Help me making a compost system accepted by the municipality

I live in Norway, where we bought a house from 1922 without an inside bathroom. Great for us, but not as straightforward solution for the municipality.  The last they wrote us is that "other solutions than septic tank will probably not be accepted". Well, I accept the challenge and I want to present a project that they will just say yes to.

But I need some inputs!

I'm still in the process of reading the Humanure Handbook. The idea that I currently explore is a 4 chamber compost. So that it would take me 4 years since the harsh temperature we experience here equals to more time for "bad" bacteria to be gone.

What do you think in general about this solution? Would you consider others?

I struggle to make sense of some aspects of this 4 chamber system. The thing is that both us and a neighbor have a dwell we have to avoid contamination into. Should 60 feet away from those in air distance be a good enough buffer?
Also, my idea for building this compost system was to use pallets. Mixing garden scraps and poop for a year before moving to next chamber. The thing is that pallets would still have some contamination to the ground. Even worse when big rainfalls strike. Would a roof be a good enough addition to make this less of a problem? Or should I try to make the bottom part more or completely closed to leakage? How would you do this?

All ideas and meanings are very welcome. I've been reading some other posts here on permies and got very motivated to set up this system asap.

And just to mention, since I was forgetting: the idea would be to have a separated toilet so that urine can be spread in different areas also.

I read that book  a few years ago. It seems like a great way to go. The municipality might not agree. Another option might be a commercial composting toilet. There are several types available that use different technologies to deal with the waste.

Hi Marta,

fist off I want to say that even the best system might be revoked by the officials just because they don’t understand or don’t want to deal with it.
But the humanure hand book has a lot of useful information, also on how to talk to the officials.

A roof is a very good idea to control the moisture. Avoiding rainfall (and placing the piles in an area that doesn’t get flooded) should take care of the well situation.

Unless they ask you to do it I wouldn’t put an impermeable bottom. You want a big pillow of dry, organic matter as a start of each pile. But you want worms and bacteria to be able to come into your pile from the earth. If you have to provide an impermeable bottom consider adding some ripe compost or earth or forest earth to the new piles.

I personally don’t like the urine diversion. Makes everything more complicated. Jenkins also advocates for not separating.

Even if they make you build a traditional system you’re still free to install it but not use it.

Hope this helps a bit.

It might behoove you to read about these systems.  They use a flush toilet indoors , then a special compost collector outside that can provide usable biogas for cooking.  Here is one such system for a DIY approach, and a ready made product exists from homebiogas.com.  

While I can't confirm their efficacy in a Norwegian winter, at least you could cite their track record to your municipality

Or maybe a willow feeder

Just a tidbit of info, a previous county I lived in Texas USA, would only accept a incinerator toilet.

Times change and views of other countries change so I wish you the best.