While many of the nutrients we eat are released in a convenient liquid form (which is why diluted urine is great for immediate use in the garden or compost pile), the residual bulk and nutrients are delivered in a somewhat more problematic form: poop. Why problematic? Well, it’s heavy, bulky, and smelly, but, most importantly, in its raw form, poop is significantly more likely to contain microorganisms that can make us sick than urine is.
But this doesn’t mean you should flush your poop away, adding to the waste stream. Just like any manure, when properly handled, that black gold is fantastic for soil and plants. The keys to closing your personal nutrient loop—keeping poop out of the waste stream and returning the resources to your soil—include careful handling and composting, along with lots of time.
The easiest way to close your poop loop is to install a commercial composting toilet, such as those made by Clivus Multrum, Sun-Mar, Composting Toilet Systems, Advanced Composting Systems, Sancor Industries, and Naturum…………
Most people either compost the composting toilet’s end product further using fresh organic matter to create a hot pile (the heat kills nasty stuff); treating it with earthworms (which has been shown to be especially effective, see below); burying it in a wild area where it won’t be disturbed; or storing it for an extra year in closed containers to allow the bad organisms to die off completely. ………..
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Not quite ready to take up sustainable elimination yourself? Well, if you have pets you can start by composting their waste. Yes, I know pet poop is on the list of compost-pile no-no’s, but that is due to the possibility of on-board disease-causing organisms that could infect humans and not the compostability of the material. Composting pet waste is perhaps even more important than composting human waste because so much of what pets eliminate ends up in landfills, where it can contaminate groundwater, rather than in sewage-treatment facilities.
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Vermicomposting doesn’t appear to be an effective way to shorten the composting time for cat poop, as earthworms can serve as hosts for toxoplasma, as well. For that reason, it’s a bad idea to opt for a worm-based system for dealing with cat waste. Feel free to compost cat droppings or cat litter (the plant-based kinds only) as you would dog waste in a traditional compost bin; just plan on storing it for an extra 6 months to age, for a total composting/aging time of 18 months.
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Article source: Rodale’s Organic Life
Image source: same as above