Solutions to 5 Common Separating Toilet Mistakes

The use of our composting toilet is very easy: drop your pants, take a seat, let go, wipe, sprinkle, done! Nevertheless, there are a few small mistakes that can get in the way of your toilet happiness. We've collected the five most common mistakes made when using the toilet and tips on how you can avoid them. 

You can find detailed information on how a composting toilet works, how to clean it, or how to dispose of it in our ultimate guide to composting toilets.

Rinse the urine canister with water

Probably the biggest mistake made when using the composting toilet is to rinse the urine canister with water. At first glance, this seems like a good idea. After all, water makes you clean. What you don't see, but will sooner or later smell, is urine scale formation from the combination of water and residual urine. This is a stubborn companion that can only be driven out of the canister with repeated rinsing with vinegar essence, citric acid, or a microbiobial cleaner.

Our Tip:

Never rinse the canister with pure water, but always with a natural cleaning solution. Dilute this beforehand in a ratio of 1:7 (1 part cleaner to 7 parts water). In some cases for a stronger solution, you can also dilute the solution even less. This way you are on the safe side that your composting toilet remains fresh and fragrant.

Wet wipes when using the composting toilet

While pleasant on your bottom, these become a problem in the composting toilet! Wet wipes can interfere with the drying process in the solids container of your composting toilet. Even when additional litter is used, the residual moisture remains in the wipes and is slowly released into the waste, causing unpleasant odors.

Our Tip:

If you don't want to do without the fresh feeling of damp toilet paper, switch to substitute products. There are foams which can be applied directly to the toilet paper for use which dry much better.

Use of cat litter

While this works well for furry friends, cat litter can quickly become frustrating in a composting toilet. Although granulated cat litter binds moisture, it also forms large, hard lumps. These cannot absorb any more moisture. So, if enough collects in your solids' container, drying with cat litter doesn't really work well anymore. Additionally, the bag becomes heavy due to the granule lumps and can tear when removed.

Our tip:

Make sure that the litter used when using the composting toilet is fluffy and can absorb moisture well. Sawdust, small animal litter, coconut coir bricks or even dried coffee grounds are very suitable for the composting toilet. If it absolutely has to be a litter for cats, switch to a bio litter. We have dedicated a separate blog article with our tips on litter for composting toilets. Take a look. :)

Pee standing up

Peeing into the composting toilet from a standing position causes a mess. The urine splashes into the separating insert, splatters all over it, and thus moistens not only the solids, but also everything around your toilet. This has nothing to do with aim or skill, but is good old physics.

Our tip:

Sit down, relax, let it run.

The wrong sitting position when using the composting toilet

This mistake is made primarily by female users of the composting toilet. The cause is simply anatomical. We ladies are simply built differently than men. If a woman sits in a fixed position on the toilet, liquids and solids cannot be optimally separated. In this case, the urine runs into the solids' container.

Our tip:

Vary your sitting position when using the composting toilet as a woman. Move a little further forward for #1 and back over the solids tank for #2. You'll see that with a few trial sessions, you'll quickly become a composting toilet expert. By the way, it's perfectly normal for a few droplets to end up in the back of the potty. In this case, simply sprinkle a little litter over the solids after using the toilet.