The Loveable Loo is a collection toilet for use when composting human manure (“humanure”). You can buy them on the internet at josephjenkins.com (under the “compost” category) and this little video shows you how they’re made.
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@FishyMoe The clearvue cyclones website is a good place to start. Click on “general info” then from the menu click on “wood dust” for a good summary of many of the wood dust dangers. Otherwise just do a google search for “wood dust lung cancer” or any variation. After that, google “broccoli lung cancer” for fun.
@miraclesthepony do you have any links to these studies? What is considered dust? (like size of particles?) What trees are safe?
@nomoreremakes Thank you for reminding me! I almost totally forgot to take them again!
@FishyMoe Nope, good old oak is one of the offenders. also many others. some studies show smoking combined with wood dust exposure to have a synergistic effect on lung cancer.
A septic tank is basically a 600 times larger version of this loo. Trucks that clean out your septic system take the waste to farms and composting sites. Loveable loos are irrelevant.
@miraclesthepony There is no dust if you follow Joe’s directions. Use green sawdust. Better yet, READ THE BOOOOOK….
I just was at a festival in Israel where there was a sawdust outhouse. AMAZING!! Clean, no smells, no flys. Literally hundreds of people using the outhouse-Would love to make one of these-
@miraclesthepony what? you mean treated pine right…
How much does the Loveable Loo cost?
Please take your meds.
If it’s this easy to make your own composting toilet, why are people selling them online for so much damn money?
The current retail prices for these things are ridiculous. It’s like they don’t want people to compost or something.
Have you read the Humanure Handbook? Joseph Jenkins. Its a great read and covers all the relevant areas required to compost human manure. They recommend wood chips from the lumber yard, so from untreated wood rather than chips from the joinery end which may have been treated.
If you are unhappy with wood chips i guarentee that you will be able to find a “waste” product that you can mix with the manure which optimises the carbon/nitrogen mix and as a cover material. Good luck!
Absolutely!
) Surfers Against Sewage would most likely endorse the Loveable Loo as returning organic waste to its right and proper place, where it can do some god, instead of leaving flotsam of the most disgusting nature, to haunt surfers and marine life alike!
When you surf, sewerage and seaweed (which sometimes has sea lice) is undesireable.
WOOD DUST CAN CAUSE CANCER! Please do not bring wood dust into your home! The IARC lists wood dust as a group1 CARCINOGEN! This is the same category as tobacco. I’m a woodworker and I go to great lengths to control wood dust. It gets everywhere. You cant see the smallest particles which do the most damage and they are blown into the air very easily. Is there a better option?
I like the simplicity of the design and the craftsmanship that goes into the loos. They must be a pleasure to use.
i use the wood ash as a border around my humanure pile on the downhill side. it’s absorbent so any liquid overflow will be contained. when it rains i don’t add any urine. everything else composts well except maybe salted peanut shells and avocado seeds. great success with citrus peels, onion parts, bannana peel, nut shells, avo peels, paper, salad extras, and parts of carrotts, spuds, lettuce and other greens, reds, date seeds. . .i still have my humanure handbook. love it
No.
Are you, or anyone else, working on a Federal mandate so that everyone must start doing this to save our Mother Earth?
I’ve switched to sawdust, too, but accidentally got some planer shavings mixed with sawdust, and they seem to work just fine although a bit fluffier as Joe mentions. Next time, I’m getting sander sawdust. I get them for free from a woodworkers club.
no – there is no odor when properly managed.
would this be stinky?
I use all different kinds of stuff, including grass clippings, old flour, leaves, horse manure, hot compost, whatever I happen to have on hand
I just met a guy who retired from a sewage treatment plant. They tested the raw stuff all the time and almost never found any pathogens in the stuff. But time will also kill off the pathogens due to the antagonistic ecosystem of the compost pile.
You could also try coffee grounds, if you are near a local coffee shop that is willing to set them aside for you. Sawdust can also be acquired from woodworker clubs…
The Water Crisis, A Practical Solution
The Water crisis is the most serious problem humanity has ever faced. Water pollution has infused the entire food chain with neurotoxins, poisons and pharmaceuticals, all of which damage the health and survivability of man and planet. The cause is our modern, water based sewer system. We flush all of our disposables down the drain, into the sewer system where more chemicals are added and then finally pumped back into our water system. Water based sewer systems are the prime polluters and our use of them has proved to be full of unintended and unanticipated horrors. The use of water based sewer system wastes and contaminates the entire water supply with pollutants and nutrients that if captured and recycled, could provide sufficient agricultural nutrients to ensure a sustainable food supply.
One practical solution to the water shortage is to replace our centralized water based sewer system with on site, waterless toilets and recycle grey water. Grey water is the water from the kitchen and shower and can be recycled, on site and reused for landscaping. This will reduce our demand on the water source by 80 percent while simultaneously creating a sustainable, renewable, agricultural resource, namely, organic nitrogen.
No Mix toilets collect urine and feces in separate places, the toilet bowl has two drains, one, in the front for the urine and one in the back for the feces. The feces are dry composted and the urine is processed for agricultural purposes. Separating toilets protect the water supply and provide a renewable, safe, low cost source of nitrogen, enough to greatly reduce our dependence on foreign natural gas and oil. The important key is to separate the valuable, nitrogen rich urine, human urine is 18% organic nitrogen, at the source, before it is mixed with feces and before it is flushed into the water supply.
The economic potential of capturing human urine is stunning. Human urine is 18% organic nitrogen and has been used in agriculture for thousands of years. Sweden, Germany, Holland and many other countries have been using and processing human urine for agricultural purposes and to protect the environment from water based sewer systems. Human urine is the only renewable, sustainable and economically feasible source of nitrogen available to humanity and it is free.
What is the economic value of human urine? Here is how it works, the value of comparative petroleum derived fertilizer with the same 18% nitrogen content is approximately $10.00 a gallon and requires a massive polluting industry that is not renewable. The average person produces 2 liters of urine a day or roughly $5.00 worth of organic nitrogen. A city like Miami flushes down the drain 10 to 20 million dollars worth of nitrogen a day and spends another fortune to do it. Integrated Recycling is the future of our economy and could replace taxation in funding community services. The cities will become fertilizer factories and urban and suburban farming and food production could provide a sustainable, local food supply. Schools and churches could be nurseries and local gardening centers, hubs of city and urban agriculture and recycling. This could be a sustainable, local system that is a renewable doable foundation for local economies. Local food production is the basis of all economies and the missing component in modern cities.
This kind of integrated recycling is highly profitable and turns three life threatening problems, water shortage, water pollution and imported oil into one sustainable, environmentally positive and economically beneficial solution.
Water based sewer systems unnecessarily wastes and pollutes our most valuable resource, clean water. There is only one water supply for the entire earth. We share this single resource with 6.5 billion other humans and with all living organisms. Water should be regarded as our most important natural resource and shared birthright. Water is the first thing mankind must agree to share according to the highest collective principle. Water is the tie that binds us together, for better or for worse.
Water is the blood of the earth and a true sacrament, something we all share, something that is absolutely necessary for life. We should not pollute the water supply with chemicals, insecticides or human disposables that can and should be recycled to insure a healthy and sustainable future.
Modern, water based sewer systems could be the worst idea mankind has ever adopted. Common sense informs us not to defecate in the drinking water but that is exactly what we currently do in every city of the land. We do it without thinking. That is the problem. We are not thinking right. It is possible, conceivable, that the water crisis could be THE reason people begin to think of ourselves as truly united with everyone else on the planet, known and unknown, united in our fears, hopes and desires. 6.5 billion Separate destinies have become one destiny for us all …