“To pee, or not to pee, that is the question.” -Shakespee’r
We hit the road full time almost 18 months ago, my wife, 2 kids, 2 bulldogs and I. The first upgrade/gadget we installed into our 39’ rig was a Natures Head Composting Toilet.
This wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction or blind decision. Our first exposure to a composting toilet was when we made an offer on a home that was completely off the grid. At that point in time the home did not have a working toilet. They did, however, have a Composting Toilet. We were rather freaked out by it. Having never used one, nor maintained one… it was an item we requested be modified to a septic connection toilet. In hindsight… the homeowner knew what she was doing (and was way cooler than we were). We opt’d out of purchasing that home for a number of other reasons that I’ll post about in another article down the road.
Fast forward 13 months…My wife got the wild hair to travel full time. In preparing for this daunting adventure, my wife went into full blown research-mode She immersed herself into the Gone With The Wynn’s vlog. One of their episodes was a product review/endorsement of the Natures Head Composting Toilet. Our original goal with purchasing it was so that we could boon-dock and not have to worry about managing our black tank… and with a valve it doubled up our gray tanks storage capacity. A big bonus when you aren’t hooked up!
The more we swam in the conversation of all things poo… it became clear to us that dropping chemicals into a tank right below our feet… that offgassed into our living space wouldn’t be the safest thing. Nor is it good for our children’s developing brains.
Here’s the warning label on the most common used pooper product:
Are there drawbacks to having a composting toilet? Yes. Have we overfilled our urine bucket? Yes. Have we overfilled our urine bucket more than once? No. I learn from my mistakes. Now it’s true that my family doesn’t suffer from frequent urinary tract infections… that’s because we care about our wellbeing and make wise decisions. I like to think that we consume a healthy amount of water compared to the average human… as a result I end up emptying the urine bucket every 2 days (my youngest has recently been potty trained and is now adding to the bucket). Based on our families usage… I clean out the composting toilet once per week. I’ve gotten it down to a science now. Takes roughly 20 minutes to clean it out and reinstall. Oh, I’ve never dropped any poop on my shoes. That being said, I do have delicate hands and an a freakish amount of dexterity. The first time I cleaned it out it took me over an hour, mainly because I was ill-prepared. Once having a solid poo plan in place, it’s been easy breezy!
In the end we felt the composting toilet far surpassed having to drop chemicals into a black tank. Having lived in our rig for the last year and a half I can honestly say there are a number of other benefits that I wouldn’t have considered until seeing others struggle and complain about their toilet systems.
Here’s what we learned:
- We never have harmful chemicals in our home
- Our bathroom never smells (and thus the rest of the rig never smells)
- We NEVER clog the toilet
- I can connect/disconnect my hoses without needing to wear nasty sh!t laden gloves
- It feels good doing something positive for the environment
- When we’re under tow we can use the bathroom without having to keep water in our holding tanks (this cuts down on tow weight which is super important when full timing)
- The majority of RV parks will hit you with a fee/penalty if you spill your crap on the ground… as they should! No fee’s for us!
- I feel a sense of superiority over those that don’t have one.
- Lastly, and this might sound weird. There’s something cool about “owning your shit”. Being fully responsible for everything in your life… poop included, is really cool. In Hawaiian they call it Kuleana… look it up.
In the end I don’t think composting toilets are for everyone… clearly Mike is a great example of this. But for me and my house… we will serve the composting toilet.
