Nature Loo Alectura Waterless Composting Toilet System received a prestigious Good Design Award Gold Winner Accolade, which means we are in the top five hardware and building design projects recognised for outstanding product design and innovation.

Alectura Lathami is the scientific name for the Australian brush turkey. These funny-looking birds are our greatest natural composters in Australia!

We get questions about this a lot, and it’s important to support Aussie producers so we’re very proud to show off our shiny green badge of honour!

Researching different types of composting toilets means learning the jargon. So, what do these categories mean? What’s the difference between them, and how do you know which one is right for you?

We get asked a lot of questions about some fun topics like: diarrhoea, menstruation, medication and vomit, so we’ve decided to consolidate as much information about this for you here.

There’s nothing better than turning off your phone, disabling your email, packing the car and heading away to your weekend getaway property. It gives you a chance to relax, enjoy some quality time away with your family or significant other and get away from it all. 

As the cost of living increases and utility companies keep raising their prices, we’re finding that more people are interested in installing a grey water system in their homes. Sure, the idea of recycling your grey water sounds appealing, but is it worth the investment? 

We get asked all the time “how do these toilets actually work?” So, we have compiled a list of our key composting principles and how to keep the balance.

If you’ve been searching around the interwebs for info about composting toilets, it’s very likely you’ve come across some info about urine diversion or seen urine diverting composting toilets for sale and thought to yourself ‘what’s the benefit of doing that?’. 

Here's the story about how we helped David chose a flushing composting toilet for his Mud Cubby

 “It was the right choice given all the moving parts of this decision. It’s like the composting toilet that no one needs to know is a composting toilet”

Plastic. It’s one of those items that’s all around us and part of our everyday life, but how many of us think about the types of plastics we use and if they suit their intended purpose. We’re all growing more aware as a global society that plastics in our ocean are a big problem and BPA free, reusable water bottles, paper straws and bread clips, etc have been hugely popular to help eliminate single-use plastics.

Many people who consider a composting toilet also want to reduce their reliance on the water and electricity grids, and it’s little wonder given the price of water and power these days. Part of the process of moving towards a non-electric lifestyle isn’t to remove electricity from your life altogether but to look at more eco-friendly and sustainable ways of producing electricity for your home. 

By Angela D., QLD

"My intentions long term was to go as off grid as possible and the composting toilet system would make it a lot easier to get off of the town water supply. My highest water bill has been $11.00 since installing the composting toilet."

If you’re considering purchasing a composting toilet, you’ve no doubt got a lot of questions knocking about in your head. The most common question we get asked here in the Ecoflo office is ‘do composting toilets smell?’. 

When it comes to living with a composting toilet, there are many benefits. Environmentally friendly, less water usage and not relying on being connected to the grid to deal with your family’s waste requirements are all benefits of installing a composting toilet; however, it’s important you are aware of the small amount of maintenance that’s required when you choose to live with a composting toilet in your home. 

Every single one of our toilets has a ventilation system in place; we may have changed how they look over the years but they are still there.

Today we are exploring just why vent systems are so crucially important to the operation of a composting toilet.

”I won’t lie to you and say that a composting toilet is a set and forget option for your bathroom, or that it doesn’t require an amount of work to install and maintain. Having a composting toilet does require commitment. However, if you have a commitment to the environment, to lowering your footprint and to living sustainably, the effort is only a small price to pay.”

Why is continuous composting an excellent option?

A continuous system has the lowest maintenance of any composting toilet offerings.  As a rule of thumb. the larger the toilet, the larger the capacity which means the least maintenance. 

If you’ve bitten the bullet and purchased a tiny home or a recreational vehicle, congratulations! You’ve made a great choice. Downsizing to a tiny home or RV can come with certain challenges. Learning to work in smaller spaces to prepare meals, get dressed and yes, go to the bathroom takes a little getting used to, but once many people realise the benefits of downsizing their lives a little, they wonder why it took them so long to do it!

If you’re diving into the world of composting toilets, you’ve no doubt heard or read of a lot of different terms for these types of toilets. Composting toilets, off-grid toilets, dry toilets, etc. If you’re wondering what the difference between all these names is, we give you a rundown of what a dry toilet is, how it works and where you can get your hands on one. 

