a ten-foot shovel. The fourth edition of this underground classic is completely revised, expanded, and updated, help new edition and half sequel. The author draws on forty years of research, experience, and travel, to expand and clarify your knowledge and understanding of ... your poop and what you can do with it! "--Page 4 of cover




The Composting Toilet System Book


Book Description

Composting toilet systems and other ecological wastewater management methods are emerging as viable and cost-saving alternatives to wastewater disposal systems worldwide. Find out why-and how to choose, install and maintain them!In this book, you'll find:ʺ Descriptions of more than 40 systems-both manufactured and site-built-and their sourcesʺ Information on compatible toilet stools and installing micro-flush toiletsʺ Tips on choosing, planning, installing and maintaining your composting toilet systemʺ The experiences of owner-operators worldwideʺ What you should know about graywater and its treatmentʺ Regulations and advice about getting your system approved. David Del Porto has sold and serviced thousands of several models and brands of composting toilet systems since 1972. He has also helped write regulations and performance standards for these systems, and has designed composting toilet and graywater systems for Greenpeace, government agencies and for developing countries. 25 years of his research and experience is detailed in the book.,D.




The Compost-Powered Water Heater: How to Heat Your Greenhouse, Pool, Or Buildings with Only Compost!


Book Description

It seems almost too good to be true: make high-value organic compost while generating reliable combustion-free heat. But it works, and this book is your practical introduction. With detailed plans for constructing small DIY systems, step-by-step illustrations and photos to guide you through the process, and calculations to help you estimate the heating capabilities of various approaches, this book will be invaluable.




Twisted Oak: A Journey to Create a Self-Sustaining Life and Home


Book Description

Twisted Oak is the inspiring, true story of a family seeking a more sustainable life in a complex, technology-driven world. Their journey leads them to build a self-sustaining home and lifestyle in the sunny mountains of southwestern Colorado as they pursue their goal to maintain a balance of respecting the natural world and continuing to remain engaged in the modern world. Follow Kristina and her sons, Austin and Andy, from their initial vision and dream of a more simple life, through their triumphs and their tears as they research, design, and build a home with the support of their family and the skills of newfound friends. Rejoice with them as they learn and find unexpected healing and new strength on the road to an abundant and fulfilling future. Along with the heartwarming story, Twisted Oak is full of technical inserts and plenty of practical tips from an engineer who not only designed her home, but helped build it, and has comfortably lived in it with her family for over six years. "Kristina Munroe's whimsical, brave tale begins 'on a dark and stormy night' as she welcomes readers to join her on a humble journey to build Twisted Oak, her solar-powered, rain-harvesting, organically-inspired home – replete with an indoor tropical garden and loft – near Durango, Colorado. An engineer by trade, Munroe's words are crafted as intentionally as the tires and timber that piece together Twisted Oak, making this vibrant book ideal for both curious architects and those seeking an energizing story about one determined mother's leap of faith. Twisted Oak empowers our pioneer hearts to keep seeking ways to imagine a more sustainable way of life and, above all, realize that pipe dreams are in fact possibilities waiting to happen. Pairs best with either a cup of tea at sunrise or glass of wine at sunset. Happy daydreaming!" ~ Joy Martin, Associate Publisher MTN Town Magazine "More than a DIY home-building story, Twisted Oak offers the reader an intimate account of crafting a home and a life from the inside out. With nature and its forces and humans and their follies as collaborators, author Kristina Munroe 's optimistic voice leads the reader through a journey grounded in simplicity, beauty and ecology." ~ Jules Masterjohn, Editor of Stanton Englehart: A Life on Canvas




Essential Composting Toilets


Book Description

From wastestream to mainstream, a practical guide to composting toilet systems. Composting toilets are a key feature for local resilience, money saving, water conservation, resource recovery, septic system replacement, and an improved bathroom experience in rural and urban buildings. Essential Composting Toilets is a streamlined manual that takes a practical, how-to approach to composting toilet system selection, design, installation, and operation, while meeting universal health and safety objectives. Drawing from existing regulations and research, this book dispels myths and provides tools to assess various systems. It includes: Easily-understood drawings, plans, and photos Coverage of all main composting toilet systems Selection criteria including site considerations, urine separation pros/cons, renovations/new builds, ventilation, servicing, and composting details Design and installation details. Offering a professional approach accessible to DIYers, homeowners, designers, building consultants, water conservation advocates, and regulators, Essential Composting Toilets provides key information for redesigning toilet systems anywhere in the world.




Ecovillages


Book Description

In a world of dwindling natural resources and mounting environmental crisis, who is devising ways of living that will work for the long haul? And how can we, as individuals, make a difference? To answer these fundamental questions, Professor Karen Litfin embarked upon a journey to many of the world’s ecovillagesÑintentional communities at the cutting-edge of sustainable living. From rural to urban, high tech to low tech, spiritual to secular, she discovered an under-the-radar global movement making positive and radical changes from the ground up. In this inspiring and insightful book, Karen Litfin shares her unique experience of these experiments in sustainable living through four broad windows - ecology, economics, community, and consciousness - or E2C2. Whether we live in an ecovillage or a city, she contends, we must incorporate these four key elements if we wish to harmonize our lives with our home planet. Not only is another world possible, it is already being born in small pockets the world over. These micro-societies, however, are small and time is short. Fortunately - as Litfin persuasively argues - their successes can be applied to existing social structures, from the local to the global scale, providing sustainable ways of living for generations to come. You can learn more about Karen's experiences on the Ecovillages website: http://ecovillagebook.org/