Oxford Road Community Garden Compost Toilet

I spent Tuesday with two groups of people at the Oxford Road Community Garden building a compost toilet. We've found it difficult to connect to the sewer so decided some time ago to build our own seperate system. The advantages of compost toilets is that they treat what others regard as a waste product as a source of nutrition. Ive seen them before at Sunseed in Spain, and LILI in Buckinghamshire. I suspect this will be the first in Reading, if not in Berkshire. I also went to a lecture on permaculture, sustainable 'permanent' agriculture at last years Big Green Gathering, and learnt that were suitable for our climate, and that a manual can be downloaded at www.humanurehandbook.com

In Asia in the early part of the last century the heaviest densities of populations on this planet were to be found, some as much as 2,432 persons per square mile. These peoples didn’t import any fertilizers or food from outside, they were self-sufficient in every way and this type of culture had been found to have existed for 4,700 years. (Dr. F. H. King, Farmers of Forty Centuries)www.goodgardeners.org.uk/pages/popups/pop_ft_composttoilets.html

We built the shed, that I got from Freecycle. The first group were magnificent, dedicated and self sufficient with a few experienced gardeners, I could leave them to it after explaining what needed doing. The second group were much younger, one lad was 13, one a mum with a baby, the rest seemed like teenagers. But they were also great, though didnt have much gardening knowledge. They left at lunch to make cakes for a group of elderly people, and to teach them how to use mobile phones. What a wonderful way to mix two groups who otherwise distrust each other.

The next phase is for me to build a frame to hold the toilet bowl above a bucket, so people can use it as an ordinary loo, but instead of flushing the tank will be full of leaves or other material like shredded paper or hay. When the bucket is full it can be emptied onto a pile of vegetable matter, and left for 6 months to compost. I wouldnt want to risk using the resulting humanure on vegetables as its a system used by a group so it wont be sure that the material has completely composted. It will go onto the trees and bushes to make them healthier.