Your cart is currently empty!
Composting toilets might feel intimidating at first—but with the right setup, maintenance is surprisingly easy. With a well-designed system like the Throne, cleaning and emptying is simple, odor-free, and hassle-free. Just add cover material, wipe it down, and lift out the bin when full.
In this Article
- Cleaning – solutions & scrubbing tools
- Emptying – frequency, alerts, and overflows
- Maintaining Balance – cover material, moisture, ventilation
- Printable Chore Wheel!
Cleaning
The first step to cleaning your compost toilet ideally starts when you’re shopping for one. A compost toilet should have the least amount of nooks, crannies, and hard-to-reach spots possible. That does sound intuitive, but experience shows: it’s not. I’ll never forget the horrors of snaking a quarter-inch urine drain line from underneath or picking wet TP out of a particularly inaccessible spot in one compost toilet I owned. With a DIY composting toilet (and the THRONE DIY toilet plans) you can build a sleek and easy-to-clean toilet, and eliminate all nasty crevices before you ever have to try cleaning them. Or even better: Shop our ready-to-use Throne Composting Toilet for a simple and clean solution!
Natural Cleaners
If you plan on composting your toilet contents, natural cleaners are the best choice to make sure you aren’t killing off the happy composting bacteria that need to get to work. Harsh chemical cleaners can disrupt the composting process by killing the aerobic bacteria, and if you weren’t an ace in chemistry class, you’ll need to remember that bleach and urine should NOT mix – they create chloramines: toxic gases!
Vinegar
A great cleaner for composting toilets is pure vinegar for the urine diverter, the urine bottle, and seat. It’s non-toxic, inexpensive, widely available, and its acidity allows it to break down organic matter. It also deodorizes!
Tip: To remove stubborn urine scale build-up inside your liquids jug, try adding warm water, vinegar, and soap along with some small pebbles or ice chunks. Shake it like you mean it!
Bleach
NOT IN THE URINE JUG! Repeating myself here to keep you safe. Bleach and urine should NOT mix because the ammonia in urine mixed with bleach creates chloramines: toxic gases!
You want to keep bleach away from your urine and out of your compost. But bleach works great as a final wipe-down to sanitize the solids bin and toilet base. Just be sure to dilute the bleach as indicated by the instructions on the jug.
Environmentally Safe Soap
Mix an environmentally safe soap with warm water to clean any part of your toilet.
Baking Soda
You can mix water and baking soda as a lightly abrasive cleaner that is microbe-safe. Remember your elementary school science fairs and only add vinegar if you are ready for serious bubbles!
Hot Tip: Diaper detergent works wonders for solid pee deposits!
Tools for Cleaning
- A bottle brush gets through the 1 inch urine drain on the Throne diverter easily and removes any build-up. Keep this bottle brush separate from the one under your kitchen sink (gag!)
- Spray bottle – many compost toilet users have learned that a few spritzes of a vinegar/water solution in the diverter after use goes a long way towards preventing build-up and keeping the toilet smelling fresh.
- Green scrubby pads – you may find that you need a little more abrasion if something gets really dried on there. Use a green scrubby pad to get the extra help, but avoid abrasive chemicals that can remove toilet coatings.
Emptying
The Liquids
It’s as easy as emptying the container before it overflows… in theory. Most of us who’ve had compost toilets have had to mop up overflowed pee more than once. Check out our THRONE urine jug with level alarm to make sure this doesn’t happen to you! This is a perfect tool to prevent overflowing pee jugs.
The frequency of emptying your liquids jug will depend on a variety of factors, like how many people are using the toilet, is it in use full time or mostly at night, do some people prefer to pee outside, how well hydrated you are, and the capacity of the container. The Throne liquids jug holds 3 gallons and will last about 6 days with two people using it full time. My family of 4 generally gets 3 days out of the 3 gallon jug.
Hot Tip: Always check the liquid level before bed to prevent overnight overflows. Most spills happen at night when you assume there’s enough room, only to find out others used it more than expected. A quick check now saves a messy surprise later.
