Vermicomposting Toilets for Off-Grid Desert Home in Baja- Why and How?
In an earlier post regarding our water management strategies for our off-grid permaculture property in Baja California Sur, Mexico, I mentioned that using a dry composting toilet system would be a great way to save about 30 000 litres of water per person each year. It is a great solution to reduce water consumption, especially in our dry desert climate.
In this post I would like to discuss another option for those who do decide to keep using a more conventional flushing toilet. This would be a vermicomposting toilet.
Why are we considering a flushing toilet if the water consumption is so incredibly high?
In our ‘modern’ society, flushing toilets have become the norm, and it is hard for some people to change to a dry composting toilet. They are afraid it would smell, or they do not want to deal with the regular maintenance they require. Many people even falsely believe that these systems are not hygienic.
Although we do not agree with these opinions and ideas, it is still the reality that many people are conditioned to think this way, and therefore will not give up on their beloved flushing toilets.
As we are planning to develop our permaculture property as a demonstration site, we would like to be inclusive to everyone, and as a result we would like to demonstrate systems that can be implemented and which improve on the current standards.
Another reason why we are considering a flushing system is that we intend to develop extensive plant systems and gardens on our property. These will need watering at certain stages of their establishment. Therefore, if we can use the same water to accomplish two tasks (or more), then it is a possible to have ‘the best of both worlds’.
So how do we combine the flushing of the toilet, the resulting black water, and watering the garden? How do we treat the water in such a way that it is safe to use, and healthy for us and the environment we live in?
We are choosing a vermicomposting system to do this task.
Why are we opting for a vermicomposting system, and how does it work?
The vermicomposting system works in a similar way to a traditional septic system. The plumbing and toilets inside the house are all conventional, obviously using the systems that consume the least amount of water.
The difference lies in the receptive tank, where instead of an anaerobic septic system, we install a vermicomposting system. This system breaks down the solid wastes aerobically, with the help of a complex and extremely biologically active ecosystem contained in a tank. This happens much faster than in any anaerobic system.
From the tank, the water then passes through a normal biological reed bed filter, before being used to water certain areas of the garden.
A system that is correctly sized according to the amount of people who regularly use it, it will be completely self-regulating, as the composting worms adjust their populations quickly according to the amount of material that needs to be processed. As a result, the tanks will never need to be pumped out, as you do not have a buildup of solid materials. In a traditional septic system, you would need to pump out solid wastes every few years, and then that waste requires further treatment and disposal off-site.
The vermicomposting system has no access solid waste products that need to be taken care of.
The second benefit of this system is that the water that exists the worm tank is much cleaner than that released by a traditional septic system, thanks to the higher efficiency of aerobic composition. Not only is it cleaner, but it now contains a much higher content of microorganisms, worm eggs, and nutrients, etc. All of these enrich the soils wherever the water is used, which in return results in happy and health plants, and a much healthier ecosystem in general.
A third benefit of a vermicomposting system is the ease, and relatively low cost, of installation. They are commercially available in some parts of the world. They can however be self-built fairly easily, with simple components that can be sourced locally in most places.
The maintenance of a vermicomposting system consists of adding a few carbon rich materials every couple of months to keep the nitrogen/carbon ratios balanced. Thats about all it takes.
To find out more about these vermicomposting system, and for instructions on how to build them, visit VermicompostingToilets.com.
In Conclusion:
The composting toilet is a great solution, and at the top of the list of any sustainability comparison. I am a big advocate for them, and for contexts where the water is not available or where there is no need or desire for irrigated plant systems, I would suggest to keep it simple and responsible by using a dry composting system.
Due to the reasons I mentioned earlier, we will be building both, the dry composting toilet, and the vermicomposting system for a flushing toilet.
With the right design, this system will be completely passive, working entirely with gravity (no additional energy inputs), and fully automatic.
Each time you use the loo, you’re actually watering the garden and feeding the soil.
By doing this, we achieve multiple functions without using any additional resources, time or effort. This is only achieved by good design, stacking functions and working with simple, yet complex, natural systems. Nature has done this job since the beginning of time, and will keep doing it forever, effectively, and for free.
Thank you for your time, and I do hope you found this post helpful and informative.
