# Waste in apartments and santitation



## davidpsc (Nov 2, 2011)

I'm thinking there will be a place that the community sets up to dump waste after shtf. I'm hoping this would be the case because can you imagine the pileup of waste and the terrible sanitation as a result after the shtf? I think buring it somehow would be a good idea to keep down bacteria.


----------



## acidlittle (Jan 24, 2012)

Hopefully you have a patio and can poop off that


----------



## amym505 (Feb 10, 2012)

Store lots of bleach. I saw some new water containers that can be used as portable toilets after the water is used. That may be an option. They are not very expensive. Cheaper that a plastic 5 gallon water container. http://www.beprepared.com Look under water containers. I think they are having a sale on them now.


----------



## acidlittle (Jan 24, 2012)

Plastic walmart bags and a 5 gallon bucket, I think they make toilet seats to fit 5 gallon buckets too...


----------



## thomasdangerpowers (Mar 2, 2012)

good question man. This is a topic I was trying to figure out how to address on youtube. I would say keep two 5 gallon buckets one filled with dirt and the other one to "soil" in. keep it outside with the lid. every time you go, take some of the dirt and cover it up with a layer when the dirt kinda like a litter box. after you have filled it up take the 5 gallon can of manure and bury it somewhere. I have a small storage closet I would probly keep the cans in there and some candles and use it like a out house. maybe even toss tomato or jalapeno seeds where I bury the "compost" I won't plant anything just drop them there and see if anything happens, ever see the grass and trees around a water treatment plants? hopefully this will work because sanitation will be a huge problem maybe as wide spread as food shortages but way more dangerous. it could get in your water and your history.


----------



## Hobo (May 23, 2012)

The problem of waste is verry hard to answer,just because you prepare for it does not mean others around you will.
Disease will spread in the cities no matter what you yourself do. There are toilets at the hardware or big box stores that compost or burn humane waste
The problem being the longer you sit the more waste acumulates around you. Rats ,mosquitos and insects such as flies will carry many diseases. Cats and dogs will run in packs or become feral. These things can not be changed so getting out of the cities should be a priority in my opinion. Bugging in should not be a long term plan if these things are not taken into concideration.
Hopeing not to offend any one but like I said this is my opinion
Hobo


----------



## Durogity (May 10, 2012)

As far as disposing of human waste and other home waste, composting should be the easiest most efficient way of doing so. I know most people don't like the idea of composting human waste, but if done correctly it should be more benigicial and more sanitary than most ideas other than creating working plumbing.


----------



## ph2_usn (May 21, 2012)

Lime will help the decomposition of the waste


----------



## dontlookatme (Apr 12, 2012)

You are talking about lime the hydrated lime? Or lemon lime? That white powder dries you up.


----------



## ZGF (May 25, 2012)

Durogity said:


> As far as disposing of human waste and other home waste, composting should be the easiest most efficient way of doing so. I know most people don't like the idea of composting human waste, but if done correctly it should be more benigicial and more sanitary than most ideas other than creating working plumbing.


Yeah, this. I figure I'll be doing compost toilets after SHTF. They're used here in the UK at a lot of the campsites and stuff I go to, not particularly pleasant but just fine, and ends up with perfectly usable compost. This seems like such an obvious and useful solution, I figured it was what everyone was planning, somehow.


----------



## preop (Jun 7, 2012)

there's going to be thousands of dead people, cats, dogs, etc, all over the place, which makes a helluva disease vector, on top of the waste. Nobody is going to be digging latrines when people are shooting at everyone they see, in the hopes of taking the guy's gear, or even to eat his flesh. I'm going to be below ground. Pee into a large mouthed bottle, solid wastes into the soil in the corner. Each night, dig up and bag/bucket the latter, take all wastes out and dispose of them, along with getting more water. Then back into the hole for another 24 hours. It will take a year for most of the fighting and diseases to pass by, but the Viet Cong lived like that for THIRTY YEARS, not just one year. Read a book, THE TUNNELS OF CU CHI. Also read MY THIRTY YEAR WAR, by the last of the Ww2 Japanese "holdouts".


