Most people around the world are opting for an eco-friendly living after realizing how unkind the human race has been to planet earth.

Mother Nature will soon start fighting back to survive if the destructive activities of humans are not curbed.

Logging of trees has depleted forest cover, the natural habitats of animals destroyed and water catchment areas are facing contamination from industries.

The atmosphere is not spared either especially because air pollution is rampant in most industrialized countries.

Environmentalists have devised various ways for eco-friendly living. One of the ways of conserving water is the use of the green toilet which requires little to no water in waste disposal and makes use of different technology to discard human excreta.

The Need for Green Toilets

Waterless toilet technology is fast revolutionizing sanitation as developing countries strive to improve waste disposal among households.

The green toilet uses different technological options to dispose of wastes. Incineration, composting, Pervaporation, the list is endless.

The need for green toilets is necessitated by the lack of sufficient resources to run conventional flush toilets. The resources include water, electricity, and space just to mention a few.

The type of waterless toilet that a household chooses to use will largely depend on accessibility to available resources and the suitability of the method in the given area.

Additionally, the rules and regulations of the local authority and health department in your area should allow the use of waterless systems in waste disposal and sanitation.

How They Work

There are different emerging waterless toilet trends and they all work using different technologies in the disposal of human wastes.

The different methods incur different costs in acquisition, installation, and maintenance.

However, the cost of an eco-friendly toilet is in most cases much less than conventional flush toilets which require the installation and maintenance of expensive septic tanks.

Let’s look at some of the trends through which green toilets work.

Vaporizing Poop

Human wastes are majorly comprised of water, therefore, the trending dry technology that vaporizes human refuse and rallies developing countries behind waste disposal and sanitation comes at an appropriate moment.

The green toilet functions using polymer. This material is manufactured for the sole purpose of drawing moisture from the refuse resulting into solids. The water vapor is then released.

Once the poop is vaporized, minute dried particles form and can be used in flower gardens to increase soil nutrients.

There is no fear of a bad smell since the process is quick and emits no stench.

Turning Poop into Manure

The green toilet turns poop into manure through a process known as composting. Bacteria decompose the waste into compost.

Upon collection, natural decay of the waste takes effect in the compost box. The green toilet utilizes readily available resources in the decomposing process, including ash and sawdust.

The end-product comes in handy when growing edible plants. It enriches the soil with sufficient nutrients. However it has to be sanitized first.

Composting systems play a huge role in waste management and sanitation especially in the remote areas of developing countries.

Torching Human Waste

Another way through which the green toilet works is by burning waste into sterile ash which is then dumped into a trash container.

The incineration is carried out in an incinerating chamber built with the feces being transported through an electric exhaust pipe.

Incineration requires diesel, propane and natural gas as fuel for the process. The combustion of human feces to ash consumes huge amounts of energy to achieve making the process use a lot of fuel for the combusting process.

Sterilizing Poop

The other trend of waterless toilets involves the sterilization of poop using parabolic mirrors through which the sun is concentrated on the waste in the collection vat to heat it up and convert it into bio-charcoal or fertilizer for edible gardens.

Separating Solid and Liquid Waste

Through the process of pervaporation, nanotechnology desiccates the human waste to a dry solid devoid of pathogens and contains no parasites.

Nanofibers on the interior of the vat act as a passage for the water vapor in the fluid constituent of the refuse.

On one hand, the vapor is in turn sanitized and condensed to water for the households to safely use while the desiccated remains make good fuel for the household.

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The Cost Effectiveness

The green toilet waste management systems are popular among most households since they are economical in their use of scarce resources such as electricity and space.

Waterless toilet developers offer models that do not require electricity to operate. The green toilet can either be solar powered or battery powered making it affordable for home use.

Moreover, unlike the conventional flush toilets that consume up to 6600 gallons of water, the waterless toilets cut on utility costs since they don’t need water to dispose of wastes.

The waterless toilets use the most basic materials to run and maintain making it affordable for most households.

For instance, the composting toilet uses sawdust and coco coir which are basic natural materials suitable for the decomposition of wastes. Such materials are readily available to households.

The Waterless waste management systems neither require the plumbing works or septic tanks that traditional flush toilets cannot work without.

Apart from the expensive septic hookups, septic tanks require huge amounts of space to install. This makes them inaccessible to poor or remote households, especially in developing countries.

Additionally, the waterless toilets make use of on-site treatment as opposed to conventional water closets that might have to rely on off-site treatment plants.

On-site treatment of wastes cuts on transports costs often associated with waste treatments in different locations. This also makes the process resourceful avoiding potential hazards to the population that is experienced with off-site treatment plants.

A waterless system also eliminates the potential threat of harmful by-products or chemical wastes flowing into water bodies such as rivers and oceans. This reduces the cost of treatment of contaminated water.

Finally, households using composting toilets can utilize the end product as humus or manure for their farms instead of purchasing costly industrial fertilizer.