Composting Toilet The Sanctuary at Shepardfields

Project Coordinators Justin Good and Jen Taylor Executive Directors, The Sanctuary at Shepardfields (The Sanctuary) 59 Bogel Road, East Haddam, Connecticut www.oursanctuary.org Architect and Builder Hans Lohse, AIA. Lifespace Architecture and Interior Design www.lifespacearchitects.com Technical Advisor Abby Rockefeller, Resource Institute for Low Entropy Systems www.riles.org Engineer Michael G. Harris, PE www.harris-mgmt.com Concept The composting toilet demonstrates the viability of small scale, decentralized, ecologicallyregenerative technologies. This project relies on composting humanure and avoids issues and complications associated with conventional wastewater treatment practices. Design Considerations The Sanctuary is an ecological education and spiritual life center the welcomes the public in small groups. The capacity of the facility is currently set by zoning regulations: Maximum: average of 20 visitors per day o Once per month: 30 people per day o Three times per year: gatherings of maximum of 100 people. The capacity and sizing analysis for the composting toilet considers the zoning constraints as the upper limit of bathroom need and use at The Sanctuary. The analysis includes the following additional factors: Estimate of bathroom use based on a Visitor Use Profile developed

with regard to the zoning constraints. Total availability of bathroom resources including the composting facility, temporary Porta-Pottis installed for larger events, the existing two bathrooms in the main residence on the property. Estimates for volume of liquid and solid matter introduced into the composting toilet including the cover materials used to eliminate odors. A sizing analysis for the composting toilet is provided below. Composting is microhusbandry; specifically, the use of microorganisms along with soil, moisture and oxygen, to biologically decompose organic residues, including humanure, into soil, specifically, humus. Humus is a stable material which is critical to soil fertility and to soils ability to retain moisture. It also releases nutrients essential for plant growth, helps to balance soil pH, and supports microbial populations that add life to the soil.1 The composting process requires moisture, oxygen, temperature (and time), and a good nitrogen/carbon (C/N) ratio (approximately 30/1). The diagram below illustrates the composting toilet design and layout.

Joseph Jenkins, The Humanure Manual (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2005), Ch. 3.

Key design elements include: (1) Curing compartment has an inclined floor (clivus is Latin for downward sloping surface) which allows the humanure and other organic residues to pile up while draining liquid towards the front or toes of the structure. (2) Manually-operated misting system to add moisture to the top of the pile. (3) Access hatches on the top and front of the curing chamber to allow for easy access in raking and removing the humus pile. (4) Mechanically-drafted air shaft for the curing chamber to allow for adequate ventilation. Estimated usage The capacity analysis relies on a Visitor Profile and maximum usage provided by the zoning constraints: Visitor Profile: o Weekdays: 5 people per day maximum o Weekends: 10 people per day Zoning Maximums: o Monthly (1x per month): 30 people o Annually (3x maximum): 100 people Based on the Visitor Profile and the Zoning Maximums, the total Person Visits per year is calculated to be 2,850. The average daily visits is therefore 8 people per day. The table below summarizes the calculation.

Bathroom Loading Analysis The total people visits per year calculated above is converted to liquid and solid waste loads that must be accommodated by the facility. The table below summarizes the conversion factors and calculation of the solid and liquid waste loading that result from the total of 2,850 people visits shown above.

