Humanure Compost System - How it works 

Please read the book The Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins first.

Well put, I’m happy to hear you were able to recover! We talk a lot here about how humanure acts as a kind of foundational building block that ultimately leads to a mor holistic lifestyle. For me, it has to do with taking full responsibility for our own shit, both literally and figuratively. Through doing this, I’ve found a deeper understanding of the interconnectivity of all aspects of life, not only limited to the physical plane of reality. Perhaps the biggest roadblock to widespread adoption is the societal stigma surrounding our perception of our own waste. Once we move past that, the benefits are innumerable. So happy to encounter others doing this, Cheers!

@@ericoberholtzer1949 Using our own manure in the soil that produces the food we eat also gives the soil information of the nutrients it has to provide the plant. It's all an intricate system that is interactive whereas our orthodox systems pay no attention to that as it grabs everything to centralize and control. I'd love to see compost toilets rather than PortaPotties those things are so ugly and nasty. Love this video, very well done - thank you!

Much appreciated!

Definitely. I’ve found the wood shavings work best, because of the high C:N ratio. You can do it with grass and weed clippings, or leaves, but the ratio is less with those and the pile tends to go anaerobic which requires more maintenance

@@ericoberholtzer1949 Hi thanks for your video's very informative. I have access to grass clippings but not sawdust or wood shavings. Will the grass clippings in "damp" form be enough to seal odour in the toilet bucket during use? I have access to eucalyptus leaves. Are these ok to use ? Thanks .

​@outbacgive it a try :) kenduro7418

You’re welcome! The only layer that goes between the pile and the ground is the wood shavings(or other dry carbon material). That layer acts as a sponge to prevent runoff. If you’re experience runoff, the issue is likely from too much rain, rather than the water you’re adding to the pile, in which case you would want to build a roof over the pile, and ideally collect the rainwater from there to use for washing buckets or for irrigation. If the pile starts drying out too much during our dry winters, I will sometimes just stick the hose in the middle of the pile for an hour or so, and I’ve never had water run out the bottom of the pile. Joe Jenkins discusses this at length in The Humanure Handbook(available as a free download), and I would highly recommend his book.

Thanks so much. I generally rinse only once, and then periodically scrub out the bucket really well to get rid of build up that occurs. Soap and a stiff brush for this are more than adequate, and that rinse water could go onto the pile if you are using a natural soap, though large amounts of soap might cause issues. If you would feel better sanitizing the bucket with bleach, that’s also an option. That could go into your drain system, though high amounts of bleach can cause problems with decomposition in a septic system. I’ve gotten into the habit of keeping a separate compost pile that handles all the waste from the dogs, and that’s what I use to process chemicals I need to dispose of(from the wood/metal shop, etc), as it’s a long term pile that I don’t use for applying to plants because the dog waste on its own can take a long time to break down. There was a study I found awhile ago on stormwater compost systems for processing road water runoff that showed a slow composting system would break down fuels like diesel and kerosene to virtually undetectable levels.

@@ericoberholtzer1949 Great, thanks Eric! That's impressive that a seperate slow composting system can break down fossil fuels!

@@ericoberholtzer1949 Happy Farming!

Please read the book The Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins first.

It's all about the microbes, not worms. 😊

Thanks! Sorry for the delay, haven’t checked this in awhile. Definitely no pressure treated lumber, and you’ll want to avoid anything allelopathic(walnut, eucalyptus, pine, etc)

@@ericoberholtzer1949 Good to know! Peace and love!! :)

Hey! I would say no, in my experience, and we’re in a location where that happens pretty frequently - I’ve had to put out spontaneous fires several times, from piled field waste left by other farmers. The pile should stay pretty moist for optimal composting, which isn’t a problem given the amount of urine, and the water used in washing out the buckets that goes back on the pile, plus retained moisture in the food scraps. My pile is usually between 140-150F in the core where the material is fresh, but I’ve never had it get hotter than that.

​@@ericoberholtzer1949and it gets wet every time it rains 😊 Microbes swim 😊

You’re welcome! When the video was taken, I had one pile complete and was starting the second. To the right of the bin of wood shavings, there’s another bin visible, which is currently filled with bags of chicken manure and scrap wood. So, 3 bins for composting, and one for storing cover material. Yes, I turn the pile once, after 1 year of building it. That pile then rests for two years before use.

​@@ericoberholtzer1949I thought that you were using 3 compost bins which would make sense. The first bin would sit for 2 full years by starting a new bin every year. In the 4th year you would have compost that has sat for 2 full years.

Thanks! I don’t dig anything to start the pile. Just put a thick layer of wood chips/other dry material on the ground to start. It’s not even necessary to remove grass or other vegetation before starting. To make additions to the pile, open a small hole by pushing material to the side, add your waste, and cover with fresh material. Hope that clarifies things!

@@ericoberholtzer1949 yes it did, thank you!

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tKdZOeTaPo4.html

@@per6644 Thanks, Eric. I had watched this link earlier and love the reminder and refresher. A friend is going into Peace Corp and is very interested in this work.

Thank you! Yes 20L buckets. We have 4 people using it daily, and I need to empty the bucket about every 4 days.

