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We have recently spent several weeks in Sydney harbour where its illegal to discharge black and grey water. As often as possible we used the many public toilets ashore, but with only a small holding tank we needed an alternative onboard and so set up a composting toilet. This is simply a lidded bucket. The more luxurious version is to have a plastic toilet seat for it. The key to its success is to only use it for your poop and keep the urine out i.e. keep the compost dry (urinate in a bottle and discharge into a public toilet when ashore). It also needs a carbon source added to it e.g. dead leaves, mown grass, sawdust, potato peelings, coffee grinds etc and sprinkle these over your droppings every time. If these two things are done, i.e. keep it dry and add a carbon source, it will compost quickly (the warmer the ambient temperature the better) and will not smell - it just smells sort of earthy sweetish. To help the aerobic composting process give the bucket a good shake every so often to aerate it and it also helps to put it out on the deck with the lid off for a few hours. A normal sized bucket lasts several weeks as the contents quickly break down in volume. Then what to do with the compost? Either discharge it out at sea outside the 4M limit or bury ashore in a deep hole in a suitable place or you might have a landlubber friend with a garden - although the general advice is not to use human waste based compost for vegetable gardens - but its good for everything else - trees, flower gardens, fruit tress etc.
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