Medications and composting toilets/urine diverters

Mar 10, 2015 07:28:57

Are there any instances where you would NOT recommend composting toilets due to medications that a person is taking? For instance - at one point I was taking chemo drugs - these are very toxic. Doctors told me to keep my toilet lid closed and don't allow any animals to drink from the toilet tank because even after flushing, residual chemicals could be present.

I hate the fact that I flushed this toxic urine/poop down the toilet and it is probably now present in our drinking water - would a composting toilet mitigate the effects of this type of medication or would it just kill off all the life in the toilet and cause issues? I'm also concerned about this with urine diverters too. I have purposely avoided using friend's composting toilets when I've been on chemo meds.

Mar 10, 2015 16:23:53

Hi Jen - These should probably be taken on a case by case basis. The interesting thing about composting toilets and using humanure is it typically contains the risk to only those living and eating the produce from the site. And, as mentioned before the humanure composting process + a healthy soil is extremely robust in handling most issues. However, precautions should be taken especially when there is the potential to put others at risk. Again, most research out there is with regards to residual medications from composting farm animal wastes and not specific to humans. Time for more humanure research!

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