Sunday, June 21, 2009
(graphic: Weblife.org)
After years of negotiations with local officials, an off-the-grid collective in Austin, TX, has won approval for the city’s first officially-sanctioned “humanure” toilet—a modern day outhouse that uses no running water. Built by the Rhizome Collective, a group that practices environmental sustainability, the outhouse sits about four feet off the ground and consists of two composting toilets that rely on natural bacteria to process human waste. Only one toilet functions at a time, for about a year, and is then sealed up to allow the waste to decompose into compost that the collective will use as fertilizer.
Leader of the project, David Bailey, a self-described itinerant carpenter and puppeteer, told the Austin American-Statesman, “It’s the ecologically sound thing to do. Rather than using purified drinking water for a waste stream, we’re using naturally occurring, ambient bacteria to create soil, one of Earth’s least renewable resources.”
The local water district seemed reluctant to approve the Rhizome Collective’s humanure toilet. A spokesman said the agency was not “endorsing” the idea for anyone else to try. It is believed that a handful of composting toilets exist in Austin, but this is the first to gain approval from the water district.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Green Toilet Wins City Approval (by Asher Price, Austin American-Statesman)
The Humanure Handbook (by Joseph Jenkins, Weblife.org)
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