humanure

[nutmeg]

Does anyone currently use a simple, cheap humanure system to fertilize your trees, lawn, etc? I would love to hear about your experience and how you make it easy. Also, we don't have a ton of sawdust. What are some other good options for odor control to layer it with?

(Note to the uninitiated: humanure is not for edible crops and herbs; not for your garden.)

I did a search on this forum on the topic and noticed karen joy and esme had discussed it a bit in an old thread- a bit of which I've pasted below:
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esme » Mon Jul 10, 2006 3:27 pm

[cut from a longer post]

2) really, really, really cheap and easy to make your own non-stinky indoor humanure potty. We're talkin like a 5 gal bucket, some sawdust and a seat and/or lid. Here's a link to tell you exactly how to do it:

http://weblife.org/humanure/chapter8_2.html

(that's the page for the sawdust potty with pics and everything. for the main page to the whole humanure handbook, the link is here:
http://weblife.org/humanure/default.html )

Many blessings to you and yours,
esme

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[Lady Alinor]

Camping I use Pine needles, of course that's only a 4 day trip. We've also used dirt at another campsite. Keeping the odor down is easy, keeping the flys away isn't...I hate those hinny buzzers

When we lose power we pull out the portable Loo...one time I forgot about the stuff (we were using an outshed for the daytime outhouse) two months later I came across the Loo, opened it up to take the plastic bag out to bury the stuff in the woods and there wasn't any odor, good thing cuz I was worried about the dogs digging up the stuff.
Whenever my husband talks about adding another bathroom I always suggest going the sawdust route (our septic system is small) or Composting toilet. He still hasn't built on that bathroom

[Bella Boares]

You can pretty much use whatever is on hand, some will work better, some a bit less good.
When in Hungaria, really warm but fairly dry, we had a shed full of used straw, so we used that. It worked
Pine needles and other leaves will acidify the whole thing, which will cause it to become manure slower - but if you have the time, this doesn't matter.
So just use whatever you have. Bulky or light-weighed things like cut grass will have more problems to accurately cover the waste, but if you cut it before throwing it on it should be fine. There is a site about humanure; might be the one you mentioned but I think I remember it being called just something like humanure.com > google will be you friend, probably

[nutmeg]

thanks- straw may be a very good solution, and now that i think of it, maybe i could just mulch it with the pine cat litter we've been composting in the woods, so it would absorb even more odor and wetness.

[sapphire kate]

Look at what you have local. I know Joe Jenkins says that some things don't work, but I think it's worth experimenting with what you have, maybe different combinations. The sawdust idea always seems very blokey to me. It's not that easy to get for many people.