One of the questions most people want to know about with living in a vehicle / out of your vehicle is... where/how do you 'go' when you need to 'go'.
Allowing for this essential need in the design of your vehicle and your mobile lifestyle is an important consideration.
In the past I have used a cannister style camping toilet, similar to the image below.
Toilets similar to this one are very popular and easy to use.
The top tank is filled with water & a silicon based 'slippery' chemical which aids in the flush of the toilet bowl.
Waste is captured in the tank at base of unit.
To empty, separate the two sections, empty waste tank into a black-water drainage site.
If you keep the system frequently emptied they are easy to use and don't release any bad smells.
But:
they do take up a lot of space
they require access to water for top tank
you also need to purchase the chemicals that go in both the top and bottom tanks - so access to the right shops and costs $
The current layout of my defender 'camper' is designed around using one of these style toilets, and around being able to access it/remove it for cleaning.
In hindsight, I realise that if I did not use this style of toilet I could improve the design of the interior immensely.
Relying on fresh water
It seems that when planning to explore the outback & beyond of Australia, having a toilet system that relies on fresh water, access to dump sites and buying the chemicals is not ideal.
Yes, there will be access to public toilets in a lot of places I will explore.
Yes, there will be lots of situations where it will be acceptable to 'go' in the wild while conscientiously dealing with any waste in a way that does not leave a footprint or affect the ecosystem - those considerations are very important to me.
But there will be times when I just need to go and where those previous options are not available. For those situations I would like to have onboard my own toilet system.
Bad experiences
Despite my comments above about these cannister toilets being easy to use and not smelling, I have had 2 distinctly bad & memorable experiences with them.
Bad experience no 1: the exploding toilet
Thinking I was being exceptionally clever I filled the top tank with salt water, as I was camping near the ocean. Simple, bucket of salt water into the tank, how easy is that!.
I discovered a day or so later, while driving on hot day down a bumpy back country road, that the chemicals I had in the waste section of the toilet 'reacted': the waste matter & the salt water mixing in to produce a lot of gas which in turn caused the sides of the toilet canister to expand, and expand and expand... needless to say the results were not pleasant to deal with.
Do NOT use salt water in the tank unless you have checked the instructions on the chemicals you use. Some toilet chemicals are fine with salt water, the ones I was using were distinctly not.
I still have shudders remembering the 'incident'
Bad experience no 2: dropped the cap down the waste drain
I admit, I may have been responsible for blocking the 'dump' site in Evans Bay in Wellington at one point a couple of years ago when the cap off the waste-emptying-pipe fell out of my hands and down the waste-hole!
It was not as if I was going to put my hands down the waste hole to extract it, even if I could have reached it. Oops!
Following the loss of the rather critical end cap, I use plastic bags & duct tape in an attempt to seal the pipe, but well.... the leakage was not pleasant and certainly not sanitary.
I admit, there is a limit to what duct-tape can achieve.
What are the alternate options to a cannister toilet?
No 1's: I am comfortable using a bucket/bottle and dealing with disposal of any fluids appropriately. Easy as.
No 2: Surely there are other options to the traditional cannister toilet...
Composting Toilets
I have always like composting toilets and there are also a few options for these on the market that are designed for campervans/motorhomes. But as they take up quite a lot of space, require a formal installation and are not cheap I don't consider them suitable for my little Defender camper.
No 2 into a bucket
There a quite a few versions of these on the market, you can even get simple foldable bucket toilets in a variety of colours or build you own!
Look at this website www.campingmaniacs.com to see their review of camping toilets.
I also found this author https://bearfoottheory.com and have enjoyed her explanation about camper toilets. HOW TO LEAVE NO TRACE AND MINIMIZE YOUR IMPACT AS A VAN LIFER
One of the toilets barefoot theory mentions in her blog is this little gem
Simple to operate.
Bag collects the waste.
Easy to clean.
Easy to store the waste until you are able to dump it appropriately.
I may well attempt to build a semi-portable/semi-built in version of this for my camper.
For now, the hunt goes on for an option that will suit my needs......
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