Again, for more information regarding these systems, check out VermicompostingToilets.com
For any questions or observations, do leave a comment below.
Until next time.
With Love,
Shawn.
Our Water Management Strategy for living Off-Grid in the Desert
In this post I would like to share with you our permaculture strategy for managing water on our property in the desert. It will provide an overview of the entire system, with future posts discussing and explaining individual components of the system in more detail.
Our Context:
The property is an urban-zoned lot of 5000 m², located in the brittle desert environment on the Pacific coast of Baja California Sur, Mexico. At the time of writing, this specific area is very sparsely developed, with only a few buildings spread out across a large grid network of gravel roads forming a square pattern on the landscape. The property is currently completely off-grid, as services are only due to be installed sometime in the coming years.
Our goal is to develop the property in such a way that our water systems are as economical, efficient and self-sustainable as possible, whilst providing water security for everything living on the property. This includes human, animal and extensive plant systems.
Sources of Water:
1) Trucks: The majority of the properties in the area get water delivered by trucks. This water is mainly well water, supplied by private individuals or local communities, and sold to homeowners whenever needed. This will be the starting point for us, as it is the only available option, initially. It is far from ideal, and our goal is to minimise our reliance on this source as much, and as quickly, as possible. In an emergency though, it could be beneficial to have this option available to us, as this system is already well established here.
2) Rain: The second source of water in the area is from rainfall. At an historical average of 200mm per year (about 7,8 inches), with wildly varying annual maximum and minimum figures, this is not very much. It is also sporadic, and quite unreliable. However, when it rains, it pours (potentially)! This is especially true during hurricane season, where figures of up to 200mm within 24 hours have been recorded.
3) Other forms of Precipitation: In desert environments, every drop counts. Therefore any moisture obtained from smaller sources of precipitation such as fog, dew, mists and humidity should be taken into account. They make up a smaller portion of total water supply, but can potentially offer a more regular and reliable source. Technology, both ancient and modern, enables us to harvest water from these sources. Some plants are also very well adapted for this purpose, and as such can be a very valuable addition to the garden and to other plants in their vicinity.
My Design Approach:
As the property is off-grid, with no access to consistently flowing water, we will need to store water on site, and I will discuss several options for this.
Rainfall is a key component of my design, as it provides the biggest quantities of clean water, and as such it will account for the majority of our water needs here. Investing time and money into developing adequate and appropriate rainwater harvesting systems will yield the biggest returns in terms of achieving our plans of creating an economical, efficient and self-sustainable water supply in this desert environment.
Another absolutely vital part of my design deals with the use of water once we have it available on site. How do we reduce water consumption, and how do we use it in the most efficient way possible, both in the house and in the garden.
Water Storage:
We will store water in two ways on our property; in the ground, and above the ground.
’In the ground’ refers to storing water in the soil, where it is available and easily accessible for the plants. This is the cheapest form of water storage, and although it does not directly provide for the water needs of humans, it has the potential to greatly reduce the need for watering the garden, and therefore we would be saving that water for our personal needs.
’Above the ground’ storage includes ponds and tanks. Ponds are not a great long term storage solution for water storage in the desert due to the high evaporation rates in this dry climate. They can be very useful though, as they can capture a lot of surface run-off in big rain events, giving us the opportunity to then direct the water into more appropriate storage solutions. Ponds are also comparatively easy and cheap to create.
Tanks offer a secure and reliable storage for water. We will use a combination of plastic and concrete / ferro-cement tanks. Each of these have their pro’s and con’s, and we will be using the strengths of each type of tank to make up for the weaknesses of others, and in doing so, create a very secure and safe water supply on our site.
Rainwater Harvesting:
Our goal here is to capture as much potable and run-off water during the sporadic rain events, and store that water in the storage systems described above.
For storing water in the ground, we need to slow it down, spread it evenly across a larger surface, and let it sink in over time. ‘Keep the water from running, and make it crawl.’
To do this effectively, we can make use of small-scale earthworks such as swales, trenches, diversion drains, soakage pits, etc. The strategy is to implement these systems by starting on the highest point on the property, and gradually work your way down to the lowest point, where the water would then be leaving the system.