The total loading is calculated as 59 gallons of liquid waste and 18 cubic feet of solid waste including the cover material. Project Specifications Composting containment structure for the composter: 4 by 4 by 4 shoe-shaped rectangle made of cinder block, with inclined floor, vent, misting system, access doors for raking and removing humanure, and a liquid collection device via drain at the lower end. Design specifications are derived from the industry standard Clivus Multrum toilet. Abby Rockefeller, co-founder of that company and a world-expert on composting toilets and sustainable water treatment, has advised on the critical design constraints. The design and size of the composter is essentially the same as the Clivus Multrum toilets used in Gillette Castle State Park. The composter itself, or curing chamber, is enclosed in a 14 by 15 deck with a small building structure encasing the toilet in an eco-temple, with ramp, door and wheelchairaccessible interior space. Sizing & Capacity2 Curing compartment is 60 cubic feet - to allow for approximately three years of capacity and complete digestion of the organic residues prior to needing to be removed. Note: no heat sources are needed provided enough time is allowed for digestion3; Use and Maintenance A Clivus-style composter requires little routine maintenance, but does require a general mindfulness about the conditions of the organic matter in the curing chamber. The Executive Directors of the Sanctuary will be responsible for monitoring the composter and
Estimated from figures for the Clivus Multrum composting toilet specifications which the Composting Toilet Eco-temple design is based on. (http://www.thenaturalhome.com/clivusm1.htm) 3 During the colder months, the composting process will stop. But the microorganisms will simply wait until temperatures rises enough to thaw the pile and the process will resume.
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for periodic maintenance. Basic maintenance items include the following: (1) Odor control - After each use of the toilet, the humanure must be immediately covered with a clean organic material to eliminate unpleasant smells and to trap necessary oxygen in the pile. The covering material can be sawmill sawdust (vs. lumber yard sawdust which is kiln-dried and therefore biologically inhert), peat moss or leaves. A small container and instructional directions for use will be provided for visitors and monitored by the Executive Directors. (2) Removal of humus The size of the curing chamber will allow the composting pile to fully decompose before any humus needs to be removed. Based on estimated daily use, it should take a minimum of 5 years, and upwards of 10 years, before any humus needs to be removed from the composter. When removed, this stabilized organic matter will be used to fertilize non-edible plants and trees at the Sanctuary. (3) Removal of liquids The drain at the foot of the chamber will collect liquid run-off and carry via a hose to a five gallon bottle for eventual use as high-quality liquid fertilizer on non-edible plants and trees at the Sanctuary. Given high rates of evaporation, this process should take between 5 and 15 years to fill the bottle. (4) Sanitary facilities Antibacterial handwipes and paper towels will be provided for visitors to the eco-temple. Supplying these, as well as routine cleaning of the ecotemple enclosure will be the responsibility of the Executive Directors. Notes on the Ecology of Composting Toilets Many sanitation experts believe that standard toilets are poorly designed technologies. In their seminal book Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, Paul Hawken and engineers Amory and L. Hunter Lovins discuss the engineering virtues of the standard American toilet: In an effort to make them invisible a toilet mixes pathogen-bearing feces with relatively clean urine. Then it dilutes that slurry with about 100 times its volume in pure drinking water, and further mixes the mess with industrial toxins in the sewer system, thus turning an excellent fertilizer and soil conditioner into a serious, far-reaching, and dispersed disposal problem. Supplying the clean water, treating the sewage, and providing all the delivery and collection in between requires systems whose cost strains the resources even of wealthy countries, let alone the 2 billion people who lack basic sanitation. Composting toilets, now being used in parks all over Connecticut, offer restroom service without the need for expensive wastewater treatment. They are safe, less odorous (really no smell whatsoever) than conventional toilets, and an invaluable educational tool for helping people to appreciate, like in olden times, the agricultural value of human waste. Embodying the ecological principle that waste=food, they are the most advanced technological expression of sustainability, and cheaper than conventional toilets. The only barriers to this ultra-rational technology are modernist cultural prejudices about human

waste. The Sanctuary currently pays about $100 each month to service a porta-potty, whose waste is collected and processed at a central sewer treatment plant. The process centralized sewage treatment - is costly, energy intensive, not as effective as natures own way of breaking down harmful pathogens, chemicals and heavy metals through microbial digestion, and produces a toxic waste (sewage sludge) for which there is currently no environmentally safe way to dispose of. This is what you call a high entropy technology, since a lot of energy both the energy used in the treatment, and the organic energy contained in the human waste - are lost in the treatment process. In contrast, a composting toilet helps natures own digestive processes to breathe more deeply, closing a nutrient cycle and returning human excreta back to condition the soil. After we complete this project, the Sanctuary will save a cost, reduce its harmful eco-footprint, and replace an ugly industrial artifact with a beautiful shrine which which will harmonize deeply with its locale, and ornament the meadow stand of trees like a some strange flower. Built and designed of mostly local materials, labor, ideas and inspiration, the process of the construction itself will serve as a healthy learning ecology. A learning ecology is a project or situation in which individuals work towards understanding an aspect of their natural, social or economic environment which reveals something fundamental about their collective fate, their values, their identities. When one experiences a larger self, a community-sized self, an invisible bond is uncovered, through which information from a deeper pool of life activity can be transmitted to the individual. This information is a source of energy which empowers the individual to the level of spontaneous, patient, loving commitment to the long-term health of the community. This is where the Sanctuary sees the connection between ecology and spirituality. In this way, our project will illustrate the most progressive vision of sustainability. Sustainability can be mathematically defined as a property of a system: a system is sustainable if its activity is beneficial to the sub-systems contained within it and the macro-systems within which it is contained. For information about the design, specifications or engineering calculations, call Michael G. Harris, PE at 860-873-8989. To see the project, please contact Justin or Jen at the Sanctuary at (860) 319-1134.