Have you heard about composting toilets? They’re a complete system that ensures there’s no nasty smells, and they save a huge amount of water and waste, while keeping our water supplies clean and abundant. The average American flushes down 18.5 gallons of water down the toilet a day, according to the American Water Works Association. With a composting toilet, you could save 6,752 gallons of water a year.

How Does It Work?

At its most basic, a composting toilet is a bucket with several inches of sawdust or other woody mulch material covering the bottom of the bucket. A source of sawdust should be sitting nearby to cover fresh material.

The basic premise of composting requires a balance of nitrogen and carbon (the C:N ratio). Human manure (affectionately called humanure) is high in nitrogen, and sawdust and wood are high in carbon, creating the appropriate balance for starting a hot compost.

After you’ve done your lovely business, cover it up with a few inches of sawdust. This will keep the smell from seeping out and will also prevent unwanted critters from coming to visit.

When the bucket is full, cap it and put it aside. You can start a compost pile in your backyard only for humanure, separate from your regular compost pile. Turn it every few weeks to ensure proper aeration, and treat it like regular compost. If your humanure compost pile is able to reach a temperature of 160 F, that is hot enough to have killed any toxic microbes. You could use it on your fruits and vegetables, but if you’re not comfortable with that, you can also just use it on your ornamental plants and lawns.

Ready-Made Composting Toilet Systems

Lovable Loo: The Lovable Loo is a wooden box system, so it doesn’t need venting, plumbing, electricity, or water. The bucket is inside the box and it is really simple to use. Their site has several videos to show you the system, and they have also published a book called The Humanure Handbook to give you all the information you ever wanted to know about humanure.

Envirolet: Envirolet makes several waterless composting toilet systems, and they also have a few that do use water to flush. Their all-in-one unit is made of hard plastic and can be either electric or not.

Biolet: Biolet has a line of waterless composting toilet systems that do require some ventilation and electricity. They have a basic, manual toilet as well as a fully automatic toilet that mixes the compost itself.

Make Your Own: The Humanure Handbook has posted a free online tutorial so you can build your own Lovable Loo!

What do you think? Would you do your business in a composting toilet? Would you get one for your home? Why or why not?

[CC Image from Sustainable sanitation via Flickr]

More from GLI:

1. Eco Living and Home Composting
2. Worm Composting Basics
3. Save Water and Money, One Flush at a Time!

This list is by all means not conclusive –there are many other plants that work well together around the home to benefit the members of your family. If you have some good ones to add, let us know.

Alfalfa – This is an excellent plant for busting up hard clay soil. It also fixes the soil with nitrogen. Great to use with vermiculture for quickly transforming even the worst quality top soil into the  richest, most fertile soil possible.

Amaranth – There are some beneficial beetles that like amaranth, which also benefits sweet corn. Plant a fringe of amaranth next to your sweet corn patch. Amaranth is a very interesting grain that makes a yummy hot cereal, or jazzes up any bread recipe.

Anise – will repel aphids. Anise tends to host predatory wasps that will hunt many of the unwelcome types of insects.

Allium – use this near most vegetables (except beans and peas)  to repel aphids, carrot lifes, moles, weevils and tree borers. Allium can be part of a garden or tree border to help protect your plants from these pests.

Basil – helps to control flies, aphids, mosquitoes and mites. Great to use by asparagus and tomato plants for problems with hornworms or beetles.

Bay Leaves - not only can these be used to bring the awesome taste of fresh bay leaves to your soups and stews, the leaves help repel insects in general as they are growing. You can place any extra bay leaves around the kitchen (in the pantry) to repel roaches and ants.

Bee Balm – attracts beneficial bugs and bees, and improves the flavor of tomatoes.

Chamomile – plant chamomile around onions, cabbages and lettuces for better flavor. Chamomile is also wonderful for gently cleaning wounds (make a strong tea), as a shampoo additive to condition hair, or soothing tea to drink. Chamomile is also often used along with marigold as a border around gardens.

Chives – not only do chives add a delicious zip to any food, they repel many tomato and fruit pests, and are also known to enhance the flavor and growth of carrots.

Garlic - here’s another one that’s good everywhere, or as part of a border mix around the garden. Garlic repels practically everything -beetles, aphids, spider mites, weevils and borers.

Horseradish – encourages potato growth and has been shown to deter many types of potato bugs. Great to have on hand for a natural way to spice of the usual dishes.

Hyssop – deters cabbage moths around grapes and cabbage and may improve growth.

