Design for a DIY marine composting head.

Helium is expensive, but hydrogen is even lighter than helium, and a component of water. I like it.
We are just kidding of course.
But let me think about it.

 

After contemplation, making poop balloons is NOT a good idea. What goes up, eventually comes down. I believe the solution may be the reverse. Make poop heavier not lighter. Coprolites!

http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?_adv_prop=image&fr=yfp-t-900-s&va=coprolites fossils

A design for a composting toilet would also serve as a petrification toilet by substituting Quikcrete for the peat moss.

Might cause sea level rise, if enough boaters adopted this process.

Anyway, the composting/coprolite toilet back on topic!

 

http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner/macgregor/inside-index.html

interesting.
RWatson, are you here?

 

These people have been making and selling composting toilets for years. They say their marine model has USCC approval. Most use an in line fan to help evaporation of the excess liquids. http://www.sun-mar.com/prod.html

 

Don't be silly. Using poop balloons they will still fine you for discharge of waste. Poo balloons is not an approve way to dispose of what they would consider toxic biological wastes. Just because you do not know where it comes down does not mean you did not violate any laws, it will eventually come down and discharge in locations not approved by the local health authorities.

There are even some locations (Los Anglese county for one) that releasing helium balloons will get you a littering fine. Because when the balloon eventually decomposes and drops to the ground, it becomes litter.

 

Reality check: the composting toilets available for marine use don't generally do much composting; they don't hold the goods long enough. In fact Sandy, the inventor and maker of the C-Head, actually explains that his toilet could more accurately be called a dessicating toilet: it stirs the solids into peat moss or another suitable medium, which dries it enough to get rid of most of the odor.

When I empty my C-Head, I do so into a 5 gal bucket with a ventilator hood/lid that was supplied with the toilet. I usually add some water along with the toilet's contents, and so far it's been breaking down fast enough that I haven't had to empty the bucket yet.

For urine collection, the C-Head uses the standard one gal jugs that water and milk come in. When one is full you screw a lid on it, and set it aside until you get around to either getting rid of it or emptying it.

The problem with reusing them is that they can get pretty ripe, especially if you don't empty and rinse them promptly. And so can the one in the toilet, if you let it set for a few days. I tried the usual remedies I found online, and wasn't impressed. Squirting the urine collector with vinegar helped keep it clean, but it didn't to much to the jug. Some people swear by tea tree oil, but I didn't like its smell much more than the ripe urine....

I finally found the answer: Petco's Orange-Oxy Stain and Odor Remover. I spray a little in the urine collector each time I use it. I spray some into a jug before using it; after I empty and rinse a jug I spray it again. That's pretty much taken care of the urine odor problems....

When I build a C-Head into my boat, I'll have a lidded compartment on either side where I can keep a few jugs - full or empty. I don't see it being a problem.

 

I've read more bad reviews about Sun-mar toilets than all the other composting toilets put together - mostly because they don't separate the urine and solids, and for many people it turns into a stinking, soupy mess that has to be shoveled and scraped out.

For a small boat that usually has one or two people on it, I'd recommend the C-Head. If you're going to have four people or more aboard for more than a day cruise, I'd recommend going with an Air Head or Nature's Head. Or build your own, as Yobarnacle is thinking of doing....

By the way, both of those have larger urine containers than the one gallon plastic jugs the C-Head uses. But a spare one will set you back a fair amount of beer money, and they aren't as easy to lug around or empty.

 

One resource I have, that others may also, but many won't, is access to a bone yard.
I have permission to salvage fiberglass off of wrecks. All I want.
Already have in mind, one wreck has a triangular bow locker on foc'sle, for anchors and rodes.
Cut the deck surrounding the locker, so to fit under MY veeberth, possibly could be the compost tank for the dry head.
Would need to fabricate a cover and seat, as the hatch top is missing from the wreck.
I love Rube Goldberg engineering!

Thankyou everbody for the posts. Keep posting please!

 

I read that keeping urine away from oxygen, prevented the urine from becoming smelly ammonia. Maybe carbonating urine would work?

http://www.creamright.com/category/soda-siphons.html

 

I just recalled, that some folks put vegetable oil, like olive oil in their holding tanks to reduce odor. since this prevents aerobic bacteria and allows anaerobic bacteria (the kind that causes stink), this is counter productive.
But keeping oxygen away from urine? A little oil floating on top might just be the ticket.
I don't have a composting head yet, but I do have a pee bottle. Just made it. and put a couple table spoons of oil on top the urine. I'll report results in a couple of days.

 

Normally I keep my bedroom door closed in my motor home when I'm sleeping, especially when I'm working nights and sleeping days. It has huge gaps top and bottom that I stuff with whatever's handy, to save wear and tear on the A/C. So instead of trying to reseal the door if I need to get up in the middle of the day or night, I keep a gallon jug in the bedroom for a pee bottle. With a couple of squirts of the Petco stuff into it before I start using it, it can set there for days without smelling.

Can you tell this is basically a bachelor motor home? My wife is 192 miles away from it....

 

I wonder if maybe this guy had a composting toilet and he got a little lackadaisical..

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/30/300-gallons-of-urine-mans-house_n_3186749.html

 

300+ gallons?
Darn Gummit! I only got 217 so far.
The Yam Dankees are out producing us Southerners and that's why we lost the LAST time!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_nitrate

Perhaps the most exhaustive discussion of the production of this material (saltpetre, an ingredient in gun powder) is the 1862 LeConte text.[11] He was writing with the express purpose of increasing production in the Confederate States to support their needs during the American Civil War. Since he was calling for the assistance of rural farming communities, the descriptions and instructions are both simple and explicit. He details the "French Method", along with several variations, as well as a "Swiss method". N.B.

 

It's interesting that you should mention LeConte. In the Great Smoky Mtns Nat'l Park there is a Mt. Le Conte, on the side of which is Alum Cave. Alum Cave is not a true cave, more like an overhanging cliff. At the base of the cliff is a band of minerals that has been sporadically mined for saltpeter (and other minerals), both pre-Civil war and during the Civil War. If that was the Confederacy's best source of saltpeter (and it probably wasn't) it's no wonder they lost the war.

I walked up to Alum cave a few Christmases ago, during a warming spell after a heavy snow. Large ice-sickles were falling off the cliff onto the trail. For some reason, getting past that section of the trail was all the hikers you met wanted to talk about.

 

Having studied the 'War of Northern Aggression', because I am a southerner, and it still rankled when I was young, I concluded the south was precipitous in seceding.
Had they organized and stockpiled and hoarded finances and secretly set up administration and THEN seceded, they probably would have SUCCEEDED!


This is a hard lesson. Don't go off half cocked!
In case you wondered why I'm always advising, wait until you KNOW the problem, the solution, and have a PLAN with a chance of success.
Nobody plans to fail. They just fail to plan.