Toilet with toilet paper

Guide to Composting Toilets – How to Use and Maintain

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Reviewed by Greg Head

Last Updated on March 6, 2025 by Alice Benny

With more and more people searching for ways to become more eco-friendly, composting toilets are a popular way to start in that direction. Becoming environment friendly requires more than just buying energy saving bulbs or trying to recycle everything made of plastic.

Taking care of human sanitation in an eco-friendly way is an effective way of going green.

Conventional toilets use water to flush. The current federal standard for toilets after 1992 is 1.6 gallons per flush (GPF). Prior to 1992, toilets were using 3.5 gallons to 7 gallons per flush. Newer toilets will be compliant.

How Does a Composting Toilet Work?

A composting toilet is a type of dry toilet. Using it helps to save water. It uses a natural process that requires little or no water or chemicals. It turns human waste into compost that can improve soil quality. However, it must be properly processed before using on plants. Usage regulations vary.

A composting toilet uses an aerobic process to decompose and process the waste. In order to support the aerobic process, the materials used are peat moss, sawdust, or coconut coir. They absorb the liquid, reduce odor, and help the composting process.

Why Use a Composting Toilet?

There are many benefits of a composting toilet that can be beneficial to the environment and yourself such as:

  • They greatly help to reduce the amount of water used
  • More fresh water is saved that usually would have gone to waste with the waste
  • Great for the environment as no chemicals are required to dispose the waste
  • Good for off-grid living, tiny homes, camping, RV
  • Can be used anywhere because they do not require water supply
  • Don’t need a sewer connection or septic tank
  • Save money as you won’t require any plumbing
  • It adds a natural aspect to your life, the cycle of reusing and not wasting
  • Can be used in emergency situations

On a personal note, a neighbor of mine has a structure / garage on their property and has a tiny bathroom without a sink and just a toilet that composts. They are a family of six and have it for emergency preparedness.

Maintaining a Composting Toilet

A composting toilet’s sole purpose is to process human excretion and nothing else. The most important thing to remember is to never add anything that could kill the microbes responsible for breaking down the waste.

What this means is: no bleach, no ammonia, and no harsh cleaning agents. These chemicals will wipe out the good bacteria that do all the work.

Instead you can use a little vinegar, diluted soap, or a coconut oil-based soap (all mild and natural cleaners). Some people use baking soda, but too much can interfere with the pH and slow things down. If you want to control odors, use peat moss, sawdust, or coconut coir rather than baking soda.

Also Important for Maintaining Composting Toilets

Don’t put anything in the toilet unless it will break down naturally. This means no wipes, old medications, trash, etc. Tossing in old medicine and antibiotics will kill the bacteria and harm the microbes that are necessary for breaking down the waste.

If someone in your home has been on long-term antibiotics, it might slow things down, but adding extra carbon material (like sawdust) can help balance it out.

Dry Toilets vs Composting Ones

Dry toilets don’t use water to flush. All composting toilets are considered to be dry toilets. Some other examples of dry toilets are:

  • Bucket toilet: This is a bucket with a seat. You manually dispose the waste.
  • Incinerating toilet: Burns waste into ash using electricity or gas.
  • Desiccating toilet: Dries out the waste to reduce volume and odor.
  • Pit latrine: When someone digs a hole in the ground to collect waste, often when camping or backpacking or in rural areas.

Pros to Owning

Overall, composting toilets are simple, eco-friendly, and a great way to save water. There are millions of people who don’t have fresh drinking water. Every flush with a regular toilet uses 1.6 gallons or more of water (depending on age of toilet).

Switching to a composting toilet helps conserve water while minimizing the impact on the environment. You can even build a DIY composting toilet and make the setup even more affordable.

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