Love Toilets from Standing Rock Environmental Protest

Standing Rock, one of the nation’s largest and longest environmental protests, created an elaborate composting toilet operation that has become a marvel of efficiency.

The idea for the toilets came about in November, when a protester suggested to Chief Dave Archambault of the Standing Rock Sioux   tribe that he invite global nonprofit GiveLove.org to help create a composting bathroom system to handle the hundreds of protesters who flocked in to help the tribe in its fight against the pipeline.

GiveLove, formed by actress Patricia Arquette in response to the 2010 Haitian earthquake, has created composting toilet systems there and in Colombia, Uganda, Kenya, India and elsewhere. But the upper Great Plains presented a new frontier.

“It was a huge challenge to get it up and running in a blizzard,” said Alisa Keesey, the organization’s program director.

GiveLove staff spent weeks at the camp, building the wooden boxes that serve as toilets, working with others to design and build the spaces and to organize volunteers who would manage the new facility. Arquette herself spent considerable time there, helping build more than 100 of the commodes, Keesey said.

By early December, with temperatures plummeting and snow piling up, three toilet operations were opened in large old Army tents. Each includes 13 toilet stalls surrounding a common area with a wood-burning stove that ventilates through ducting in the fabric roof. Wood framing around the sides of the tent is lined with hay for insulation. 

Odor control consists of pine shavings every user is instructed to spread over their business. People also burn sage, and the aroma of the wood stove helps as well.

The composting process begins at the toilet. The wooden toilet boxes are lined with a green compostable bag, which is surrounded by a white plastic bag. When the wooden boxes become half full, which can happen several times a day, a volunteer uses the plastic bag to remove the compostable bag. The compostable bags are then moved to a shipping container staged on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

The actual composting will not begin until the weather begins to thaw. Volunteers will build large compost bins and cover the contents of the toilets with rotted hay or straw.

Source: Los Angeles Times

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Taxonomy

• Water
• Composting Toilet
• Sanitation
• Water & Sanitation
• Sanitation & Hygiene
• Sanitation & Hygiene
• Water
• Sanitation and Hygiene
• Water Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH)