I'm setting up a toilet system for a campsite and want to get some permie perspectives on the whole thing, plus I have specific questions at the end. First, some background.
Physical setting: 50+ acres of woods hours from where I normally reside; fairly remote area though there are a few neighbors within shouting distance; almost entirely forested, mostly spruce-hemlock but plenty of hardwoods around too; once regularly wet although recently precip has come more in a pattern of drought/storms; perennial stream on site near the only road access.
Usual land use: Weekend or day trips with 1-5 people; a few times a year larger gatherings for the weekend. Forestry/logging, potentially some agroforestry/forest farming. Stream water filtered or boiled for drinking/cooking, occassionally swam in.
Potty purpose: For the small groups making short trips, catholes a few hundred feet from camp and away from the stream have sufficed. The key thing being good hygiene at camp, using multiple bins and jugs and soaps to keep hands and dishes clean. For larger groups and for certain 'civilized' guests, a well-designed toilet and waste management system is desired.
Based on the above and considering some potty parameters, I've come up with the following system. I'm still hashing out some details and will share questions I have following this description; constructive criticism on my system design is appreciated.
THE SHYSTEM: Pee in the woods. Poop bucket with a platform+seat over it, in a private area and/or with a privacy tent/tarps around it. 3 buckets - one as the toilet, one full of saw-dust with a scooper for 'flushing' after each use, and one as a backup for the rotation. After each weekend trip, or as needed during each trip, the poop bucket contents get dumped & burried in a large cathole (~2ft radius, 3ft depth) in some off-the-beaten-path spot in the woods which doesn't appear especially likely to flood. If the bucket needs rinsing, used sudsy water from a dish washing bin will be carefully poured in the bucket, the bin moved away from the scene of the poo, and then the bucket rinsed with that sudsy water and leaf litter. That bucket is left to dry, and the dry bucket waiting to be tagged in gets a base layer of saw dust then put under the platform+throne for use.
So far I have a nice platform built (toilet seat on wood on cinderblocks, secured together with screws/nails/chains) and 3 buckets. I have dish washing station bins for that sudsy rinse water. I have shovel & post-hole digger, and a chain saw I'm hoping I can produce ample amounts of saw dust with (untested).
Some questions:
1) Is the rinse water method safe, or do I need to be more careful about cross-contamination between the dish washing bin and the toilet system? I figure the pouring from this bin will be careful, then the bin is removed from the toilet washing area; this will take place and then the bin will be left out in the open for at least a week if not months before the next use as a dish washing bin. This question itself may be over-cautious, but better safe than sick.
2) How bad is an exposed poo bucket? Right now there's a little bit of a gap between bucket & platform - not enough for someone to 'miss', but enough for insects or small critters to crawl in the bucket - do you expect that to matter much given there's no plan to leave any load exposed beyond the brief visits it'll receive? I expect this question will answer itself pretty early on in the experiment.
3) How about burrying bucket contents? I've heard many folks use a heap composting system, or a pit privy system, but both of those sound like more exposed feces than needed here. We don't need the
compost output as there's a forest full of organic layer soils out there, but we do need to get rid of the feces ASAP in a way that's safe for people, water, and woods. I figure burying it should suffice - it's essentially scaling up catholes from one-time-use to one weekends worth of use for a small group + saw dust.
4) How feasible is creating saw dust with a chainsaw, or what alternatives do you recommend? There's plenty of live wood that could be removed for timberstand improvement, dead wood new and old, and scraps from logging. I'm not sure a chainsaw's practical for creating sawdust however, and I may be underestimating how much sawdust is needed and how long it takes to produce a bucket worth (at least using a chainsaw). How are other materials compared to sawdust? Plenty of leafs I could try to crinkle and crush to use instead, but I've heard that's less effective smell-wise (maybe a worthy trade-off anyway). Some folks have suggested I buy some sorta powdered chemical to neutralize oder and pathogens, some even suggested buying saw dust, but I'd rather not rely on chemical companies for this and hauling in sawdust from offsite to a forest sounds silly. Wood ash is something we generate from campfires and I'll probably throw some of that in the mix, but business as usual so far doesn't generate enough ash to replace sawdust's role in this system.
Thanks for hearing out these <insert bathroom joke here /> ideas, and thanks in advance for feedback & insight!