If you're not sure of what to do with the waste you produce, then why don't you burn it instead? Toilets that incinerate are made specifically for this purpose and are easy to set up and use.

What do you do with the sewage problem when water is in shortage, or you don't have a toilet or septic line? Homesteaders have overcome this issue by constructing outhouses and battling the elements whenever the weather demands. However, outhouses need additional property and aren't forever; they have to be moved as they get full.

Three options for people who would prefer to keep their toilet inside the house include composting, chemicals, and incinerating the toilet. Of these, incinerating bathrooms are the cleanest.

What Is an Incinerating Toilet?

The name suggests that the incinerating toilet is a device that will burn human waste. The most popular are single units; however, systems are also in place that connects multiple toilets to one central unit for incinerating.

Standalones run on propane, electricity, natural gas, or diesel. They typically burn garbage after every use. In general, multiple unit incinerating systems start incinerating only when they have reached a certain quantity of garbage.

Incinerating toilets are able to handle solid and liquid waste. They expel odorous gases using an exhaust pipe that is, in the most efficient models, has catalytic converters to "scrub" the gases and create harmlessly. If properly used, the incinerating toilets do not require any cleaning. The only need for maintenance is periodically emptying the ash reservoir.

Incineration toilets do not need the requirement of being connected to sewers or the aid of water. The installation process is easy: drop the toilet into the right spot, then install a vent pipe to it and connect it to a source of power. It is then connected to the power source by hard wiring it or connecting it to the fuel line.

How Does an Incinerating Toilet Work?

A toilet that is incinerating is designed as a regular toilet. The trap door at the base of the cone-shaped bowl leads to a reservoir for waste which contains the incinerator. Certain models require you to place a cone-shaped paper liner inside the bowl. Others have a tiny reservoir of water to clean the bowl.

After flushing the water, all the liquids (and any liner in the event that there's one) go into the reservoir or are transported there via an abrasive gear. Then, they're transformed into ashes once the burning cycle starts.

A single use can produce about 1 teaspoon of ash, equivalent to around 1 cup of ash for each person each week. The ash is stored in a tank at the bottom of the toilet, under the incineration chamber, which needs to be cleaned out regularly, typically by removing the drawer. Ash is free of pathogens and bacteria and has enough potassium and phosphorous that it can double as fertilizer for the garden.

The burn process typically ceases when the lid is lifted. The cycle is activated by pressing buttons (equivalent to flushing), which allows two to three users to flush the toilet at once.