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We have a Airhead composting toilet we share between our 26X and motorhome....works great BUT becareful if the liquids enter the compost chamber you create a big problem. Our 26x on the trailer and used as a caravan/camper can be parked in such a way the drainage of the liquids can leak into the compost chamber...not a problem when the Mac is floating as the Airhead toilet now sits level.We experienced this over Xmas and its NOT nice,had to empty completely ,clean and restart the initial fill of peatmoss BUT had no extra peatmoss with us so used forest leaf litter....works great and is still in there 5 months later.The only other maintenance is to check the moisture contents if not used regularly...adding some water and stirring the compost only gives off a slight earthy odour.Also found no need to empty completely when full...just 66-75% and some extra peatmoss and away you go again....an good solution which doesn't require us to go to a pump out station

bartmac wrote:....Also found no need to empty completely when full...just 66-75% and some extra peatmoss and away you go again....an good solution which doesn't require us to go to a pump out station

So there is a way to only empty the composted part? Seems like I remember composting heads in houses a number of years back where they had like a bottom door that you could remove the composted below the fresh or something like that but these mix old and new while in use don't they.

If we were younger and knew we would have the Endeavour for a number of years I think one would be a good deal for us for sure, but since we aren't young I think we will have to consider if it is or not. We should no a lot more this time next year. Hope you guys keep posting about them. We learned about wag bags/double doodie bags on this board and they have been a great find for us,

Sum

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Our MacGregor 26-S

Our Endeavour 37

Our Trips to Utah, Idaho, Canada, Florida

Mac-Venture Links

Re the airhead compost toilet.The container the #2 land in is like a bucket c/w stirring mechanism and comes suppplied with a transport lid you use once you remove the seat/upper part.The stirring handle usually is turned only a half turn when you've finished your deposit...however when emptying ,complete turns will scoop a hollow in the centre and in effect empty all but 25-30%...the addition of some more peat moss and the general stirring of the rest of the contents will start the compost process off without the use off the compost teabags supplied with the purchase of the toilet (would need to be purchase once finished)The one limiting factor would be the continual use of the airhead....we let ours compost out before emptying so all contents is "safe"...wouldn't use on vegetable garden but fine buried and used say in the bottom of planting holes for larger shrubs or trees

I have a natures head on an M and it's great. It just fits into the space, and mine's a slight bit tilted towards the stern.

I'm 6'4" and I can fit in the space fine, as long as I think about it before I duck.

If you want to speed up the decomposition, you can add a powdered enzyme, such as Drain Care.
http://www.amazon.com/Enforcer-DC16-18- ... pd_cp_hi_1

bartmac wrote:...The one limiting factor would be the continual use of the airhead....we let ours compost out before emptying so all contents is "safe"....

Thanks for all of the info, it helps to understand how they work better.

I'm assuming that the contents are somewhat smaller over time and don't take up as much space. I wonder if you were using the head continuously and worried about emptying and disposing of contents that haven't fully composed maybe put the contents at that point in wag or Double Doodie bags as they are legal to dispose of according to them.

We now store the full Double Doodie bags in a cheap 5 gallon bucket with the snap-on lid and after a month when it is full of bags we just throw the whole 5 gallon bucket into the dumpster. No smell or mess for anyone else using the dumpster that way and it only costs us about $3.50 a month to do that. We have no problem with the bags, but while you are using the head they can be a little smellier than a porta-pottie and it sounds like the composting heads don't have much smell during use. That would be a plus. For us not sure if the cost is enough to warrant not putting up with the smell while using the head, but can see where it would be for others, especially if there are more than 2 understanding people on the boat.

Sum

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Our MacGregor 26-S

Our Endeavour 37

Our Trips to Utah, Idaho, Canada, Florida

Mac-Venture Links

Diverging a little.

As much as we are concerned with proper disposal (and rightly so), Sheri watched my jaw drop as we were going through the check list with the charter company in the BVI's to start our cruise when I asked what our holding tank capacity was. The answer was "nobody does that here in the islands". I was shocked to hear that, apparently, most of the Caribbean and poorer countries, even charter boats which cater to the relatively affluent send their waste directly out of the boat. Needless to say I did not swim in any harbors and tried to find quite anchorages. It's kind of sad that their is no international initiative there. It seems that even the cities/town in the BVI's pump directly to the sea.

