I shared my sense about composting toilets, which are typically not allowed in a municipality such as Chicago. If so, it is usually on the grounds of public health safety concerns. The rationale, as I understand it, is that the risk of biological contamination with pathogens through the composted end product of composting toilets is considered too great.
Let’s indulge in a little experimental thinking – shall we?
What is the actual biological contamination risk from the composting toilet end product – or – how many pathogens would we set free? According to the EPA, a correctly operated and maintained composting toilet should produce “less than 200 MPN per gram of fecal coliforms”. (MPN = most probable number).
Is this safe? Well, I am not quite sure what to do with this number. So let’s look at this in a different way.
Chicago and many other cities have a combined sewer system. These systems can get overwhelmed in heavy storms and lead to discharge of raw sewage. In Chicago that raw sewage would end up in the Chicago River and Lake Michigan.
What would be the pathogen count for a raw sewage overflow from the combined sewer system in Chicago? What would be the MPN per gram of fecal coliform for such a discharge? Or, how many composting toilets could we run for how long to have equal counts, i.e. equal health risk?
I would love to know if anyone ever crunched these numbers – sitting on a composting toilet!
Tags: city of chicago, utilities, water