Look for the closest sawmill. They will most likely give you all that you want. It's a byproduct to them. 😊

Thank you! If you live in a high rainfall area, then a roof over the bins would be best so you can control moisture level in the pile. Best if you can do rainwater collection from the roof to supply water for washing the buckets. Ours isn’t covered, but we get only about 20” rain annually, and only during half the year. I compensate by using less wash water during the rainy season, and more during the dry season. The pile will absorb a shocking amount of water though, once it gets up to a cubic meter or more, I can let the hose run directly into it for an hour if I like, and there will be no runoff. I do this periodically during the dry season if the pile looks like it’s drying out too much. You’ll have to experiment to figure out what works best in your own region, as every situation will be a little different.

​@@ericoberholtzer1949yep, microbes swim 😊

Sounds great! I wonder how you need to contain it so it doesn't seep into groundwater.

That sounds like an amazing project! If you are able to source wood shavings(not sawdust) from a local mill, or even material from an arborist who shreds their waste, pressure treated lumber shouldn’t be an issue. I would ask just to make sure however, as you don’t really want the chemicals in your compost.

@paavo Hirn - a properly prepared pile with the dry sponge layer as shown will not present a leaching problem, unless you live in a high rainfall area. In that case, a roof would be in order to more effectively control moisture content. Joe Jenkins talks about this concern at length in the Humanure Handbook.

@@ericoberholtzer1949 I'm more worried about trace amounts of chemicals from treated wood than anything seeping out of a humanure pile. You're probably right. I'll try to get my hands on that book. Thanks!

That’s a fair concern. To my knowledge, the odds of getting a large enough quantity of pressure treated wood shavings suitable for composting is extremely low since the wood is milled to final dimensions prior to being sent for treatment. Sourcing your shavings from a local mill that handles only untreated wood is probably the safest option.

Thanks! If you wanted to do it batch-style instead of the continuous method it might work, but I’ve never done it. There are a few reasons why I wouldn’t take this route - 1. Simply storing a load of full buckets presents a situation where you have a less than ideal anaerobic fermentation happening. This produces a lot of methane gas buildup, and could potentially lead to lids blowing off the buckets and creating a bit of a biohazard. 2. The continuous method allows for easy layering of waste(high nitrogen) and carbon (wood chips, etc). In a batch system, you’d have to do that layering as you add each bucket to he pile, otherwise you’ll end up with hard to contain liquid mess in the middle, which will decompose anaerobically, and smell absolutely awful. 3. You’d still have to wait the 2 years for the resting period, and possibly longer because you’re attempting to break down a lot of material all at once, and the process may not be as efficient. Not to mention the smell from decomposing anaerobically fermenting shit. Imagine the classic manure pit on a farm, only with human waste. The reason I like the continuous method is that the labor is relatively minimal, and the pile is able to stay in largely thermophilic state in the core between additions, which kills off most of the pathogens. If it’s possible, I would recommend placing the pile in a convenient location nearby the outhouse to make the trip less of a hassle. Properly managed, the pile has no smell, and the labor with this method is as minimal as it gets with making compost.

@@ericoberholtzer1949 thank you for your advice! You’ve made an excellent point thus changing the route I’ll go down 😄

Happy to help, best of fortune to you!

@@Breazeh Not to mention the added expense of having so many buckets.

Rainy and dry seasons here only. It gets down a little below freezing for a few weeks during the dry season, but not enough to affect my pile in any way. I think the generalized rule is that a compost pile needs to be minimum 1 cubic meter to hold and maintain heat. Snow will help with insulation to a degree, as well as providing some additional moisture, and if it’s extremely cold you may see a decrease in microbial activity during the coldest months. It won’t hurt anything, the pile may just go dormant for a bit, and as soon as it warms up activity will restart. If it were me, I’d probably turn it after the spring thaw to aerate and get things moving again, with a few fresh additions right in the core of the pile.

Greetings, thank you! I’m from Lancaster(Lititz) originally :-) yes, if you’re worried about bears, skip the food waste unless you want to build a bear-tight enclosure. The pile will still function the same as long as the carbon/nitrogen ratios are good. The number one sign that it’s off is smell. If it smells like ammonia, add more carbon material. If it smells dead animal or manure, it’s fermenting anaerobically, you need more air. If it smells like poop, you may need a different ratio of air/water/carbon because that means it’s just not breaking down. When you open the top of the pile to make another addition, get in the habit of smelling the pile, that’s your feedback for how it’s going. At 4-5 days between additions, most of the poop in my pile from the previous addition is unrecognizable, and it no longer smells.

@@ericoberholtzer1949 Great Thank you for the tips!!

Anytime, good luck!

🤔🤔🤔

We do this and live with bears. We have set up a solar generator electric fence around it 😅

Urine goes in the bucket and helps heat up the compost. 😊

Thanks! Prior to this year no, but this season leading up to the corn harvest the rats were exceptionally bad. It seems they came out in force during the extended quarantine here. I would recommend using heavy gauge coated hardware cloth, as the rats chewed through the standard stuff I had used, and it also started rusting out much faster than I anticipated. Lessons learned! Also definitely recommend a framed hardware cloth lid on top of the bins. That said, it’s been easy enough to put out rat traps to keep them in check, and the dead rats go directly in the compost and are fully broken down in about a month.