Scary.

Shocking as it might sound there is no measurable environmental effect from boat MSD waste on the environment...while it makes a good political story that harbors are polluted by dumped boat waste, in fact most every North American city dumps its sewage untreated into rivers and lakes every time it rains..

just to quote a recent EPA report...

Sanitary Sewer Overflows, USEPA Office of Water
Properly designed, operated, and maintained sanitary sewer systems are meant to collect and transport all of the sewage that flows into them to a publicly owned treatment works (POTW). However, occasional unintentional discharges of raw sewage from municipal sanitary sewers occur in almost every system. These types of discharges are called sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs). SSOs have a variety of causes, including but not limited to severe weather, improper system operation and maintenance, and vandalism. EPA estimates that there are at least 40,000 SSOs each year. The untreated sewage from these overflows can contaminate our waters, causing serious water quality problems. It can also back-up into basements, causing property damage and threatening public health.

How many fish are there in the sea compared to the number of boaters?

Where do they poop??

The solution to pollution is dilution.

Catigale wrote:Shocking as it might sound there is no measurable environmental effect from boat MSD waste on the environment...while it makes a good political story that harbors are polluted by dumped boat waste, in fact most every North American city dumps its sewage untreated into rivers and lakes every time it rains..

So everyone does dump raw sewage, therefore it must be harmless? Yes, that kind of logic is

Okay let's take NYC harbor as an example..........

If the average cruising boat has a 30 gallon waste holding tank, how many discharges do you think it will take until the recreational boat load equals the raw sewage load from the city sewage system?

(jeopardy theme plays)

Catigale wrote:Okay let's take NYC harbor as an example..........

If the average cruising boat has a 30 gallon waste holding tank, how many discharges do you think it will take until the recreational boat load equals the raw sewage load from the city sewage system?

(jeopardy theme plays)

Cat are you just saying that overall cruising boats dumping are not a large contibutor to human waste in the water or are you saying that you feel that it is no big thing for someone to dump their tank or porta-pottie near you in some nice little anchorage where you sail or say next to us down in the keys. I don't think I'd want to compare the water quality near some large city like NYC to a places like those. Also I think the article says that there are situations where cities do dump raw sewage, but that they don't do it on purpose all of the time.

We hope to sail through NYC on one of our boats at some time and even there would never consider dumping there. One thing I been told about the Bahamas is that there are not many if any pump-outs there and there are lots of cruisers sitting on anchor during the winter and the water isn't always so pretty as the pictures since they dump tanks on anchor as the tide goes out. We hope to also make it there, but that is one aspect of the trip we don't look forward to.

I know people are probably tired of us mentioning bags, but we hauled all of our solid waste for almost 2 months in 2 5 gallon sealed buckets with no problems, so I really can't see why someone that goes out for a week or two can't either dump out past the 3 mile limit if that is legal where they are or take it back to shore,

Sum

===================================
Our MacGregor 26-S

Our Endeavour 37

Our Trips to Utah, Idaho, Canada, Florida

Mac-Venture Links

Catigale wrote:Okay let's take NYC harbor as an example..........

If the average cruising boat has a 30 gallon waste holding tank, how many discharges do you think it will take until the recreational boat load equals the raw sewage load from the city sewage system?

(jeopardy theme plays)

Washington state has stricter no-dumping laws and more sewage disposal places free of cost than their northern neighbor BC, and cruising through both areas the cleanliness of the water is noticeable. It is so disappointing that Canada has more lax environmental enforcement and poorer water quality. And, it will only get worse as our federal government eases up on environmental regulations (as in the proposed northern gateway pipeline to China).
I understand what you are saying about relative amounts of raw sewage contamination. So if came to a national park, and only plucked one wildflower, what harm could there be? It's only one flower.

Couple things to add

1 I follow regs and am either pumped out or dump outside 3 mile limit on the cape. I pump out at home into our town sanitary sewer. Discharging at anchorage in a harbor is rude and crude, I agree.
I guess I'm saying follow regs, but if you are forced to discharge a PP into the ocean in all but the shallowest waters, you can rest assured you are not altering water quality, neither are a 100 or 1000 of you.

