Radiant zones and communities building..where are we up to ?

[Vidya Moksha]

Originally Posted by NorthernSantuary

Vidya, the simple system you mention works, but the people are still use to the convenience of indoor plumbing, so I'm trying to come up with a solution for that if possible.

The link to magnegas also triggers me to lok into the manure biogas processor

For the system I am suggesting the indoor plumbing needs to be bypassed, or just used as a urine disposal system, which is kinda wasteful as diluted urine is such a good fertiliser. I have seen several approaches to indoor toilets, but all bypass the conventional toilet system. One system builds up a wooden frame around the existing toilet and utilises a bucket to collect solids. You sit or squat at some height off the floor, but this is no hardship. A bucket will need to be emptied weekly most likely, unless a larger storage unit can be used. It is always easier to leave the solid waste in situ until it has composted naturally, but this isnt always possible indoors; size being the restricting factor.
Urine, in all these sytems, is simply piped to the garden, that is a very simple job. Handwashing grey water is piped to the same source as the urine, providing the dilution, though some plants, such as comfrey, will take concentrated waste water with no difficulty.
Biogas seems like a good idea, but it is is not so simple in reality. In china they just make enough methane if they compost all vegetable and food matter AND garden compost as well as faecal material AND have a pig, with pig wastes entered into the same system. Otherwise there is simply too little methane to make the system viable. Although not always possible, wood is the best fuel for cooking and heating, and the ash is so useful for treating the composted material.
Also with biogas you need a large storage area, if you can even consider this sort of storage size then compost toilet space will be easily achieved.
VM