Vermicompostingtoilets.net

[Kimi Ishikawa]

It seems like your site and Wendy Howard's vermicompostingtoilets.net site should link to each other.

Her design is suitable to a small installation (like family of 4), and is much simpler.

Your design is more complex, but seems suited to a larger installation.

Seems like folks interested in one would also like to know about the other?

I would love more higher-level info about your design (maybe I missed it on your site?) Like...

Where is it being used?

What kind of facilities can/does it serve size/volume/types of wastewater).

Does it have any research results / water quality results?

There are now grants available in the US specifically for innovative wastewater treatment for rural, underserved communities. I would love to try to promote vermifilter technology here. It would seem that both house-level and rural community-level systems would be appropriate for this type of grant. I am just an interested citizen and don't have the capacity to do tons of background research on your type of system... it would be so helpful if there were more of that type of info on your site.

Thank you for all you do!

Kimi

[Dean Satchell]

Hi Kimi, the simplest version of a vermifilter.com toilet is similar to Wendy Howards, where a primary digester is combined with soakage fields. However, the focus of the site isn't waste disposal, but on treatment to a level suitable for surface irrigation and recycling of nutrients. A very simple system can be constructed for surface irrigation if there is sufficient fall from the effluent source. However, because that is not always the case, solar systems can be easily constructed with pumps where the effluent source is below the irrigation field. Remember, the focus is on secondary treatment and surface irrigation, the "holy grail" of domestic effluent disposal.

Currently, construction methods on the site are only for domestic systems, i.e. household size. Being modular the system can be scaled, so as a community we all need to play our part in demonstrating the technology. The technology itself wouldn't change much according to scale, but at the community scale could use simplified sewers and centralised treatment. I've done lots of water quality testing on domestic systems I've built and the effluent quality complies with surface disposal standards in my country. I'd suggest building a prototype for your household, testing the effluent quality and posting your results here.