Great news! The public composting toilet in the little cob building was approved by the District of Highlands at Monday nights council meeting.
Construction will begin in the next couple weeks. The site chosen is on a small rock near the lake. This insures an excellent dry cob friendly location, minimal habitat impact, and minimal concrete. The small number of plants and organic material that will be impacted will be saved for relocation on to the living roof.
This composting toilet is a prime example of what can be done municipally to reduce greenhouse gasses. This pretty little cob bathroom is carbon neutral being built of local materials, does not impact the sensitive ecosystem, habitat restoration, ground water preservation, resource recovery, and not to mention the educational benefits to the public.
This is also extremely exciting from a policy perspective…OK, maybe you need to be a policy geek like us to get excited. This will open the doors for others to follow. We could see little public composting toilets popping up all over the place. All of our building plans, and our numbers (costs, times, performance) will be made available. There will be a small charge for the PDF plans which can be adapted for many uses (cold storage, storage shed, enlarged for a small sleeping cabin, etc)
The alternative solution to the building code for this public bathroom will be posted on our website in the next couple weeks.
Monday Magazine has already interviewed us and is working on a story, so keep an eye out for it.
So, let the cobbing begin. For all those that have pledged donations, thank you very much! As you know we are attempting to cover at least some of our volunteer labour for this project with donations.
Donations can be mailed to:
3295 Compton Road, Victoria BC V9E 1C8
Please make payable to:
“Highland Parks and Recreation Association” if you would like a tax receipt (tax receipts issued for donations over $50).
As for the constipated policy of flush toilet ready for new home construction that we have been working on, stay tuned; there is very exciting movement in the works. We will definitely keep everyone posted.
Thanks for sharing in our excrement…oops, excitement.
Ann and Gord Baird
Less life stuff… More life style
June 8th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
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July 23rd, 2009 at 9:44 am
I agree, this is exciting news. Getting composting toilets “approved” by city building officials is a major hurdle that many folks in the U.S. will have to jump if they want to install a composting toilet. While these systems are very high-tech and odorless and clean, they still are not considered “mainstream” by the standards of building code, and thus will have to undergo an inspection and approval process in many communities.