Lavender – this is a great ant repellent. Lavender can be used in teas, as a decorative element in flower arrangements, made into a tea or other solution for the homemade bath and beauty items. Lavender is a very useful and beautiful herb to have on hand. Plant with peppermint around the house foundation to discourage ant infestation.

Marigold – encourages the growth of tomatoes, strawberries, beans, roses and potatoes, as well as repels several types of insects and nematodes. Marigold should definitely be a part of any garden border mix.

Mint – fun herb to have on hand for cooking and cold drink making. Mint will improve the flavor and growth of nearby tomatoes and cabbage.

Mustard – is well known as a trap crop. Place it somewhat near cabbage, radishes, cauliflower or greens of any kind. It the mustard attracts an infestation, destroy the mustard. If not, you’ve got zesty mustard greens for salad, and veen dried mustard, depending on your dedication and abilities.

Nasturium – repels aphids, several kinds of beetles, squash bugs and white flies. Cucumber and squash benefit the most from nasturium.

Onion – is sort of like garlic in its generally efficient control of several types of pests. Onions repel cabbage moths, weevils, aphids, carrot flies, moles, rust flies, some nematodes and red spiders.

Oregano – benefits broccoli; repels cabbage moth.

Parsley – repels carrot flies, rose, and asparagus beetles. Plant near asparagus, carrots, tomato, and roses.

Peanuts – encourage the growth of squash and corn.

Peas - benefit corn by adding nitrogen.

Pennyroyal – deters ants, ticks, fleas, aphids and cabbage maggots. This is an excellent choice for a yard border, especially if you have pets. Also, cabbage, sprouts and broccoli will benefit directly from pennyroyal.

Peppermint – plant with lavender around the house to repel ants. Use peppermint for teas, cool drinks, headache slaves/lotions/ointments. Like lavender, peppermint can be very useful for making bath and body preparations.

Rosemary – repels mosquitoes as well as beetles, cabbage moths and slugs. Rosemary is another herb that’s great to use in a general border around the yard, or planted in pots around where people tend to hang out.

Rue – deters Japanese beetles; roses and raspberries will benefit.

Sage – tastes great, benefits carrots, and repels carrot flies an cabbage moths.

Soybeans – add nitrogen to the soil, so put them near corn or other nitrogen-sucker. Repels chinch bugs and Japanese beetles.

Savory – plant with beans to deter bean beetles and improve the growth and taste of beans.

Thyme – Useful near cabbage and in cooking. Repels cabbage maggots, cabbage moths and flea beetles.

Tomato – planted near roses will protect them from black spot.

Remember, starting a garden doesn’t have to be a huge ordeal. You can start as small as you want, with a potted herb garden. Using one of those Claw garden tools (you can get at any home or garden store) is actually pretty easy to use for putting in borders, and provides a good workout if you’re making long borders. Also a good tool for stirring up mulch near plant stems.

You might consider watering your plants via harvested rainwater.

Mosquitoes are just another part of summer. Though it’s not likely you’ll ever get completely rid of them, there are some ways you can cut down on mosquito numbers so your outdoor gatherings can be more pleasant. Many of these tips also work at getting rid of ticks, so consider it a bonus, as ticks can carry Lyme Disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever.

Lawn Maintenance

Mosquitoes and ticks tend to live in grass that is tall, partly because of the length, and partly because if grass is tall that means it hasn’t been disturbed by walking/mowing humans. Keeping bushes and hedges trimmed will discourage ticks.

Standing Water

These pests also settle wherever water collects, so eliminating all standing water is important. Most of us think of this step, but be sure to consider even the smallest areas of standing water, such as clogged gutters, plant saucers, garbage cans and lids and birdbaths.

If you have a decorative pond you can stock it with mosquito-eating fish like Gambusia. Or you can use mosquito dunks which slowly release bacteria that kill bugs when they drink the water. These are considered safe to use near birdbaths and drinking water for animals, but should not be used directly on human drinking water. Though supposedly these are safe to place near areas where animals drink, just to be safe, I probably wouldn’t put these anywhere that your dog or cat might drink from.

Mosquito Repelling Granules

There are a few companies that sell all natural mosquito repelling granules, such as Dr. T’s Mosquito Repelling Granules. These are made of natural garlic and seem to be very effecttive for most people. You sprinkle them all around the yard where people tend to gather. They’re safe to use in or near water and last well even after a few rainstorms.

