Festivals will be so much better with composting toilets.
As festival season rolls on, many party goers will have been putting up with the ordeal of smelly, chemical-laden and often disgustingly soiled portable toilets. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Roskilde’s p-trees have already tackled public urination, and I’ve written before about how the green-minded and ultra-friendly UK Shambala Festival has embraced some delightfully airy and well-maintained composting loos. But it’s worth giving a shout out to the folks behind those loos—and noting that they are available for purchase for private homes, camp sites, and just about anywhere where pooping takes place…
The Thunderbox Collective, based in Devon, in the UK, has been building portable alternatives to chemical toilets for years. Built using sustainable timber from local sources that are being gradually converted back to native broadleaved woodland, Thunderboxes are designed with both usability and safety in mind—the containers for deposits are apparently made for regular tumbling, thus ensuring aeration and hot composting. But it’s the love that goes into these things that makes them infinitely preferable to their chemical counterparts:
All our loos come with lighting, sawdust, loo roll, magazines, a pot of flowers and LOVE! (by the way, there’s no VAT on love or any of the rest either!) We know we are a tad more expensive per unit than the conventional porta-loo on the shorter hires….sorry, but there is simply more work in composting and no price tag (as yet) on the hidden costs of chemical usage.We do work out a lot cheaper, depending on length of hire, for larger events where the costs of emptying chemical loos really start to stack up. With 500 litres capacity under your seat there’s no fear of getting full! We do take “poo miles” seriously – so sorry, but hire outside of Devon will incur additional transport and carbon sinking costs.
Purchase of a single-seat thunderbox starts at GB£1400 (about US$2100), while a double seater costs GB £1600 (US$2400). Meanwhile rental in the local area starts at around GB£300 (US$450) for a double-seated unit.
Thunderboxes will no doubt be seeing heavy action at The Shambala Festival from August 25-28 this year. Tickets available now.