The potential energy of water is at its greatest on the highest point, and therefore we aim at keeping the water here as much as possible.
For storing water above the ground, we collect water falling on to hard surfaces such roofs and roads. Where you collect your water from will determine how clean it is, and what it will be suitably used for. ‘Clean’ surfaces such as roofs make for great collection points of potable water, perfectly safe for human consumption.
Additionally, adequate, and often quite simple filtration and purification systems could turn more ‘contaminated’ water into clean potable water, also safe for human consumption.
Calculating rainwater harvesting potential:
Here is the formula for calculating the maximum amount of water you could harvest from a given surface:
surface area (m²) x rainfall amount (mm) = quantity of maximum water harvesting potential (litres)
To calculate how much we can realistically harvest from this surface, we need to know the ‘runoff coefficient’ of the surface. The runoff coefficient is a value which determines the percentage of water that can run-off a given surface. For example, a lawn will have a lower runoff coefficient than a roof, as it absorbs much more of the water.
The numbers for different types of surfaces are easily found online.
This formula will then give you a realistic estimate of actual rainwater harvesting potential of a given surface:
quantity of maximum water harvesting potential (litres) x runoff coefficient of the surface = actual rainwater harvesting potential
Harvesting Water from other forms of Precipitation:
As stated earlier, all sources of water are important in the desert.
The possibility to harvest water from ‘minor’ sources such as mist, dew, condensation and humidity does exist, and I will cover them detail in future posts.
Reducing water use in the House:
The list of options we have to reduce our water consumption in the house is quite long, but here are a few approaches:
1) Using compost instead of flush toilets. The average flush toilet uses about 30 000 (yes, 30 thousand) litres of water per person each year. By using compost toilets we significantly reduce the water use and the monthly water bill. We also avoid the negative ecological impacts associated with flush toilets. More of this in another post though.
2) Low-Flow fittings on taps and showers account for significant water savings, even without reducing the actual ‘use time’.
3) Water efficient washing machines are available.
4) Optimising workflows of daily tasks such as washing dishes and brushing teeth also add up to significant reductions.
Reducing water use in the Garden:
Here we implement three main strategies, and they are to reduce evaporation, increase soil organic matter and plant appropriately adapted species according to the microclimates (and their subsequent availability of moisture) on your property.
In theory, these strategies are quite simple. In practice, there are a lot of variables, and a working solution will depend the combination of variables that exist for each specific location within your garden, at any given time. Gardens often exist as complex living systems, and as such they keep changing and evolving, and therefore we need to actively adjust and adapt our solutions.
I look forward to sharing these sort of evolutions and changes in our garden with you!
Increasing Water Efficiency:
This is a critical part of my design for our property, as this strategy can massively reduce our overall water consumption.
The idea is simple:
‘How can I maximise the use of each litre of water?’
Here is a oversimplified, but adequate, example:
I use 5 litres of water to wash our dishes. That water flows into a worm-farm, where solids and fats stay behind and get broken down by earthworms, who then provide very high quality worm castings for our perennial and annual food producing plant systems. From the worm-farm, the water then flows into our biological grey-water purification system. Here, the specifically selected water-loving plants such as reeds filter out all the access nutrients and pollutants, and ‘lock them up’ with carbon in a process we all know as ‘growing’. These plants are occasionally harvested and used as mulch, compost material, construction materials, etc. A useful resource in a permaculture garden! The water, now cleaned, is then directed into a small pond, which is both beautiful to look at, and also a highly productive ecosystem in itself. Perhaps we skip the pond, and instead just water the garden? The possibilities are endless.
Granted, a small amount of the water is ‘lost’ at each stage of this process, but the big majority of it makes it through the entire system. This is a very efficient and integrated system.
In addition to this, we just saved those 5 litres of dish water from going down the drain and into a septic system, where it would then be mixed and further contaminated with black water (sewage).
In a conventional system, we would be using 5 litres for washing dishes, then another 5 litres for the worm-farm, another 5 litres for growing reeds, another 5…. You get the idea. It is highly inefficient, water intensive and unnecessarily costly.
Purifying and re-using ‘waste water’ will be a huge aspect of our water management strategy, and by doing so we will be able to get multiple uses out of the same water before it leaves our system.
