Hi,

I am thinking about building a composting toilet. Has anybody ever heard of using worms in a composting toilet, or would the environment be just too acidic/alcaline? In a traditional composting toilet the waste is sprinkled with sawdust. Do you think lime might work as an alternative to sawdust (to make it more alkaline)?

G

hello coatsworth,

in theory yes, the worms themselves are bread in house manure, BUT there is a big health risk involved with composting waste from humans, its because the waste can contain very nasty Pathogens (from the greek words πάθος pathos, meaning "suffering, passion" ).

some of the major human pathogens that can be found in the waste are the carriers of Tuberculosis, leprosy, bubonic plague (a.k.a Black Death) to name a few, and soil contamination has the most potential for harbouring a pathogen.

for those reason's we dont recommend using worms to compost human waste, due to the huge amount of the waste produced by humans the risk's are just to high.

there are of course soil based toilet composting systems avalible on the market, that have been professionally designed and tested very heavily but I dont know of such a system to recommend to you.

sorry to give you bad news, but i hope it helps... or at least keeps you disease free

Hi,

That was very useful! Actually, my thought was to take a fairly traditional composting toilet and just add worms. (The site that I'm working on has no access to mains sewage) The waste from the composting toilet is very likely to contain pathogens regardless of whether worms are used or not so I am already making plans for "safe disposal" or the end product of the composting toilet. Its actually quite good news to hear that worms may be able to survive in that environment.

cool, im glad it was helpful, with the dog poo wormeries we sell, we provide them with Bokashi bran, it is a em-activated wheat that helps break down organic materials, maybe something like that mixed into to the saw dust might help composting with the waste... something to think about at least...