Things I never knew existed - incinerating toilets

[BlackAmericanoNoSugar]

[wow] You poo, press 'flush' and it all drops down into a mini incinerator which evaporates off the wee and reduces the poo and paper to ash. I saw it on a tiny house thing on YouTube. It uses a LOT of electricity though.

That [wow] should have been a 'shock'

I'm intrigued, isn't it really noisy?

I'd be worried about my bum catching fire.

A review here. I even calculated how much it would cost to run for our family of four, who poo a lot judging by the amount of loo roll we get through. It came to around €0.18 to €0.40 (say €0.30 on average) per flush, and we probably flush at least four times a day each (as we're still mostly all at home all day at the moment). That's on average €144 a month in electricity alone.

You should watch the documentaries on Bill Gates on Netflix, called Inside Bill's Brain.

He could see the huge problem in developing countries where people were going to the toilet in local rivers - he set scientists a challenge to come up with a toilet that didn't need running water or electricity. And they did - a similar solution to what you're talking about. The documentaries are fascinating, seeing how he thinks.

Can the incinerating generate any power?

Can you use solar panels?

I'll have a look at that, thanks HollowTalk

@paap1975

Can you use solar panels?

I checked that out too, a 20 sq m panel will generate around 2,600 kWh a year. Each flush takes between 0.8 and 2 kWh so you would get around 1,800 flushes a year, or five flushes a day. So my family for instance with around 12 flushes a day, plus any visitor flushes, would need 60 sq m of solar panel (that's 6m x 10m) just to flush the loo.

@GoatsInBoats

Can the incinerating generate any power?

I was wondering if you could use left over heat to keep the bathroom warm, I'm not sure. I think it has to vent in order to remove the moisture that it has evaporated off, so presumably you'd loose most of the heat that way.

How did they power it in the tiny house? Was the house on mains power, or was it one of those tiny houses on a vehicle?

@GoatsInBoats

How did they power it in the tiny house? Was the house on mains power, or was it one of those tiny houses on a vehicle?

It's one. They said they were plugged in to power but also had panels ready to put up. They're in Australia so would probably get more power from their solar panels than we would get (my data came from an Irish source), and there's only two of them and possibly the man might wee alfresco or onto the compost heap, so fewer flushes.