General Question

capet's avatar

Can I pay someone to pick up my poop (composting toilet question)?

Asked by capet (988points) December 25th, 2021
17 responses
“Great Question” (3points)

I know that there are a lot of services that will pick up compostable waste from me and (theoretically, allegedly, maybe) use it to grow stuff. Does anything like that exist for the output from a composting toilet? Alternatively, is there any other composting toilet solution for my situation (see below)?
My situation: I live in an urban apartment and I don’t grow anything. I’m not handy and I have no initiative, but I am SUPER-RICH (okay, maybe not quite, but I’m willing to spend some money). I do have a little bit of a yard. I want a composting toilet, but I would like it

1. to be easy to use,
2. to work in an upper-floor apartment, and
3. to produce output that I don’t personally have to use.

I’m guessing #3 is probably impossible, but I figured I would ask the experts (aka y’all).
Maybe one day I will find someone who will pick up my poop for me, just like I do for my dog….

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Answers

janbb's avatar

I’ve heard of it being used at a commune but that was an outside toilet. It’s hard to imagine that anyone is going to come up three flights into an apartment to pick up your poop;

Tropical_Willie's avatar

Many require a vent pipe and fan . . . . . construction and cutting holes !

kritiper's avatar

People poop is like dog poop: It’s too hot, chemically, to be used as compost unless it is well processed in a waste treatment plant. Good compost poop comes from vegetarian animals like cows and horses.

kritiper's avatar

OH! And sewage treatment plants don’t have access for the general public to come in and dump poop.

capet's avatar

@kritiper I assume it doesn’t help if I’m vegan? I assume it has to do with the way that those vegetarian animals’ digestion works differently from human digestion?

janbb's avatar

Here you go but I think it will take a lot more of an investment in time and labor than you are want to do:

https://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/human-waste-zmgz11zrog/

Patty_Melt's avatar

I will be modded, but I think this question should be preserved in the same storage locker as frizzers and pants plants.
In fact, can new awards be added?

Jeruba's avatar

No new development on this site, @Patty_Melt.

Pants plants?

seawulf575's avatar

Composting will produce a pretty foul odor if you don’t vent them to the outside properly. So using it in an apartment is questionable. As for where to dispose of the waste? It sounds like you live in a city. Many times there are communal gardens set up. They might be willing to come get your waste to be used as fertilizer. They might even have a pick up service.

kritiper's avatar

@capet I don’t know. I only know about dog poop (from a carnivore.)
Take some of your poop out into the yard and put it on the grass. Come back some time (weeks) later and see if your poop has killed the grass it sits on. That might answer your question to me.

Patty_Melt's avatar

@Jeruba, I don’t recall exactly how the question went. Somehow OP intentionally mixed the two words through the details. It is one of the amusing way back Qs. I’ll give a look and see if I can track it down.

filmfann's avatar

So, couldn’t you install a septic tank for this same result?
A septic service tech might be able to help you with the clean up of your current situation.

janbb's avatar

@kritiper There is a way to compost human poop as I said above and then linked a link too. It is a process though and not one that could easily be done on the third floor of a rental building.

capet's avatar

@filmfann good point. I would have expected that this still uses up a lot of water (or water treatment capacity), but maybe it’s greener than I assume.

Smashley's avatar

Composting toilets are a good alternative to latrines and raw sewage dumping. They are far inferior to the engineering marvel that is the modern toilet and sewage treatment facility. You will spend more on installation, more on maintenance, have more smells, more spills, and will spend a significantly larger portion of your time dealing with your poop than you do now.

There are really no good long term solutions for dealing with the compost material. The best solution you’ll find is someone to dump it in the woods for you.

If everyone went for this method, we’d all be in some deep shit.

kritiper's avatar

@janbb Okay. Then what? Where does it go from there? Looks like @Smashley summed it up.

janbb's avatar

@kritiper I’m not saying it should be done, I’m just saying it can be done. But not from a 3rd floor apartment.

I really have no dog in this fight at all.

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