Green Mosquito Repellent and Larvae-Killing Yard Spray

If you want a simple, broad spectrum solution, then something like MQ7 GreenScience’s Mosquito Outdoor Control is perfect for attaching to the garden hose and spraying a perimeter around your yard where people tend to hang out. It’s made from all natural ingredients and is safe to use around animals and children. The repellent barrier and larvae-killing properties will last about 3 months.

Topical Bug-Repellent that’s 100% Natural

I’d been hearing some good things about Badger Balm Anti-Bug Balm, so I thought I’d give it a test run with the mosquito swarms here in Texas. I love this stuff. It works and doesn’t smell or feel like conventional bug spray. It comes in little tins and also a handy roll-on.

A look at conventional air fresheners

Some of these chemicals have even been banned by the FDA, but these bans are unenforceable due to trade secret laws that protect the chemical fragrance company.

• Formaldehyde – known carcinogen
• Phenol – skin and nervous system irritant
• Limonene – skin, throat, eye irritant
• Methylene Chloride -Prolonged skin contact can result in the dichloromethane dissolving some of the fatty tissues in skin, resulting in skin irritation or chemical burns. It may be carcinogenic, as it has been linked to cancer of the lungs, liver, and pancreas in laboratory animals.
• Acetone -Acts as a central nervous system depressant
• Terpinolene – Highly irritating to mucous membranes, has been known to cause hypothermia, CNS and respiratory depression, and headache
• Methoxybenzaldehyde
• Butanoic acid
• and the list goes on…

The thing about conventional air fresheners is that these chemicals tend to build up over time, mostly on carpets and surfaces where kids play and other areas that we come into regular contact with. We track them outside where they end up contaminating the soil. They don’t even work for getting rid of odors and cleaning up the air. Conventional air fresheners just cover up odors for a short period of time, while leaving all their unknown chemicals laying around.

Natural air fresheners not only make the air smell good and fresh, but actually kill germs without killing friendly bacteria. What’s more, putting together your own unique scent combinations can be a lot of fun. There are hundreds of fruits, trees and herbs essential oils from which to choose. Below we’ll look at some of the most well known essential oils for natural freshening and anti-bacterial traits.

More recently there have been more conventional air fresheners marketed as being natural room fresheners. While many of these products are improvements on conventional air freshener, such as soy candles or truly natural non-aerosol sprays, yet in most of these ‘natural’ air fresheners are still scented with chemical fragrances rather than essential oils and other natural plant materials.

The Benefits of Natural Air Fresheners

As we talked about above, the disadvantages and risks of using conventional room fresheners are many, but can natural air fresheners really measure up in terms of ease of use like the popular automatic air fresheners sold in many stores -what exactly are the benefits of using natural air fresheners?

One of the very unique aspects of natural air deodorizers is that you’re not just covering up an unpleasant smell, but you can actually deodorize and clean the air this way, by dealing with the source -and add a pleasant natural aroma while you’re at it. I’m particularly fond of eucalyptus and cedar combinations for neutralizing odors and freshening a room.

One general purpose spray recipe that I love because it can be used on counter tops or as an air freshener:

For some households you may decide to avoid sprays for freshening the air. I like to use eucalyptus, pine, lavender and/or cedar in sprays because these can also be effective in inhalation therapy for asthma or cold related nose and chest congestion. If you want to have more exotic aromas without spraying them into the air, there are several natural diffuser options.

Where to Get Natural Air Freshener Supplies

There are plenty of great natural herbal and essential oil supply stores online. After doing a lot of research, comparing prices and trying a handful of other herbal stores online, I found Liberty Natural. I’ve just been so happy with the selection of items and low prices I have to pass along the info. They have a minimum order of $50 and their site is a little old fashioned, but the quality, selection and prices cannot be beat, so it’s easy to meet  the minimum. You can get very small sizes of essential oils and great discounts on every size upgrade. Oh, and check out the cosmetic bases section (it’s under ‘botanical ingredients‘). You can get bases for natural lotion, shampoo, conditioner, etc, that you can combine with the essential oils you’re getting to create your own natural beauty/bathing items. My favorite is, coincidentally enough, the same oils listed above (eucalyptus, cedar and grapefruit) added to their all-purpose body gel / shampoo base.

How to Diffuse Natural Air Fresheners

We talked about sprays above. These can be fast ways to neutralize odors and add a nice aroma, but what are the other ways to diffuse natural scents?

Candle Diffusers

These can be a nice effect for night time or parties, or daily air freshening. Use essential oils, but be sure to fill the oil warmer with water and then drop the essential oils onto the water. Start with 10-20 drops and adjust.

