To build a humus toilet you basically need enough wood for the shelter, some tools and screws to bring everything together and of course a suitable area to place the toilet.

The main difference of a humus toilet in comparison to a normal toilet is that you don´t need water to flush down your leftovers and that you separate the urine and droppings from each other. A humus toilet tackles fresh water scarcity and gives you a great nutrition supply for your garden without using any chemicals.

The first step…

is pretty straight forward, just prepare a bowl which is big enough and place a thin aluminium wall as a separator in the center. Check if the bowl is suitable to fit under your construction before hand. You can take an old bowl for washing clothes which should have two openings on the bottom to let the urine and feces fall through to a big container underneath. To make the openings, take a big plastic bottle, draw a circle around and cut those areas out with a saw or a pocketknife.

You can store the urine in a container and the feces in a big bucket which are both portable. The urine in the container can be used as phosphor fertilizer for crops and vegetables. Please take care with hormones, women who are in use of the pill shouldn’t use a humus toilet if the urine will be used as fertilizer.

To avoid bed smell, place a bucket insight the toilet with shavings which can be thrown into the container with the feces insight. After a while, this material turns into natural fertilizer for your garden, as it get humidified. It is important that you use shavings from wood and natural resources which are decomposable.

Everything you need to build the toilet can be find second hand, of course except of the screws. If you need tools that you do not have try to ask your neighbors or friends before you buy new ones, they might got what you are looking for. Finally, if you want to make your toilet public and accessible for everyone, do not forget to implement a ramp to avoid barriers for those using a wheelchair.