The Compost Toilet Handbook

This was a very thorough and easy to understand explanation of how to set up a use a compost toilet. After reading this book, I don’t think there’s anything else I need to know.

I was leery to read about this topic but I am SO glad that I have this book. It's basically finding out that us poor humans are pretty ignorant, brainwashed, bamboozled, etc. We need to question every so-called expert in every field. How did we get to be so gullible and stupid?! Blindly trusting authorities is dangerous.Thanks Joseph, for writing this book. Your first book has lots of BS mixed in with the good information. This one is straight forward. I think it is one of the most important books ever written. Honestly! If everyone in the world who needs a toilet could be provided with a compost toilet system, it would be the most cost effective improvement to quality of life possible.

Well written book. Really gives you all you need.To be honest, the book could be drastically shorter - there are a million examples in it and if you need them, you do. If you don't, they just make the book longer than it needs to be.But...this is a revolutionary book that has been around a long time and gives you everything you need to know.

help me in my daily work

I don’t know the last time I read a book that changed my outlook on something so fundamental. Turns out we’ve been going to the bathroom all wrong!I bought this book to understand the best way to maintain a waterless toilet. I suspected this would work, because I found there wasn’t much odor when I used a 5-gallon bucket in the woods, as long as there was plenty of forest floor in there as well. The methods for using and maintaining this system are clearly outlined. I am excited to start an off-grid method that not only resolves where the poo should go, but works with nature to end up with rich, odorless, pathogen-eliminated compost dirt.

I'm very happy to see a new toilet book by Joe Jenkins, as his Humanure Handbook is amazing, a classic, ever useful, and a reference book to keep referring back to, but it has its limitations. This book takes it to the next level, much more polished type of book.

Might not be a topic you ever thought of but if the grid goes down, what will you do? Easy commonsense solution without odors. Why this isn't part of every home in our country is a shame.

The Compost Toilet Handbook presents the foundational concepts of compost sanitation with more streamlined text and plenty of illustrative photographs to reach a wider audience than the text- and citations-heavy Humanure Handbook. For context: I have already read and enjoyed the the fourth edition of the Humanure Handbook (HH4). I will not be a verified reviewer of the Compost Toilet Handbook on Amazon because I bought it by following links on the author's website (which also gave me a PDF version of the book in addition to my hard copy).If you have not read the Humanure Handbook:The Compost Toilet Handbook is a great place to start learning about the basic concepts of compost sanitation. If you use flush toilets and haven't ever thought about their downsides, I recommend you pick up this book. (Or if money is an issue, buy the lower cost PDF-only version from the author's website, or look at the free, online copy of the Humanure Handbook provided on the author's website -- it's up to you and your budget.) I feel knowing about this system in the United States is important for two reasons: First, emergencies happen and the last thing anyone want is to be at wits end about where you and your family can safely go to the bathroom during a disaster. Second, even if people are reluctant to switch their household's toilet system on their own, communities where enough people know that compost sanitation is a viable method have an advantage in that they can choose to create municipal-level compost sanitation options that will save their communities water and energy compared to existing wastewater plants. Municipal composting could also result in a recycled product that can be sold commercially, instead of the current system of creating a waste product that communities must somehow dispose.If my comments above made you think "downsides to a flush toilet? what is this person talking about?", well, newsflash, there are toilet systems that don't involve flooding your bathroom due to a backed up toilet; that don't involve "dropping by" a relative's house or your workplace when the water company turns your water supply off in order to repair/maintain aging pipes; and that don't involve trying to ignore those reports about just how much fecal matter gets swirled up into the air when you flush. Compost sanitation is a carbon-based system to *recycle* our excrement into a useful product, instead of a water-based system to *dispose* of our excrement. From an environmental and sustainability perspective, compost sanitation doesn't involve making and sending clean water to someone's house for them to crap in it, combining the resulting "blackwater" with other chemicals and various toxins washed down aging municipal drains systems (allow with stormwater overflow for people who live with combined sewer systems) and then spending some more energy at a wastewater plant trying to make that material "cleaner," and eventually just dumping it somewhere in the environment and hoping we never have to spend time where it ends up. Those kinds of downsides.Jenkins is a devoted authority in the field of compost sanitation who is working to revolutionize how people think about their excrement. He is very detail-oriented (and sounds like a curmudgeon at times), but he is also trying to explain a system that does require attention to detail for success. Compost sanitation is not actually that complicated, but it requires paying attention in the same way that learning to cross a two lane street is not actually that complicated (and is something people successfully do every day) but does require paying attention to avoid the potential dangers.I could go on about the value of this system, but since you're here about the book, let me just reiterate: this book is a well-rounded and valueable introduction to compost sanitation, as it covers all the basic knowledge needed and provides many visual examples and concrete case studies to get your imagination fired up.If you want the whole collection of citations for the science behind the system (rather than just the basic citations included in this book), or you want to read a discussion of how human excrement has been treated among different cultures in history, definitely pick up the Humanure Handbook (4th ed.) to get the all the scientific references, charts, and historical perspective that Jenkins has collected over the years, in addition to the principles discussed in this book (The Compost Toilet Handbook).May you feel empowered to learn that your poop and pee can be recycled into a resource that can actually improve the world!If you have already read the Humanure Handbook:The text in Part One will feel *very* familiar to the HH 4th ed. The Compost Toilet Handbook is a more straightforward introduction to the humanure system than the more humorous, and more text- and detail-heavy HH4. If the HH4 gave you all the information you were hoping for, you probably don't need this book for yourself. That said, I was happy to have purchased this book for myself for the numerous color photographs, the case studies of successful community level systems, and the value of this book as a more streamlined introduction for other people. The HH4 is an important part of my reference library, but the Compost Toilet Handbook is the one I'm planning to leave on the coffee table, as a way to seed the idea in friends and family. I doubt US culture is going to change its flush-toilet practices any time soon, but I hope that enough people know about compost sanitiation to have it as a tool for emergencies and for those moments in the future when we are indeed forced to reckon with the cost of modern flush systems (due to droughts, rising maintenance issues with aging sewer infrastructure, natural hazards, etc.).Also, I'm pretty sure Jenkins now holds the world record for photos of people smiling happily next to toilets and compost piles.