Oh look, a glorified bucket! Cool cool. Hey I had one of these, I also had a bucket with a toilet seat which is essentially the same thing. My point remains; dealing with your waste if you're living in a van, or dry camping is a giant pain.

I also live on the coast, and know many fishermen/lobstermen etc. - do you know where they shit? Not in a "marine toilet" Hang your ass over the edge of the boat and be ready for a round of jokes and pranks by your shipmates. Why? Because dumping your shitter is a giant pain (I feel like a broken record)

So something that's an afterthought in a real home, becomes a weekly, or every other day chore of finding a public toilet, removing your toilet (full of shit and piss) from your van, then dumping shit in said toilet without spilling (not easy) all the while avoiding police/public works employees who would rather you not dump your shit into their facilities. Sounds fun.

I think you're being intentionally dismissive at the cost of realizing that basic, essential waste management (at a small scale) is more or less a solvable problem for people who want to live nomadic lifestyles. Is it a tedious chore from time to time? Sure. Is a marine toilet the same as a open-top bucket full of shit? No (and something tells me you do, in fact, know this to be true).

Here's the reality. People choose, sometimes, to live aboard a moving vessel - either by land or by sea. These people take an audit of the pros and the cons, and they decide that dumping out a compost toilet once a day (if that) while the coffee is brewing is worth the benefit of living in nature or at a low cost, or whatever their bigger rationale is.

What you are saying is basically: "Oh BROTHER! You thought you'd like to have a dog? Good choice, nimwit, bet you never considered they have to EAT and POOP and be TRAINED." The fact is that most dog owners enjoy the companionship so much that they actually have no problem taking on these chores, because the positive outweighs the negative. Of course no one enjoys picking up dog shit, but it's a price to pay and it has to be done, so most of the time good people who like dogs do it.

> So something that's an afterthought in a real home, becomes a weekly, or every other day chore of finding a public toilet, removing your toilet (full of shit and piss) from your van, then dumping shit in said toilet without spilling (not easy) all the while avoiding police/public works employees who would rather you not dump your shit into their facilities. Sounds fun.

Or worse, you get the inconsiderate people who will just unload their toilet into the nearest storm drain and make all vandwellers look bad.

Also people who leave their "grey water" open (small trickle to avoid detection) - people can be terrible - it's why we have zoning laws and building codes.

That depends what the water was used for before it became grey water. If it was taking a shower or washing dishes with environmentally-friendly soap, then big whoop.

Did you know that in the UK narrowboaters on the canals just dump their grey water into the canal? The canal system in the UK is huge, and their are tens of thousands of people who live on narrowboats year round. Narrowboats are boats narrow enough (5'10") and short enough (max 52' or 72' long) that they can fit through all the locks and bridges.

Yeah, I have one of those on my boat and they do work fine but you definitely can not wait 27 craploads to empty it out. Those "27 flushes" is how much the clean water tank can hold, not an indication of the waste tank capacity which is nowhere near 27 jobs. It's more of a daily thing - every time you dock if it's been used you gotta lug it down to the clubhouse, and emptying it is no fun either. For landlubbers a composting unit that separates solids and liquids would be way better for anything that you don't want to empty on an almost daily basis.

To be more clear, I didn't say 27 craploads. I said 27 flushes. I would say most healthy people take ~1 crap per day. And, of course, this is one of the smaller and more compact marine toilets at West Marine.

And of course, emptying a toilet is never going to be fun. But would you sell your boat just because you have to use a marine toilet while adift? No, it's a minor inconvenience that you deal with to enjoy the multitude reasons you have the boat in the first place (but, if you talk to my father in law, the joys of owning a 20 year old Boston Whaler get fewer every year!).

Which is why it makes sense for a boat, but as for this article about van life, not so much.

In my opinion this is an awful solution.

You want a urine-diverter with separate containers. Storing and handling feces is infinitely easier and more pleasant when covered and dry. Separated urine is similarly advantageous; you can store it in a lightweight bottle w/cap and tidily pour out its contents at the appropriate time and place if free of solids.

It exits your body separated, you're not doing yourself any favors mixing it all back together again.

See my reply to the parent for details.