Electric Diffusers

There are several high-end aromatherapy diffusers, but there are also very basic and small diffusers that you can plug into a wall outlet or car lighter/power. You can get these for about $6 each from Liberty Natural . Be sure to get replacement pads (look for refill items under aromatherapy).

Wand Diffusers

You can use regular wand diffusers if you add some alcohol or witch hazel to your essential oil blend. You’ll want about 1 part essential oil to 4-6 parts vodka or witch hazel. this will allow the essential oil aroma to be carried up and diffused by the wands.

Stay tuned for more on natural fragrance and personal care using essential oils in coming articles…

Prevention

You’ve probably heard this before, but it’s worth mentioning as a key element to any roach control plan: keep your kitchen as clean as possible (free of loose food and crumbs. Also fix any leaks and dry any damp areas as well as possible. The goal, naturally, is not to attract roaches by giving them free food and water. It might take a little while to get in the habit of washing and drying plates and or scraping them and putting them in the dishwasher as soon as you’re done eating, but all these little things add up. For my family, besides not leaving dishes stacked in the sink with standing water, daily maintenance amounts to vacuuming the kitchen floor every two or three days and washing counter tops after every use, so it really doesn’t take a lot of time.

“that’s great and everything, but I’ve got a serious roach problem on my hands. I just want them gone”

This happened to me just a few weeks ago. Over a couple of days I noticed a few roaches showing up in the kitchen and thought to myself, “guess I’ll make some roach balls this weekend”. By the time the weekend came around I realized roaches were trying to take over the appliances! In a sudden population explosion there seemed to be scouts sent to check out every corner of the kitchen. This might sound gross, and it is, but even the cleanest homes can have a roach outbreak like this, especially in warm/hot climates. In any case, there are eco-friendly solutions that will work just as well as toxic extermination chemicals.

Even if you’ve got an emergency on your hands, the first place to start is cleaning the kitchen (and wherever else there’s food debris). This will probably mean taking everything out of food pantries and off of countertops.

Dealing with Pet Food

If you can pick up pet food dishes except during feeding times, great. If you’re like me and don’t want to be constantly picking up and putting down food bowls, why not try the ‘moat’ method or isolating your let’s food from roaches. Choose a larger flat container that your cat or dog’s food and water dishes can fit into without touching the edges. There should be about an inch gap. Fill the larger container with soapy water. Roaches will either not try to cross, or will die in the soapy water. If you choose the right size/shape containers this moat solution doesn’t have to take up much more space than your pet’s food area already does.

1. Clean Surfaces and Floor, 2. Wipe with Eucalyptus or Pine Oil

All surfaces (including pantry/cupboard shelves) should be washed with soapy water. While you’re at it, wipe surfaces with eucalyptus, pine or cedar oil (pine cleaner will do in a pinch, but oils last longer). You can mix essential oil (eucalyptus, pine or cedar) with some rubbing alcohol in a  spray bottle.

Do this same routine all around where you’ve seen roaches.

Green Emergency Roach Control

OK, you’ve got two options:

Purchase lizards.
OR
Make natural poison baits.

You can do one or the other, but not both -poisoning geckos is not on the list. If the lizard option doesn’t sound too appealing (I wasn’t sure about it at first either) perhaps hearing about my experiences with house geckos will add some perspective (or skip to natural roach poison baits).

House Geckos- the greenest roach control system

I’ve seen house geckos deployed in a few different homes. The one with the worst roach problem was an older house in south Texas. The little buggers just came in from outside through all the cracks in their house, but trying to seal the cracks on their own and the usual roach solutions weren’t really fixing the situation, so they went online and bought 3 house geckos. Two days later a medium sized box appeared with a bunch of natural fiber stuffing and what appeared to be an empty box. After a few minutes three little (4-inch) lizards zipped out and away from the box. The roaches disappeared over a period of several days and continued to decline until they were just gone. The lizards were only spotted a couple of times, and pretty much kept to themselves.

I had a similar experience to the first one above when I bought some skunk geckos from a local reptile store. These are a tiny bit bigger than house geckos and do the same thing: keep to themselves and eat roaches. Be sure to ask the sales person about care specifics in case they run out of roaches to eat. I’ve heard that if they run out of natural food, they will start wandering out into sight more often, but in my experiences, this has never happened -the South always has roaches… and sometimes geckos will decide they like it better outside. Where I live many people go and buy 3 or 4 geckos for their 2-3 bedroom house every Spring. Anyway, geckos are awesome eco-friendly roach devourers, so consider this as a green option that also gets you out of having to deal with roach baits (and the roach carcasses once the poison kills them -ew).

