Toilet designs

Composting toilets use biological processes to deal with the disposal and processing of human excrement into humanure. It is a system for removing feces away from humans and living areas to safely store and treat it, so that it can be reused safely for local agriculture. It comprises of a toilet, which is usually (but not always) a dry toilet or urine diversion dry toilet together with (almost always) some kind of storage system beneath, often called a latrine. This is in contrast to a pit latrine, where there is no barrier to the surrounding environment and material leaches out. This is a very important document that attempts to define clearly common terms used in the sector.

It is a very common WASH system aiming to give better health to communities than they have with open defecation and with less of the problems sometimes associated with a single pit latrine, which may leak exposing groundwater and drinking water to harmful microbes which cause illness.

Appropriate technology toilet systems can be high risk activities, see below regarding strategies to minimise risk of infection.

Reader Feedback: This is a GREAT tip, as I used a very old method which was to place some BRICKS in the tank.

This had the SAME effect, however the bricks were the cheap "concrete block" kind and small pieces came off, and over the years flushed down and sufficiently plugged the outlet jets, that my water volume able to get to the bowl -- no mater how much water in the tank -- prevented a flush.

As a result, I had to buy a new toilet, and since I was, I found a sale and bought a wonderful Kohler dual-flush toilet, which uses 1 Gal. per "little" flush, and 1.6 Gal. per full flush. I am very happy with it. WardXmodem (talk) 09:19, 4 December 2013 (PST)