Composting human waste

Home Forums Sanitation Dealing with Human Waste Composting human waste

This topic contains 7 replies, has 5 voices, and was last updated by  namelus 3 months ago.

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  • #2130


    1 five gallon bucket
    1 bag peat moss. 1 bag non-resinous sawdust.Septic tank toilet paper.
    Add peat moss add sawdust ,Use peat moss and sawdust to cover. Empty bucket into compost pile. Cover. No smell, no flies. it works.

  • #2140

    Crow Bar

    What do you do if you dont have the peat moss?

  • #2155


    rotted leaf mold works well or any soft organic substance.

  • #2156


    Idea came from the book, HUMANURE. I used this for four months while building a cabin. It works.

  • #5917

    Old Goat

    Excellent, how safe is the manure once it is composted I would think it ok but?  did it say? Human waste has contaminated a lot of food lately

  • #15240



    Good question, and I see nobody has addressed it. I do not know definitively, how safe composted human manure would be.

    One consideration is correct composting, in which the temperatures would reach a level that would kill off bacteria. When I was big into composting I found I needed a very large mass of organic material to achieve those temperatures. Perhaps if the human manure were added to such a large mass of other material and composted correctly then that might take care of bacterial concerns. I don’t think a five gallon bucket of organic material would be adequate, more likely a huge pile about ten to twelve feet long, eight feet wide, at the base, and about six feet tall, like what I constructed. Sticking my hand into that pile about a foot in the middle would feel like it was going to burn me, couldn’t keep it there. It takes a lot of effort.

    Another matter to consider: humans are at the top of the food chain, and as such we get all the heavy metals from everything we eat, all the plants and animals that we eat, pick up heavy metals from what they eat. Compost from human manure would, I think, contain more heavy metals than compost made from living things farther down the food chain. This would be a cumulative thing, a long term concern, probably more germane to young children than old folks. The very young have a lifetime ahead of them to accumulate toxins, whereas old farts like me are pretty much done for, already poisoned from living my own sixty plus years eating whatever.

    Another thing, the pharmaceuticals humans consume. These things are excreted by humans, albeit in tiny amounts. There are real world concerns about this in water treatment effluent discharged into rivers etc. The treatment plants aren’t specifically designed to remove such things.

    I need to research this subject in more detail, although finding much on this subject may be difficult.

    • This reply was modified 3 months ago by  ephemeral.
    • This reply was modified 3 months ago by  ephemeral.
  • #15368

    Crow Bar

    IIRC, according to the Humanure book, it is 2 years before you can use it.
    But that is assuming you reach the 140-150 degree temp range.

    I do the same with my livestock manure. Not uncommon for it to melt all the snow off, and be steaming in the middle of winter.
    Even when I muck out the stalls, I can feel the heat.

  • #15414


    If you have been to Asia it is used extensively there as compost for veggies fields. The waste processing plants sell it at huge discount to local farmers who spread it on thier fields. We don’t here because jot near main city plus head water catchment has restrictions.


    As far as composting human manure…. I separate liquid from solids. Solids are  lime and buried at this point, liquid is put on hay stack from all the poultry  cattle shelters pig houses. It’s open  till summer then one final urine drench,  turned and mushroom spore (oyster) then traped. Next year its perfect soil so long as you don’t have too thick in summer and scrap it in fall into pile with bottom venting and re cover.

    There is a smaller micro green green house  which we will try using the winter compost to be additional heat source.


    When the dandilions grow I will try and get a picture of them some get over 3  feet tall with spore balls size of a bit smaller than tennis ball.


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