Natural Roach Poison Baits

The following are 2 types of recipes, one for ‘roach balls’ (poisoned roach baits) and one for a dry mixture (dry roach poison mixture). The roach ball version tends to be more attractive to roaches because of the moisture, but you might have different results, so I’m including the dry recipe too in case that works better for you.

Roach Balls

16 oz. powdered boric acid
1 c. flour
1/4 c. sugar
1 sm. onion, chopped
1/2 c. shortening

Combine ingredients, then add small amounts of water until it becomes doughy, but not too wet or it will be difficult to work with. Separate into little balls. You can place these in plastic baggies and put them around the kitchen, including floor, counter top and pantry (and wherever else you’ve seen roaches). If you want to use old containers instead of plastic baggies, that would make it an even greener solution. The baggies tend to keep in some moisture which attracts the roaches, but that’s just me experience. If you’re worried about animals getting into these, you can put the roach balls into old soda cans.

Dry Roach Bait

2 parts cornmeal
1 part sugar
1 part boric acid

Put this mixture into little open containers where you have seen roaches.

What next?

So, the kitchen is cleaned up and wiped with eucalyptus oil. The roach balls are in place, now what? Keep wiping up crumbs and not leaving any food out in the open. Regular maintenance / prevention is key to staying on top of roach control. It will take a few days for the majority of roaches to die, so in the meantime, put some additional deterrents in place. Clean up the roach bodies when they start droppin’ -Follow up with the soapy water, then eucalyptus/cedar/pine oil routine.

Natural Roach Deterrents

Dried bay leaves and catnip work great as roach deterrents. You can place bay leaves directly into your cupboards and pantry, or empty large tea bags and fill with dried herbs, closing them with a bit of string or stapler. There are also iron-sealed tea bags.

Diatomaceous Earth -kills and deters roaches

Diatomaceous Earth (or DE) is comprised of very finely ground fossilized shells of tiny organisms called diatoms. The sharp edges of these tiny particles cut holes in roaches exoskeletons, which kills roaches by dehydration within hours -the same way that borax works. Though this stuff is deadly to roaches, it’s perfectly safe to use around children and pets, and at a price of $3-$7 dollars per pound it’s affordable too. This is technically a poison and not a deterrent, but given that it’s even safer than borax powder, DE is safe to dust all along floors and countertops -even around small children or pet areas. Use something like borax for roach balls to take are of a roach problem, but for sprinkling either borax or DE around in the kitchen I would opt for DE. You can use an old makeup brush or large soft paintbrush to lightly ‘dust’ DE all around under appliances, as well as on floors and countertops. Here are some eBay auctions for DE.

Barrier Protection

Using cedar, pine or eucalyptus oil around the thresholds and windows of your home will deter new roaches from coming inside. Use the same oil and rubbing alcohol spray idea as above, or for outside you can use straight oil. You can also place cedar chips around these areas.

To boost your barrier protection you can place a few concealed soda cans with roach balls squished into them around the edges of your barrier to lure roaches away. Putting roach balls into old soda cans will keep small critters from getting to the poison.

Seal Cracks

Another step you can take is sealing cracks with caulking. If you have very large cracks, canned spray insulation is the quickest way to fill these. Just insert the straw into the crack and push the button until you see foam poking back out. Wipe off excess.

Targeted Roach Control

Use a spray bottle filled with soapy water to spray rogue roaches. They will usually die within a couple of minutes.

That pretty much covers my experiences with green roach control: A combination of prevention through keeping food areas clean, and environmentally-friendly deterrents, as well as ‘green’ poison baits –or just a few hungry geckos– will take care of any roach problem. If you ever decide to go with a professional exterminator, there are green extermination companies who use green pest control products, so ask about the eco-friendliness of a prospective exterminator’s treatments.

If you have some solutions of your own, please share them below…

When you aren’t actually using the water, it only takes a second to turn of the tap. You can always turn it back on again. The same goes for shaving. Rather than leave the water running, fill the sink with a small amount of water for rinsing the razor.

When it comes to rinsing dishes before putting them into the dishwasher, why not just scrape them into the trash instead? Use a flexible spatula to scrape food remnants off dirty plates and let the dishwasher take care of the rest.

Save water all around the house by installing low-flow water faucets on all sinks, and installing low-flow shower heads in your showers.

Every gallon of water saved helps lessen the demand on city water treatment facilities, which in turn lessens the stress on the environment.