Anyone here use a composting toilet in a camper?

Do campgrounds allow the dumping of composted waste?

Is odor problematic around your camper/boat?

Just began looking at this possibility and will research it on youtube and the net, but informed opinions valued.

Had one in a Boston whaler worked well for weekend use BUT you better empty it when you get back ,if left a week or so it will gag a maggot when you lift the hatch

We have one, it's sort of a outhouse, in the house. Better than an outhouse.

Is there one made for really big asses?

Is there one small enough for Mold Poot? As a Jewh, you couldn’t drive a straight pin up his ass with a sledgehammer, he is so tight! LOL!! I meant “Old Coot”; my bad!

When I worked underground , they tried few. Stinkiest damn thing I was ever near.

Had one in a cabin a while back. Believe it had "Sun" in the brand name. I thought it worked really well and don't recall any odor, but it was in a fairly large room not used for anything but that, and storage, and my place was not what you would call airtight. The biggest issue with it was, with the intermittent use it received, the compost would solidify between visits to the cabin, and if you didn't de-solidify it a bit before the first time the mixer motor turned on you would snap the shear pin that was there to protect the motor. But it was nothing that couldn't be worked around.

In a cabin with fairly low use? Yes.

In a camper or anything portable? No way.


The whole idea of these things is to do natural decomposition using things like peat moss or some such as a medium. If you set things up right, the air draw goes down through the seat and is vented out a chimney using convection with maybe some help from an electric fan.

Trying to take that kind of thing on the road? It gets nasty really quick.

The best composter I saw was built like a small cabin with a sliding glass door across the front. You mounted the throne and could watch the lake and trees while you transacted business. The vent had a fan that ran off solar. It was a really swell operation. I always enjoyed visiting.

Also, it rarely needed emptied. It would eventually remove all the moisture from the compost, and after that there just wasn't much to dispose of.

You are probably just as well off with a plastic pail lined with a garbage bag and some kitty litter.

If you can't keep a slightly negative air flow going through the seat, the room fills up with stink in a hurry.
If you can't keep a decent airflow over the effluent, it goes from aerobic to anerobic decomposition and it gets really putrid
If you can't keep the effluent in a well controlled temperature range, the whole thing gets out of wack and stinks

My friends' rig was perfect. The glass doors sealed the airflow. That meant all the air going up the stack was from the outside. The effluent was kept at the right temp and the right PH. What came out of there was ready to go into the vegetable garden.

How you would manage all that in an RV is beyond my comprehension.

I use a Mexican pail during late season freeze up. Just splash a little blue juice in it and go. You need a cover for it. Store it under the trailer when not in use.