Examples of Installations

A Urine-Diverting Composting Toilet and Graywater System in Oregon

When they realized that their septic system was failing, two Oregon women installed a Separett urine-diverting composting toilet and a graywater system. (Because they haven't obtained local approvals for their system, they choose to have their names left out of this Web site.) When the solids container in their Separett fills up, they cap it with a screened lid and let it process for one month (longer in colder weather), then they pour the contents into a large enclosed outdoor composter.

Their graywater system consists of two 15-foot beds filled with bark mulch and planted with water-loving plants. The urine exits the house through a line that plugs into the main graywater line and discharges under the mulch but within the root zone of the plants. The flow of water is controlled by a diverter valve, which directs the water to one bed or the other. Each week, they turn the valve, directing the water from the wet side to the dry side, while the wet side rests. Ultimately, the bark mulch will break down and they will have to replace it to prevent carbon clogging.

"We built a little walkway and bench over the mulch beds so it looks less like a water treatment site and more like normal landscaping," says one of the women. "On nice nights, we like to sit on the bench and watch the bathtub drain."

Ekologen Urine-Diverting Toilets at Work

In a two-storey 32-unit condominium building outside of Stockholm in Sweden, Ekologen toilets are part of a blackwater recycling system. Keeping toilet water out of the wastewater mix ensures that the building is not polluting the nearby lake.

Urine drains to tanks in the cellar. Feces drop to aerated rollaway containers. Every six months, the urine is pumped out by a farmer and used on fields for grain crops. When the blackwater containers fill, they are each taken to a processing area to process further. After a year, they may be rolled outside and emptied around plants.

This system is monitored by the Stockholm water utility as a solution in more areas where nitrogen pollution is a concern.