Escapees November-December 2022

camping chair chat

Composting Toilet Our quest to save water while camping eventually ended up at the toilet; like many other great ideas I’ve had over the years. M any of us occasionally like to boondock and the Escapees articles on Boondocking are great. How about all those parks with water and electric but no sewer connections? We’ve stayed at the “no sewer connection” campgrounds many times. The black water tank has been the limiting factor in how long we could stay several times. Our current fi fth wheel has two gray tanks and a black tank. On several camping trips our stay was disrupted by the need to obtain more water or to dump it. Dumping the gray water might not be a problem depending on where you are. However, dumping the black water is a different story. What if you didn’t fi ll the black water tank as quickly or at all? Enter composting toilets, stage right. True, Non or Bucket Composting toilets can be categorized several ways. There are true composting toilets, “non-composting” composting toilets and buckets. Some composting toilets look like they came from the space station with a corre sponding comfort level while others look like a box. Some have different “trays” for the solids and liquids. Some have a funnel system to divert the urine into your black tank. And the bucket style is actually a bucket with a toilet seat. There are several brands of composting toilets and some of those have various options. As you consider your future toilet options, do your research—there are countless YouTube videos. Some have optional exhaust fans and vent tubing that you can install. We had a 10-day trip coming up at a small state park with water/electric and our stay was likely to exceed our black tank capacity. The park did have a dump station but hooking up and getting there and back was dif fi cult. This park had one road in and out with a very narrow cul-de-sac at the end.

with some chemical powder inside. The chemical powder absorbs the moisture and any smell. They really are impressive! A reasonable sense of bucket balance is helpful. You can test this out by going to your local big box lumber store and fi nding one of their buckets. Flip it over and sit on it while appearing to look at something on a lower shelf. Move around a little like, well you know, and see how you do. If you can do that then this is an inexpensive way to increase your stays in non-sewer connection campgrounds. Shopping for a Toilet Since we began camping more often at campgrounds without a sewer connection, we decided to look at composting toilets. The most well-known brands are probably Nature’s Head, Air Head and Separett Villa. I looked at each and sat on all three of them! (Demo mode only, of course. I didn’t actually “use” them.) The Separett Villa was our initial

We have used Blue Boy portable tanks; however, the distance and type of road might make their use a laborious task. They come in different sizes with the smaller ones easier to handle but requir ing more trips. The larger ones are heavy. Thank goodness we never had a wheel fall off while the tank was full. We know people using a macerator pump and black tank bag they put in the bed of their truck. There are advantages but you still need to travel to a dump station. We dropped that idea since a trip to the dump station might, at times, be several miles away. Our fi rst alternate toilet was the Luggable

prefer it

ence because, although had a vent tube out the back, it looked like a traditional toilet with a urine diversion system and had a couple of unique features. As you open the lid, there is a “ fl ap” that blocks your iew of the solids. When

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you sit on the seat, the fl ap opens, and the solids tank rotates 1/8 turn so your solids don’t stack up in one spot. It also has a vent fan to dry out the moisture in the solids, so a composting agent isn’t necessary. Although pretty gross, it makes sense. The Separett

Loo. The Loo is a nice fi ve-gallon bucket with a toilet seat on it. It worked well. Put two decent quality trash bags in it and some sort of “ fi ller” to absorb urine and you’re ready. The second trash bag is in case the fi rst one leaks, but we never had that issue. We eventually discovered “Double Doodie” bags. These bags are like a silver, heavy-duty double Zip Lock bag

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ESCAPEES Magazine November/December 2022

Separett Villa WWW.SEPARETT.COM