Product Description

From systems for cottages to year-round systems with micro-flush toilets and graywater gardens, the wide range of ecological recycling toilet options are featured in The Composting Toilet System Book.

More than 40 systems—including those you can buy and those you can build—are featured.

Composting toilet systems and other ecological wastewater management methods are increasingly installed in both seasonal and year-round homes, as municipalities require systems that won't pollute the environment and drinking water. This book details why—and how to choose, install and maintain them.

You'll also find profiles of owner-operators worldwide, regulatory information for every state, compatible toilet stools (waterless, micro-flush, foam- and vacuum-flush and urine-diverting), a chapter on graywater systems, information about health risks and handling, and sources for many off-the-shelf and DIY designs.

[IMPORTANT NOTE: This book is written to be regulator friendly to make getting local permits for a system easier.]

If you are seeking to install a system that meets state codes or if you are simply seeking to make your own system, this book is for you. Stop polluting and start recycling and saving water today!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #185724 in Books
• Published on: 2000-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Review
Deals with this topic technically and responsibly. -- Daniel Linter from Portland, Oregon, January 3, 2003

Explains the technologies, sources, applications, graywater issues, and regulations relevant to a composting toilet system. -- Midwest Book Review from Oregon, WI USA

This book can save (readers) all of the mistakes people usually make. -- wili from Washington State, Amazon, 1999

About the Author
David Del Porto has sold and serviced thousands of several models of composting toilets since 1972. He has also designed several systems, starting with systems for parks and for Greenpeace in the Pacific islands. Today, these same designs have been modified for a wide variety of settings, including upscale resorts that demand systems that are non-polluting, are easy to maintain and feature attractive one-pint-flush toilets. His composting toilet and graywater system designs are in homes and public sites worldwide. He has also helped write regulations and performance standards for these systems.

Carol Steinfeld is a freelance writer and projects director for Ecowaters, a nonprofit that informs the public about ecological wastewater recycling options and conducts workshops on this topic worldwide. She is the author of Liquid Gold: The Lore and Logic of Using Urine to Grow Plants and Reusing the Resource: Adventures in Ecological Wastewater Recycling (2nd edition due November 2004).

Customer Reviews

Most complete and credible book on the topic
After reading a couple of books about composting toilets and graywater systems that were either suspiciously poetic or a little too humorous, I was happy to find this book.

As someone who needs a variety of systems for a variety of high-use sites, I was glad to find a book that deals with this topic in technically and responsibly (in terms of public health). I showed this book to my local health agent, and he was far more amenable to permiting an "experimental system" afterwards, saving me a lot of money.

Also, after experimenting with various systems over the years, I am aware that some systems still described in books and magazines just don't work well. The authors of this book have apparently had the same experience, and I appreciate their researching this so completely.

The Definitive Composting Toilet Book
Del Porto's book is the definitive composting toilet book at this time. There is nothing even close. His book covers all aspects of composting toilet systems and touches on graywater issues as well. He treats the composting toilet as part of the home system. If a person is seriously interested in installing/having a composting toilet, this book can save him/her all of the mistakes people usually make. He even (carefully) explodes some of the advertising myths that the purveyors of composting toilets would have us believe. The book covers ready-made systems as well as home built sytems. As trite as this sounds, the book truly is a must for someone considering intstalling composting toilet.

The best book out there
I would venture that the authors have forgotten more about toilets than most of the rest of us will ever know. There is no possible toilet configuration that does not receive at least cursory discussion. I only have 2 complaints about the book, both of them minor. First there were a couple of systems that I felt were described incompletely and critiqued a bit unfairly. Second, much of the book seemed to be a compilation of other writings without a lot of editing. Consequently there is significant repetition, and a presentation of information that is sometimes slightly disorganized and confusing.

I definitely think that the book is worth reading.