Letrinas Ecologicas

Composting toilets are above the ground pit latrines that convert our poop into compost to be used on plants with large root systems i.e big trees, but not small edible plants i.e. your herb garden. Peace Corps as I understand it doesn't usually encourage composting toilets becasue when done incorrectly they can be a dangerous vector for disease. On the other hand, when done well they're much better than the dry pit latrines that we usually make becasue they do not result in a huge buried well of human excrement five years down the road when the latrine fills up and as long as they stay dry they're less gross than pit latrines along the way to compost.

Here in Cañete, Peru I'm spending a couple of weeks supporting CARE in some of their work reconstructing after the earthquake. I really like CARE as an organization and think that they do great work up in Piura where I live so I was excited to come down here. They're doing a whole latrines project, mostly with pit latrines and in some areas with waste water systems, regular bathrooms in towns that were lost all their buildings and infratructure in the earthquake on August 15, 2007. I'm working in some very poor communities right on the beach without waste water systems and with very high water tables, but where it almost never rains. If you dug a pit latrine it would fill with water even though we're basically in a desert. So, CARE is building above the ground composting toilets in those beach communties.

The model that CARE is using is really interesting. It has a about a four foot tall poured cement basin separated into two sections by a cement wall barrier. This empty cement cube is capped with a cemet top with one hole in each side, looking down into the poop chambers and on top is a little closet with a door where you can do your business. The kicker with composting toilets is that you want to poop to be very, very dry so you cannot pee in them, which is lame, inconvinenet and hard to get people to really do. So, this model comes with a prefab toilet that catches the urine and sends it out a pipe into a dranige field next to the latrine and lets the poop fall into the cement poop chamber. You use one side for about 6 months or until it fills up. Then, you let it sit and compost for 6 months while you move the toilet over to the other side and commence pooping. It's a very cool model.