2 anecdotes are great but I can guarantee you marine waste is not the difference between Bc and WA water quality I'll bet the same is true in the Bahamas.

3 the answer to final jeopardy above, per Riverkeeper, is 1,000,000,000 boats. Thats billion with a B. Dumping an MSD is illegal but it's not even a drop in a swimming pool, let alone a bucket.

4 older cities where storm and sanitary sewers are mixed discharge whenever it rains...not matter of choice

This is a sensitive subject. My "qualifications" for weighing in: 1) I live in the northwest, and we cruise in both WA and BC waters; 2) have used portapotty with our boat for many years, often where disposal facilities are unavailable, such as Bahamas and Sea of Cortez; 3) as a former city administrator, have been responsible for overseeing management of a wastewater treatment plant, and have had to make occasionals calls to the Dept. of Ecology following "bulking" incidents when stormwater inflow caused untreated raw sewage to discharge to the river; 4) we have recently switched to an airhead composting toilet. Now, for some thoughts. Phil is correct regarding widespread available of disposal facilities in WA when compared with BC. Victoria BC is rather infamous for directly piping sewage into the Strait of Juan de fu@. I've read that there is an extensive underwater dead zone in the vicinity of the outfall. I can't speak to the broader question about water quality in BC vs WA waters. When in the Bahamas and Sea of Cortez waters, we periodically had to dump our porta potty overboard, since disposal facilities were virtually unavailable anywhere down there. We always tended this chore when well offshore. Rationally, I realized that the sea was well able to absorb the contents of our holding tank, however, I still couldn't help feeling bad about the temporary brown patch of water we left behind. We encountered a few places in the Bahamas where water quality has clearly been impacted by marine head disposal. One of the most notable is Marsh Harbor in the Abacos, where a great number of cruising boats, mostly sailboats, are moored in slips or at anchor for much of the year. This harbor does not get much flushing action. Cruising guides speak of this and encourage boaters to not release holding tanks while moored there. Regarding sewer treatment plants, most release their treated water back to rivers, streams, large lakes or the ocean. Accidental releases of raw sewage can and do occur, due to excessive volumes of stormwater inflow, power and equipment failures, and operator error. Such releases cause short term problems, but unless the releases are regular and uncorrected, water quality will bounce back fairly quickly. I agree with the observation that boating discharges to the ocean only become problematic when in substantial volume in localized areas, like Marsh Harbor. If boaters follow established regulations and common sense, "burial at sea", 3 miles offshore, is not a problem. That said, we have switched to the airhead composting toilet, with the expectation that we won't have to empty it so often, and we're hoping that it's performance will match the experience we've read about from other users,

Some solutions to the problem of solid waste containment on a boat don't necessarily have to be a single solution and I think the problem can arise on not just longer cruises, but short ones as well depending on what you are using. If you are using a 3-5 gallon porta-pottie and go out for a couple days with 2-4 people you are probably covered, but if the weather changes and you might be stuck for an extra day or so you might end up with a problem. We also have to remember that a lot of sailors on here are also on inland waterways or in Canadian waters.

My recommendation is keep the porta-pottie since you like it, but take a single 5 gallon container with you that could be used to store food or clothing in and a box of bags. Now if you need them you can put them in the porta-pottie and use them and either after one use or several store them in the 5 gallon container you brought with the sealed lid. Once ashore you can legally dispose of it in a dumpster.

Now you don't have to worry about your conscience because you had to empty it someplace you didn't want to and you only have to use the bags if forced to. Also this could be the answer to that once a year longer cruise you want to go on.

Again we were able to carry all of our solid waste for 7+ weeks in 2 buckets with bags on an S. It was no big deal. We will take bags and the buckets with us on the Endeavour even though we have a 20 gallon holding tank. We still might find it full one day and be in a situation where we don't have a pump-out nearby and/or we aren't in a legal place to dump it.

Sum

Our MacGregor 26-S

Our Endeavour 37

Our Trips to Utah, Idaho, Canada, Florida

Mac-Venture Links