There are a variety of places where you can empty your liquids from a compost toilet. Public restrooms and RV dump stations are guaranteed spots. Follow Leave No Trace practices and local guidelines when emptying on the ground. You can even dump it in your grey tank if necessary.
The solids
When shopping for a compost toilet, how the solids are emptied is not something you want to overlook. Some models require you to upend the entire toilet. This was always one of the more stressful days of the week when I owned one of these. Others give you easy access to remove just the solids bin.
How often the solids are disposed of depends on a number of factors as well. These include how many people are using the toilet, how big the bucket is (check out our premium oversized bucket for extra time between emptying), if you allow toilet paper in the bucket (totally fine for composting but it does fill up the bucket faster), or if you plan on using the solids for humanure versus disposing of it in the regular trash.
Hot Tip: Generally speaking, you can expect to need to dump a 6-gallon solids bin anywhere between 2 weeks (family of 4, adding TP, using it full time) to a month or more with fewer people, putting the TP in a different bin, and/or less frequent use.
If you won’t be composting the contents, lining the bucket with trash bags makes it easier to clean the toilet. We recommend double bagging for hauling it to a dump station and out of respect for the sanitation workers. Always follow local regulations.
For those who will compost the contents, you can line your bin with a compostable bag, but beware! These bags tend to break down, as they are intended to do, which means sometimes they can tear on your way out of the house, leaving an awful mess. Take the whole bin out with you and toss the bag and contents into your compost pile if desired.
I’ve chosen not to use a bag at all. They seem to take forever to compost (along the lines of the timeframe of an avocado pit which in my experience is more than 2 years). I dump my solids bin into the compost and then rinse the bucket, dumping that liquid in as well to help my little microbes along. With proper cover material, I don’t typically have much mess lingering in the bucket and it can easily be left behind or wiped out with a damp rag.
Hot Tip: Skip the bag for faster composting
When you build your own DIY composting toilet (for example using our free DIY plans), or go with our ready to use Throne Composting Toilet, you can decide to use bags or not depending on your disposal situation. Toilets with agitators cannot have a bag added (generally).
Maintaining
A well-designed and built composting toilet will need little maintenance. Here are some tips to help maintain your composting toilet, preventing issues before they arise and allowing you to happily offer guests to use the toilet.
Vent for condensation and humidity control
Contrary to popular belief, a vent is not just there to transport bad smells outside on the patio for your BBQ guests to enjoy. It serves primarily as a humidity control by transporting moist air outside, preventing condensation and a humid (read: smelly) compost. But, in the event of bad smells, the vent is your backup to remove them from the toilet and bathroom.
Adequate covering material
We recommend moisture wicking covering materials like coconut coir, sawdust, or shredded yard waste. If you want to add a little magic to prevent smells from the get go, add cold ash (maybe from your tiny wood stove) and coffee grounds to the solids bin to eliminate any smells right away. Check out our article on sustainable coverings for more ideas.
What it all comes down to:
Cleaning, emptying, and maintaining your composting toilet doesn’t have to be difficult or gross if it’s built to make caring for it easy. Regularly wiping down the toilet will help you avoid bigger cleaning chores down the road, choosing a toilet that’s easy to empty means you won’t put it off too long, and employing a combination of cover material and a vent fan will help you prevent odors from ever being a problem.
What’s Next?
- Print the Compost Toilet Chore Wheel to add accountability to your family – you don’t have to do it all yourself!
- Read about troubleshooting common smells in compost toilets so you’ll be prepared when something floats by in the breeze.
Tags:
Comments
2 responses to “Composting Toilet Maintenance and Cleaning”
-
I want to purchase a ready to use toilet. I won’t need the six gallon bucket. I am interested in any special promotions or discounts you might be planning.
Karen Swan
azrio123@gmail.com-
Hi Karen,
Check out our new Mix & Match Deluxe Throne. It comes with the molded plastic base, diverter, and liquid level float… then you pick what else you want in it, so you can skip the 6 gallon bucket and just add the parts you need.
Sign up for our Poop Scoop newsletter and we will also email you anytime we run a sale.
-
Leave a Reply