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Anaerobic Dog Waste Disposal...


Willem
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Looks interesting ... we usually compost ours ...

that is what I do - just scoop it from the lawn and chuck it in a 60 liter drum and leave it to the worms; that works, but takes a while till everything is broken down and turned into compost without any signs of pooh.

This anaerobic digestion process has some advantages over the normal worm composter - it is totally sealed and obviously it is much faster (takes just a week). However once the bucket is closed I guess it is not a good idea to open it every time I find another poo on the lawn as it would allow air / oxygen to get into the bucket compromising the anaerobic process; hence I would have to store it somewhere else till I can start another batch - that offsets somehow the advantage...I might just stick with my worm compost system.

Edited by Willem
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Why don't you just scoop it up and then straight into the toilet then its all flushed away.

...I don't want to run with the pooh through the house, it's much easier to chuck it in the drum in the garden, and hose the scoops on the lawn with the garden hose if required...and I like the idea getting something useful out of it (like compost).

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Looks interesting ... we usually compost ours ...

that is what I do - just scoop it from the lawn and chuck it in a 60 liter drum and leave it to the worms; that works, but takes a while till everything is broken down and turned into compost without any signs of pooh.

This anaerobic digestion process has some advantages over the normal worm composter - it is totally sealed and obviously it is much faster (takes just a week). However once the bucket is closed I guess it is not a good idea to open it every time I find another poo on the lawn as it would allow air / oxygen to get into the bucket compromising the anaerobic process; hence I would have to store it somewhere else till I can start another batch - that offsets somehow the advantage...I might just stick with my worm compost system.

You would probably need to have to have a couple of buckets - one in action and another holding the waste for the next load. If you had lots of poo to deal with you might need more systems ...

I had tried worm dog toilet but I think I kept killing off the worms because I would forget the rule about "do not add poo for at least a week after worming" ...

We just brought the round compost bins from Bunnings, dug a hole about half the height of the compost bin and then placed the compost bin over the top of that. We have two bins and move them maybe every 18 months or so if that ... we use one until it is full and then let it sit while we use the other bin - when the second bin is almost full we then relocate the first bin to another location within the yard - everything is well and truly composted by then - it is either used to full any holes in the yard or added to the garden. The compost bin's don't tend to smell - we also add lawn clipping, shredded paper, old potting mix from pot plants that get re-potted, and even extra kitchen scraps that don't go to the worm farm.

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hmmm I'm not so sure that pet waste would contaminate ground water. I also noticed he mentions you get the valuable nutrients Nitrogen and Phosphorus found in the URINE. He seems to be suggesting the dogs urine goes in there too, how are you supposed to do that?

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hmmm I'm not so sure that pet waste would contaminate ground water. I also noticed he mentions you get the valuable nutrients Nitrogen and Phosphorus found in the URINE. He seems to be suggesting the dogs urine goes in there too, how are you supposed to do that?

My vet uses a frying pan to collect urine samples so.. maybe something like that? Which sounds like a super fun to spend your time- hunching around after your dog with a frying pan, like some sort of weirdo, waiting for it to squat.

As for the "environmental" reasons for using expensive/complicated sh*t bucket.. dubious. Leaving in on footpaths to be washed into the gutters and then stormwater drains is obviously a bad idea but disposal in regular household waste shouldn't pose a problem. Landfill isn't just a hole in the ground- they're designed to prevent (or at least minimise) contamination of ground water or surrounding soil*. Really, pushing the "environmental benefits" of the sh*t bucket is the only way they're going to sell any because it doesn't look cheaper, easier or at all convenient for the user. (also, who wants buckets of sh*t sitting around their house :vomit: )

* http://www.coolaustralia.org/modern-landfill-sites-secondary/

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Looks interesting ... we usually compost ours ...

that is what I do - just scoop it from the lawn and chuck it in a 60 liter drum and leave it to the worms; that works, but takes a while till everything is broken down and turned into compost without any signs of pooh.

This anaerobic digestion process has some advantages over the normal worm composter - it is totally sealed and obviously it is much faster (takes just a week). However once the bucket is closed I guess it is not a good idea to open it every time I find another poo on the lawn as it would allow air / oxygen to get into the bucket compromising the anaerobic process; hence I would have to store it somewhere else till I can start another batch - that offsets somehow the advantage...I might just stick with my worm compost system.

You would probably need to have to have a couple of buckets - one in action and another holding the waste for the next load. If you had lots of poo to deal with you might need more systems ...

I had tried worm dog toilet but I think I kept killing off the worms because I would forget the rule about "do not add poo for at least a week after worming" ...

We just brought the round compost bins from Bunnings, dug a hole about half the height of the compost bin and then placed the compost bin over the top of that. We have two bins and move them maybe every 18 months or so if that ... we use one until it is full and then let it sit while we use the other bin - when the second bin is almost full we then relocate the first bin to another location within the yard - everything is well and truly composted by then - it is either used to full any holes in the yard or added to the garden. The compost bin's don't tend to smell - we also add lawn clipping, shredded paper, old potting mix from pot plants that get re-potted, and even extra kitchen scraps that don't go to the worm farm.

Also if you have a few buckets, the problem (or advantage) is that a batch takes only 7 days - during this fermentation phase opening the bucket would allow Oxygen / air to enter that would compromise the anaerobic process. If I don't want to store the pooh, I could have 7 buckets and start a batch every day, but that seems to be an overkill for just 1-2 poohs...

wrt worm composting: I did some tests with interceptor - gave the first poohs after de-worming into a separate bucket with tigerworms and couldn't see any negative impact on the worm activity. That might be different with other de-wormers, but since the testing I gave all the pooh, also the ones after de-worming, straight into the composter and never had any issues.

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hmmm I'm not so sure that pet waste would contaminate ground water. I also noticed he mentions you get the valuable nutrients Nitrogen and Phosphorus found in the URINE. He seems to be suggesting the dogs urine goes in there too, how are you supposed to do that?

...I missed this bit...doesn't make much sense to me as the urine goes anyway straight to the lawn :D ...didn't train her till now to pee somewhere else in the garden to avoid the yellow stains, however, I installed a simple sprinkler system that allows us easy watering the lawn if we are a little bit late walking her (the first 1-2 pees in the morning seems to be the lawn killers...).

ETA: I think the risk for ground water is minimal respectively not higher compared to using normal fertilizer - the fermentation process breaks the pooh down into valuable nutrients for plants, so as long as you dog isn't on any medication it will actually produce a high quality fertilizer.

Edited by Willem
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My dogs mess goes over my fence into my paddock. Doesn't smell, breaks down quickly enough, I'm lucky to have dung beetles here who do a sterling job of burying it.

..yeah, I thought about throwing it just over the fence too, but our neighbours won't give us any reasons to do so :laugh:

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