When seeking a workable and sustainable waste disposal solution, it is important to pay close attention to the cost, ease of access, and availability to households.

Waterless toilets meet all the aforementioned; they are affordable, easily accessible especially in the rural settings, and available within the reach of most users.

These sustainable facilities have been lauded as resourceful for 35% of the global population that struggle with proper waste disposal methods.

Furthermore, waterless toilets can be used as sufficient energy generating sources. Also, some of their end products can provide useful agricultural materials such as manure and fertilizers. 

The waterless toilets are still a new concept in many households, although their popularity is fast gaining ground around the world.

Most people don’t understand how this sanitary system works and are skeptical about its use.

However, there’s little cause for worry.

The Safety of Waterless Toilets

Waterless toilets, like conventional flush toilets, are safe to use if they are properly installed, cleaned and maintained.

Households are required to keep a keen eye on the hygienic standards in waterless toilets otherwise they are a potential breeding ground for pests and illness-causing pathogens.

You can read more about the care required for waterless toilets here.

Waterless toilets don’t need complex septic systems to function. This eliminates the potential danger of septic water sipping into streams and oceans and causing waterborne diseases.

Regularly consulting the operational manual prepared by waterless toilet developers and manufacturers will help you to avoid possible malfunctions and mishaps that might put you at a disadvantage you when using waterless systems.

It is advisable to do some research on available waterless toilet designs and counter check them against your sanitary needs before making a purchase.

Sustainability of Waterless Toilets

Most waterless systems are acclaimed for their sustainability especially in areas where water is a scarce resource. This is because the toilets require no water for the disposal of human wastes and proper sanitation.

In rural areas, for instance, there are waterless toilets that only require the use of basic materials such as wood ash or sawdust for wastes to be hygienically disposed.

Others work by simply vaporizing poop or burning human waste to ash that can be easily put away under sanitary conditions.

Most of these waterless toilets are affordable to poor households since DIY designs are available and require little to no money to set up.

A good example is the homemade composting toilet that can be built from a bucket and toilet seat with wood ash to help in decomposing wastes.

Although some waterless toilet technologies such as incineration might be out of reach for some households due to the cost of set up, there are several other cheap alternatives for households that make the systems sustainable.

Waterless Toilets—The Sustainable Designs

There are several sustainable toilet designs that are within the reach of households.

Non-governmental organizations and waterless toilet developers around the world are working round the clock to ensure the human population has access to decent, affordable and accessible waste disposal mechanisms.

Some of the sustainable designs include the following.

• The Composting Toilet Design

This type of toilet is a bio-digester that turns human poop to manure that eventually releases gases for households to convert into energy for their home use such as in lighting stoves, electricity generation, and operating heaters.

The toilet works by fermenting the wastes in an enormous underground bio-digester tank usually situated beneath the toilet or in a separate remote location.

It ferments the human waste into humanure, better known as compost, which households can use for kitchen gardening and soil enrichment once it has been sterilized.

This toilet design is sustainable for most households as DIY composting toilets are cheap and can be built from easily accessible materials.

The treatment costs of compost also make the composting toilet sustainable for most households.

• The Solar-Powered Toilet Design

A sustainable toilet design is one that can be operated using affordable energy resources. Since most of the rural populations hardly have electricity in their homes, the best waterless toilets are those that use alternative energy.

The waste sterilizing design that runs on solar power is one such toilet. Parabolic mirrors are fixed on the toilet to redirect concentrated sun rays to a chamber specifically built to collect waste, heating it to around 600 degrees Fahrenheit.

The high temperatures result in the conversion of the human waste into biochar, which is suitable for use as farm fertilizer.

• The Self-cleaning Toilet Design

This environmentally-friendly toilet system is famed for its ability to clean itself automatically using solar energy, which makes it one of the revered sustainable waterless toilet designs.

Rural populations find this toilet affordable for waste disposal as it does not use electricity that can be quite expensive for the poorer households.

• The Mobile Toilet

More people and organizations are inventing various ways of moving toilets from one area to another.

The toilet on wheels is one such design that allows users to move or access toilets without stationing them at one particular place.

The waterless eco-friendly toilet is sustainable for poor households since it can be moved on rickshaws to allow users easy access lavatory services, preventing open defecation that results in poor sanitation.

Final Word

Waterless toilets require the same hygiene standards as conventional flush toilets, if not higher. Paying close attention to the functionality of different designs will help you to ensure proper safety in their use.

The sustainable sanitation achieved from the waterless toilet designs is unlimited considering how far the world has come in promoting the best waste disposal practices over time.

Meanwhile, do you have any other sustainability ideas you can think of?

Share your comments and let’s keep this conversation going.