If you’ve been thinking about purchasing a composting toilet, chances are you have many different questions about how they work, what you can put in them, what to do when you have diarrhea and how often you need to empty them.

If you’ve been considering purchasing a composting toilet for a while, you’ve no doubt done a lot of research about how they work, how to install one, the different types of exhaust fans, solar units and accessories that can be added and attached to them.

Ever wondered where urine goes in a composting toilet? Do you have to dispose of it? Does it smell? We answer all these questions and more.

Been hearing a lot about dry flush toilets lately and wondering what they are and why they’re so popular? We outline their benefits in this informative article.

One of the best things about going off grid is reducing your dependency on utilities like water, electricity and gas. Making the move to an off grid home isn’t one people take lightly and it takes a lot of planning, effort and dedication to live in a self sustainable way, 

Wondering which toilet option is best for your tiny home? Given you’ve got limited space, you want to make sure you’re getting the best bang for your buck.

Wondering what to do with your composting toilet waste once you’ve filled the chamber and let it cure? We run through how to handle & what to do with Humanure.

If you’re new to the world of composting toilets you probably have a tonne of questions. How do composting toilets work? Can I install one myself? How quickly do they fill up? Do they smell? 

We cover all these questions and more in this article outlining what composting toilets are, how they work and answer (hopefully) all your questions.

One of the best things is that we have been able to show guests how a composting toilet can have no smell and be easy to use. We also all use the composted waste buried next to the trees for fertiliser.

Elle wanted a system that was as environmentally friendly as possible. An off-grid composting system that required minimal power input from her solar system was the logical choice. In May 2020, Ella had the Clivus Multrum Low Profile installed in her tiny house on wheels in St Kilda, VIC.  Follow the link to see what she had to say...

With the colder months fast approaching, many of our customers ask if there are some specific things they should be doing to maintain their composting toilets in colder weather. The good news is that composting toilets work in colder weather. Even for our most southern brothers and sisters in Tasmania who see winter temperatures plummet to near zero degrees, a composting toilet is still a viable option as long as it’s maintained properly. 

You’ve finally gotten everything in place, tightened the last screw and swept the floor of your new composting toilet installation. You’ve thought about purchasing a composting toilet for months and you’ve finally bitten the bullet, bought one, installed it yourself and you couldn’t be happier! 

When it comes to cleaning your new composting loo, you want to make sure you’re not using any products that can potentially harm or kill all the good bacteria, actinobacteria, fungi and moulds that help to break down all the waste you put into your composting toilet. 

If you’ve recently purchased a composting toilet or are thinking of buying one, you will no doubt have several questions about waste management, how to handle it and what you can use it on and for. One question we get asked a lot is how to dispose of or how to use urine from a composting toilet.

With such a small space to work with, a model was needed that didn’t have a large footprint. They were also looking for a unit that was small enough to have enough clearance under the Tiny Home to provide for easy access to maintain the toilet and change the chambers. Often for this reason collection toilets are favoured over true composting toilets but Aimee and Ben wanted a sustainable and easy to maintain toilet.

Here at Ecoflo, we’re always trying to innovate and improve on our product ranges which is why it’s so exciting to be recognised and awarded for our hard work, dedication and expertise in composting toilet design and engineering. 

If you’ve been thinking about how you can make your home more eco-friendly and save water, a greywater system is a great way to literally reuse and save thousands of litres of water a year from being wasted. 

We’ve been waiting for a long time to get our hands on a new type of bulking agent that’s environmentally friendly. Wood shavings are an excellent bulking agent and we’re sure many people will happily continue using them for many years but we’re always happy to offer alternatives and get our customers’ feedback. 

Almost all Australians are spending a substantially large amount of time at home at the moment.  Let’s face the reality of this situation. We’re snacking more. A lot more. 

When it comes to composting toilets, there are many different sizes, types, ranges and options to choose from and consider. Split system or all-in-one? Porcelain, plastic or stainless steel pedestals? Solar-powered or mains?

Australia has certainly had a wild couple of months. From bushfires and floods and now the COVID-19 outbreak that’s currently taking up everyone’s headspace, it seems the sh!t has really hit the fan – not only in Australia but the rest of the world. 