We do this by installing biological grey water purification systems.
Conclusion:
Firstly, if you have made it this far in this post, thank you! You made writing it all worth it!
Secondly, you will undoubtedly have noticed that our water management strategy for our permaculture property in the desert is very extensive. This system takes a lot of time to set up and implement in its entirety.
When I design a system such as this, it gives me a general guide for the long run. I then go and implement all the individual parts of the system, as and when needed. This is a helpful approach because it breaks down everything into small and manageable parts, whilst making sure that the end result is what I intended to achieve all along.
I hope you found this information helpful and informative. Let me know in the comments what you think. Also feel free to ask any questions you may have.
I will keep posting more detailed information about the individual systems mentioned above, and also share our progress as I go through the design process and then as we start the actual development of our property.
Thank you again for reading my thoughts, and I hope to see you again on the next one.
With Love,
Shawn.
Sector Mapping our Desert Permaculture Project in Baja, Mexico
Creating what is called a ‘Sector Plan/Map’ is a very helpful tool in designing properties such as our permaculture project in Baja California Sur, Mexico. A sector map creates a visual overview of energy interactions between your site and its surrounding. These interactions include, but are not limited too, things such as different types of winds and wind-directions, sunlight angles and resulting shadow effects, flowing water, noise, potential hazards such as fires, earthquakes, storms and hurricanes, floods, etc.
To demonstrate what a Sector Map looks like, here is the one I made for our property in Todos Santos:
Here is a quick breakdown of the different things depicted on this Sector Map, and how they are of relevance to the future design of the property.
Winds:
Depicted by the two dark blue arcs, you can see the predominant winds towards the N-W of the property, and the secondary S-E winds. Both are important to our design.
The N-W winds are gentle to moderate breezes that blow throughout most of the year. They provide reliable opportunities as potential sources for the cooling of buildings and outdoor areas. Another benefit could be the possibility for electricity production if we decide to supplement our off-grid electricity production with wind turbines.
Dust and salt could be a challenge if brought by winds, and something most likely to be dealt with towards this side of the property.
The S-E winds only occur occasionally, and mostly only between June and October. Although much less frequent, they do often bring rain and stormy conditions. These storms could be anything from gusty winds to tropical storms, and sometimes hurricanes. This means that we need to design for protection and damage control towards this side of the property. For example, we would add windbreaks to these property boundaries, but avoid using anything that could not handle extremely high velocity winds. Some trees are more prone to damage in strong winds, and therefore we would avoid planting them close to key infrastructure such as buildings, where they could cause extensive damage. We would select for trees that are more suitable to these conditions.
Slope:
Water always moves/flows at 90 degrees to the contour. Therefore, when you know the topography, and therefore the slope of the land, you can easily determine where potential water will be flowing onto and also off the property. The flow of water can be a great asset for the harvesting of water flowing onto your own land from the surrounding landscape, but it can also be the source of flooding, erosion and landslides in extreme weather events. All of these energies can be managed with careful design.
For our property, the NE boundary is the highest point on the property, and therefore we will focus our water harvesting and flood mitigation efforts here, with the intention to slow, spread and sink the water as we move across the property. In doing so we utilise this rare resource to the maximum, whilst minimising any destructive effects it may have on our property, or that of our downhill neighbours, during extreme weather events.
Solar Aspect:
The solar aspect of the site is another very important factor I utilise when designing a permaculture property. These angles are determined by the latitude of the property, and they are fixed.
Knowing the solar aspect of your property can be extremely helpful when determining the placement of infrastructure and plant systems, as they can be placed according to their need for either sun or shade, or a mix of both spread out over the different seasons of the year.
With a bit of simple math, I can place the house and the vegetation that surrounds it in such a way that the hot summer sun never shines directly into the house, keeping it cool, but then in the colder months, that exact location would allow direct sunlight to enter the house and naturally warm it up.
Another example could be the placement of a tree in relation to a small veggie patch. In the heat of summer, the high sun angle causes the shade of the tree to shade the veggie patch. In the winter months, when the sun angle is reduced, the veggies benefit by the sunlight reaching in below the tree. This placement, if done correctly, automatically regulates the growing conditions, without any additional inputs.