Absolutely, with the caveat that you may have remnant seed germination. I don’t care about that, and use whatever dry material happens to be available. Others may have different priorities.

Please don't do that. Read the book The Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins first!!!

It smells a bit, yes, though the smell disappears as soon as it’s covered. The urine in the bucket makes it much easier to pour out as well. That said, I’ve changed baby diapers that were far worse than the bucket is, and the same goes for cleaning up dog poop. There’s a bit of ammonia in there, especially if the bucket has sat for more than a few days, and between the urine and the wood chips, it doesn’t smell nearly as bad as you might think. Taking a dump in the woods directly on the ground, say on a camping trip, smells much stronger than this does. Course, maybe I’m just used to it and not grossed out by poop, and I totally understand that people have different thresholds of tolerance with this.

I would recommend keeping them separate to reduce the possibility of cross-contamination. Alternatively, you could combine the piles if you’re ok with the resting period that’s required before use.

@@ericoberholtzer1949 So as long as they aren't connected you think I should be ok? How far apart would you go? Thanks

I think you’ll be ok with separating them a meter or two. The main thing is that you don’t want accidental spillover from the humanure getting into the regular compost. If you have the space and layout available, you could put the humanure bins closer to the toilet if you wanted to, in a separate area, but of course I don’t know how your property is laid out. If the humanure bins need to go by the regular compost, then try to leave a meter or two of space between the different compost piles.

@@ericoberholtzer1949 I have 2 acres so I have space to separate them, I have my compost on one side (left) of the house currently. The other side (right side closer to the toilet) is where my garden is. Guess I should have put the compost there huh? Haha.

It’s all what works for you with your process. I like to break it down from a permaculture perspective by taking a single element(in this case compost), then analyzing the frequency of the activities associated. With compost, we would have activities like adding to the pile, turning the pile, and distributing the pile. For me, the most frequent activity is adding to the pile, which happens every 4 days or so. Turning the pile happens one day out of three years. And distributing the pile happens only after 3 years, as needed, but the bulk of the distribution will occur prior to planting, all in one go. So the most frequent activity is adding to the pile, in which case I would ideally place the pile in a convenient location not too far from my kitchen and toilet, as I’m carrying messy, full buckets, so I want to minimize that labor. The garden can be further away since I’ll be aided by a wheelbarrow, and taking larger loads. So in your case, it probably makes sense to place the humanure piles closer to your toilet, so as to minimize the labor and time needed for additions to the pile. Hope all of that makes sense!

Properly built and maintained, the pile does not produce runoff or leak anywhere. This is the reason for the dry ‘sponge’ base layer. If you have large amounts of rain you may need to consider a roof, ideally that also serves to collect rainwater.

Brilliant. Thanks. I do however think you may have gone nose blind. Even my worm composter stinks, and that is only veg peelings. 🤢

Lol. My nose is decent, but my wife is the one with the super sensitive sense of smell, and even she’s amazed that pile doesn’t smell. I’ve opened it up for plenty of curious people to verify for themselves, and it’s always the same response, wow, no smell. The key is managing the carbon/nitrogen ratios

​@@andrewhudson2860 Is your worm compost tray resting on the ground or up on that legged tray system? My bottom tray is on the ground and there is no odor even when all trays are full.

Hi there - any dry, brown material will work. We actually used the toilet the entire duration of quarantine here(1 year) without wood shavings, because they simply weren’t available. Instead, we used grass clippings(dried and green), weeds, and dried fallen leaves. Some periodic loosening of the pile was necessary to keep it from going anaerobic, but it works just as well. I was thrilled to see it function so well as I’m aware that wood shavings aren’t available everywhere, plus they are an external input, which obviously doesn’t fit in most closed-loop systems, and isn’t a long term solution. For now though, I’m happy to use them because I obtain them locally for very cheap, and it’s less labor than continually rounding up cover material from the property.

Collect Whey from the bottom of cheese production in a spray bottle and spray a few pumps on the sawdust you cover each deposit in with in the bathroom. Lactic acid Bacteria LAB in whey will help this whole process and should be breaking down mediation. Bokashi is the method. I'd add biochar with sawdust and have 3 buckets with lids trapping bokashi poo for 2 weeks in buckets before pile. Also, add LAB to water dumped outside it works anaerobic and aerobic.

Urine goes in the compost toilet as well, and the bucket fills up every 4-5 days, with 2 adults and 2 children using it. No need to separate urine as long as the pile is maintained with enough carbon material to keep it from going anaerobic.

@@ericoberholtzer1949 Wow... I must pee a lot more than you guys or something.

maybe I'm diabetic!!!?

Well, I’m no doctor ;-) maybe it’s worthwhile to measure how much you’re actually urinating, and compare with volume of daily fluid intake, keeping in mind that diuretics(alcohol, caffeine) contribute to more volume. According to a quick google search, average urine output is 800-2000ml, based on a 2L avg intake of water