With the tragic and widespread influence of bushfires across Australia this season, we’re seeing more and more people consider how they can reduce their impact on the environment. Many of our customers seek greater independence from grid and government-based suppliers by actively reducing their use and dependence on precious commodities like drinking water or town waste systems. 

Brand new low profile composting toilet, perfect for tiny homes and small spaces. The All-New CM LP comes packed with all the latest features, smaller size with a bigger capacity than our previous tiny home toilets. Less floor clearance required, which means it’s perfect for tiny houses and small spaces.

We all know the climate is changing. There are many arguments both online and offline as to the cause of this change (man-made or natural) but one thing is certain – we’re all starting to see the effects of climate change. Recently 41 councils in Qld had declared their regions drought-stricken and it seems we see more often than not in news more stories about water restrictions or stories about dam levels dropping. 

If you’ve spent any time on boats you will know that toilet systems have come a long way. Even though we’ve grown from sticking our bum over the edge to more sophisticated marine toilet systems, there’s still the issue of putting human waste into our ecosystem.

In Australia, we can handle a lot of heat. Even though many tourists are sweltering, all true Aussies know it isn’t officially summer until thongs are a requirement to cross the road, the seat belt that’s been in the sun stings like an angry wasp and your ice cream melts faster than you can eat it. 

If you’ve had a composting toilet for any period of time, it’s likely you’ve had a few vinegar flies (also called fruit flies, barflies or if you want to get really technical Drosophila melanogaster) buzzing their way around your toilet – well technically your composting pile. 

Australia… the driest continent on the planet where over 80% of country has an annual rainfall of less than 600 mm (24 in). When looking at other continents, only Antarctica receives less rainfall than we do here in the land down under. If we live in a country that’s so dry, it only makes sense that as a society and a country that we try to mininise our impact on our drinkable water supplies as much as possible.

If you’ve been thinking about installing a composting toilet lately, it’s likely you’ve thought to yourself “I wonder if it’s against the law to install a composting toilet?”. Well, we’ve tried to answer all your questions and more below.

Before we get into the legalities of installing composting toilets we wanted to cover an important aspect of composting toilet design and that is if they meet Australian standards.

Composting toilets, when maintained properly shouldn’t be giving off any aromas or smells. When you walk into your bathroom there’s no reason you should be smelling waste or anything that seems a little ‘off’ as if your composting toilet is maintained properly, the waste should be somewhat dry and any smell from the composting pile should be headed out your exhaust fan and into the atmosphere.

If you’re thinking about purchasing a composting toilet, no doubt you have a lot of questions about the different models, how they work, if they smell and if they really are good for the environment.

There are many reasons people look into purchasing a composting toilet. Some people don’t have access to a suitable water facility – others are in remote areas and traditional town electricity and plumbing aren’t that easy to come by. Other families want to reduce their dependence on private, state or government-run facilities like power and water by getting off the grid.

If you have a composting toilet and own a dog, you’ve probably wondered at some stage if it’s safe to put dog poo in your composting toilet and we’re here to answer that question once and for all.

When it comes to bathrooms, every home, building, project space or areas where people gather needs one. They’re often seen as one of those necessity buildings that are a ‘must have’ therefore only need to be utilitarian, sparse and useful.

Everyone knows that composting toilets are better for the environment, use less water and help to keep waste out of our waterways and oceans, and many of our customers feel a sense of pride and dare we say excitement when they install their composting toilet for the first time and start using it.

We all know that summer storm season in Australia can get pretty hectic. Cyclones storms, floods, high winds and power outages are commonplace all around Australia for many months during the summer. Losing power is frustrating at the best of times – but if you’ve got a composting toilet, there’s a few things you should know.

If you live in a colder climate in Australia, and you keep a compost pile or compost bin in your backyard you know that sometimes it’s hard to keep all the microbes and proper elements in balance to ensure your composting pile works all year round.

You may have just recently moved into a home that has a little less room than you’re used to or perhaps you’ve decided that simplifying your life and moving into a tiny home is a way to declutter your life. Perhaps you just have an extra tiny bathroom.