In a desert location such as ours, the sunlight can be very harsh for most of the year, but because we know from which angles it shines onto the site at certain times of the year, we can optimise its effect, and live comfortably within these conditions, greatly reducing the need for mechanical and energy intensive climate control systems.
Views:
I like to include these on a sector map, as they are important to a good design. not only do they influence the psychological wellbeing of the people living on the property, but they also greatly determine the overall value of the property.
By having the main views marked on the map, I can always use it as a reference when placing elements on the site.
Our main residence will be facing south, thereby making the most of both the solar aspect and the beautiful ocean view. Additionally, it will be higher up the property towards the NE, as this reduces the possibility of future neighbours covering our view towards the SW (ocean) with their own construction, as we have a benefit in a higher elevation. Worst case scenario, if future buildings do end up blocking a part of the view, a well designed garden will be in place between us and them, and be a great ‘replacement view’.
Noise:
The most obvious source of noise in the future would be from the public road on the SE boundary of our property. This can be greatly eliminated by placing secondary buildings towards this side. These could be structures such as the garage and workshop. Suitable boundary walls and plant systems can also greatly decrease the noise levels. In combination, these should make for a relatively quiet and peaceful living area towards the main residence.
Others:
Besides these main factors, there are many more that have not been listed here. These include elements such as fire hazards, earthquakes, tsunamis, external animal impact and disturbance, possible security issues, etc. The list goes on. The more information you can gather regarding the site and its surroundings, the more thorough the design will be, and adequately absorb and/or benefit from any of these factors that will influence it in the future.
As we get more useful information and data relating to our site, I will further develop and expand on this sector map, making it ever more detailed and accurate.
The aim is to design a complete system that withstands the test of time, and will provide abundantly to all the needs of everything living within and around its boundaries.
Thank you for reading my thoughts, and I hope it was of value to you.
Until net time.
With Love,
Shawn.
Introducing our Permaculture Project in Todos Santos, Baja California Sur, Mexico
Yes, that is right. My partner and myself recently acquired a property a few minutes drive north of Todos Santos, a ‘Pueblo Magico’ in Baja California Sur, Mexico. Our plan is to develop this land according to permaculture principles, and turn it into our little paradise; a space designed and developed to meet our needs and wants, whilst living in harmony with nature.
The Property
The lot measures 50m by 100m, forming a perfect rectangle of 5000m². The land slopes very gently towards the South-West, where it faces the pacific ocean, with the beach less than 600m away. The public road runs along the South-Eastern boundary.
Currently the property is undeveloped, and completely off-grid. The planned development of the area is quite extensive, but this may take many years to become reality. For now, we are in the middle of nowhere, with only a handful of ‘neighbours’ dotted around the landscape.
The land is predominantly shrub-land, with all sorts of cacti growing amongst the bushes. Our favourite feature so far are the massive cardones, or more commonly known as the Mexican giant cactus, of which there are quite a few on the property. They are beautiful!
Why Permaculture?
It provides a design system focussed on working with nature, instead of against it. This is something we regard as incredibly important, especially when settling into an environment that is very fragile and easy to damage.
By following the ethics and principles on which permaculture is based, we are able to make the most suitable and responsible decisions regarding the development of our property and our way of life on it, and within the surrounding landscape.
Next Steps
Before we start any of the developments, we will be creating a suitable design for the property. This requires diligent research and planning. As we are currently still living in Spain, the next few months will be dedicated to this task. I will dedicate my time and energy towards designing the property, the buildings and the systems we intend to implement here.
I will also document the process and explain my thoughts, ideas and reasoning. In doing so I hope to provide a behind-the-scenes look at what it is that we as permaculture designers do, how we do it and why we do it. Perhaps my work will be found by others who have plans to settle in this magnificent place, and in doing so they may be inspired to adopt some of the ideas and systems onto their properties as well, and thereby reduce the negative effects that often accompany the rapid development in areas such as this.
My hope is that the massive future development that this area (and others like it) is expecting, will be done in a more responsible, sensible and caring manner, so that we may integrate into the landscape in a harmonious way, rather than forcing ourselves onto it and causing more of the environmental nightmares witnessed all around the globe.
Thank you very much for reading my thoughts, and I hope to see you on the next one.