Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

After 11 years using a sawdust toilet I have recently tried the Nature’s Head, only to be very disappointed. I am going back to my 5 gallon bucket and composting according to The Humanure Handbook, by Joseph Jenkins. It is so much easier to empty and clean! My compost is beautiful. Our local university teaches a class in soil microbiology and the teacher of the course looked at our compost under the microscope. It was pronounced pathogen-free and full of good bacteria. Then why, you may be asking, did we invest almost $1000 in the Nature’s Head? It would be lovely, thought I, to simplify life, to make this small guest house more user-friendly. If someone had come up with an elegant solution I wanted to try it. Problems: overflow of urine container, a mess. Time to empty solids, very tricky. User ended up scooping it out with a trowel, another mess. Then our 34 year old son was staying in the house during Christmas. More problems: urine diversion not working properly even though he followed directions. Solids container getting too wet with urine because the design for urine collection not able to handle a strong stream and quantity. Smelly, with so much urine mixed into solids. So he and I took it apart to empty into compost bin. Glad he is a strong guy with tons of muscle! I could never do it on my own, even though I am strong and outdoorsy. That experience clinched it for me, made me realize just how simple my old bucket system is. The above review was written by my wife who is a very experienced composter. If you have to compost in the toilet, Nature's Head may be your best choice, but there are challenges which were not made clear. First, it may not easy to see how full the urine container is. Second, the instructions to be careful not to allow urine into the main chamber may be impossible for some users with strong flow. Finally, since the entire base is the main chamber, it can be a bear to move.