One of the questions we get asked all the time in the Ecoflo office when talking to customers about composting toilets is “so, how do you actually empty one of these things?”. And like many of our answers in the articles on this blog, this answer is going to be ‘it depends'

Have you ever wondered how a self contained composting toilet actually works? Well, this is the article for you. In this article we outline all the different parts of a self contained toilet and how they all work together to make usable compost from human waste.

When looking for a new toilet system there are several boxes that need to be ticked. For example, you may be concerned about water consumption so you might be looking for a system that uses little to no water. This is particularly true if you live in a remote area or a place where water isn’t readily available.

There’s a few great things about having a composting toilet. Firstly, they save you a huge amount of water every year and they’re much better for the environment. The other great benefit is that after a few weeks or months (depending on usage) you get a rich top-soil like humus product that you can use in a variety of different ways.

The Green Apple Splatters, The Hershey Squirts, Bubble Guts, Code Brown, The Runs, Montezuma's Revenge, Mudd Butt, Organic Brown Lava, The Trots and my personal favourite – The Arsequake. No matter what you call it, we’ve all had it at one time or another and we’ve all had to deal with the after-effects (which are never pretty).

Composting toilets – like anything in your home, will need a little maintenance every now and then. One of the great things about having a composting toilet in your home is that you save a lot of water year after year, and you get a great humus-like product to use out in your garden after a period of time. Now in saying this, you won’t get out of having to clean your composting toilet from time to time (it will be a very rich person that invents a toilet that never needs cleaning!).

image source

They say good things come in small packages and that’s definitely the case when it comes to tiny homes. If you’ve missed the latest craze to sweep across Australia and the world, tiny homes aren’t just about reducing your living space, it’s about creating a less cluttered, more organised and simple lifestyle to free up your space, your mind and your home so you can enjoy the simpler things in life.

The average water-saving toilet uses approximately 3 litres of water for a half flush (source). Now that stat on it’s own doesn’t give you much food for thought. Let’s put that into perspective, shall we? An average plastic bucket holds approx 9 litres. If you only flushed your toilet once a day, how many buckets do you think that would be?

It happens to us, so why can’t it happen to bacteria? The grey dreariness that often makes us want to go into hibernation mode (if only work, life, etc. would let us) also slows down the metabolic rate of aerobic bacteria.

I remember as a kid one of my best friends at school lived on some property that grew pineapples and pawpaws. I often used to spend weekends at their house and we would explore all around the property, finding all sorts of interesting things to do and creating boy mischief along the way.

If you’re thinking about installing a composting toilet you’re probably wondering to yourself “is this the right choice?” and “is it worth it?” and also probably “will our visitors think we’re weirdos”?

An increasing number of people are taking household water-saving measures further than shorter showers and sprinkler bans.

Composting no-flush toilets are being installed inside new homes and users are raving about their success.

Up to 60% of wastewater produced by a home is greywater (laundry, bathroom and kitchen). This water has the potential to be reused in the garden. With a waterless toilet installed in a home, you can effectively recycle ~90% of your household wastewater.

All Ecoflo systems are odour and chemical free as well as being completely waterless. Ecoflo composting toilets provide a hygienic method of recycling human waste. By separately managing your toilet (aka black water) and other wastewater (i.e. greywater), you avoid the need to waste and pollute potable water. Here’s how our solution to onsite wastewater management works.

Ecoflo is proud to sell Who Gives A Crap toilet paper. It’s forest friendly and they donate 50% of their profits to help build toilets for those in need.

Two UQ architecture alumni are laying the foundations for sustainable, affordable housing in Australia through their start-up business, the Tiny House Company.

Despite their small stature, these tiny houses still manage to feel open, airy and inviting, thanks to elegant design and storage options.

A recent Queensland ruling offers some hope to the continued Tiny House movement in Australia, but for now it needs to be understood in the context of this particular tiny house in the Brisbane City Council local government area.

Dreaming of owning your own home but convinced you can’t afford it? This week Adam, Jason and Pete team up for one of our biggest makes ever, literally building a home from scratch for under $50,000 – using a shipping container!

Stuart from Ecoflo and Neville from Bokashi NZ, our local distributor, exhibited our line of Nature Loo composting toilets for the first time at this year's Wellington expo. Based on the reaction we received from visitors it was clear that this was also the first time many people have had the chance to see a composting toilet that wasn't a bucket AND didn't cost buckets of cash either.