----------



## ZGF (May 25, 2012)

preop said:


> there's going to be thousands of dead people, cats, dogs, etc, all over the place, which makes a helluva disease vector, on top of the waste. Nobody is going to be digging latrines when people are shooting at everyone they see, in the hopes of taking the guy's gear, or even to eat his flesh.


Good point, well made.


----------



## preop (Jun 7, 2012)

A guy using a latrine is the classic sniper's target, cause the sniper knows that the guy is going to be holding STILL for a minute or so.


----------



## Dreams (Mar 27, 2012)

If people HAVE to bunker in an apartment for no other place to go, I would say compost on a balcony or roof top if accessible. Im going past that as well and going to work on getting some dinnerware that is made out of organic fallen leaves... they are great to eat on, can be put in the microwave, oven (up to a point and if you have it working), and well, will compost. Add that to your compost bucket when your done eating etc..no water to waste on dishes and you have more to mix in the compost without having to go outside... if that makes sense.. I know its not the best idea, but it does help. If I can do something before shtf to have a place to go where we do all that you all are doing, then great, otherwise, we will be bunking in our apartment... (2 family home)


----------



## Lifer Prepper (Jun 1, 2014)

Just to define what I'm imagining at this point....
Bugging in, or SIP
No power /water
Suburban area
Neighborhood is mostly intact, getting aid to some degree in the form of water /food

If that's the situation being planned for, I'd be sure to include lots of garbage bags. 13 gallon bags will fits a 5 gallon bucket, and a butt lid is easily bought ahead of time.

Install 2 bags, one in the other. Seed the inner bag with saw dust, do business, add saw dust. No saw dust? Newspaper and then dirt. Toss in some lemon or other deodorized if you want. Febreeze perhaps. 

Repeat until it's a bit more than half full. Shit gets heavy, ya know? Tie it off well, then tie off the other bag. The double bag helps "accidents", and they are cheap to buy now and easy to store in a small space. 

Cart the waste away, to a field, abandoned building, communally agreed upon dump zone or other crappy spot. If the dump area is a field, dirt can be piled up against the piles over time.

Latrines are a pain to dig and eventually have to be filled in, and re-dug. I'd rather dig just once, to get dirt to put in the bag. I'd also rather do my business indoors.

Just my lil opinions


----------



## paraquack (Mar 1, 2013)

I hope that with the resulting drop in population after a SHTF event human waste would be a little less of a problem. While prepared for short term (< a year) I used to have a plan to deal with long term. Being in AZ, I need to rethink and come up with a new long term plan. As far as other waste, garbage will probably be reduced as we try to reuse/repurpose household trash.
I feel sorry for those stuck in apartments, especially the giant high rise apartments. My daughter-in-law was stuck in her apartment, 14 floor up for just over a week when Hurricane Sandy hit the east coast. She use plastic kitchen bags in a 5 gallon pail and dropped then down the garbage chute for a while. By the third day, she could deal with the odor. After things sort of got straightened out, she found out people were using cooking pots and just dumping the waste down the chute, sans bag.


----------



## Seneca (Nov 16, 2012)

Invariably ones best plans to deal with waste will be thwarted by another persons lack of planning. 

If you are renting in an apartment building, which seem to be popping up everywhere these days. I would suggest talking to the manager and see if they have a plan for dealing with waste should there be an extended disruption in service. Who knows they may have an emergency plan. Never hurts to ask.


----------



## Deebo (Oct 27, 2012)

Excellent points, I use the bags from Walmart for exerything, and If needd, Would do the bucket and two bag trick. So, I wanted to add, that "when I have to be a cashier" at walmart, I seem to take a whole bunch of extra bags, I MEAN A BUNCH. Hell, if I have to ring up my sale, and bag my groceries, they might rip. I always seem to grab extra, those darn things just fall into another bag. Is it stealing?


----------



## Notsoyoung (Dec 2, 2013)

I live on the edge of a park, so that's where I am hauling my waste. It's on the edge of town and only has homes on one side of it. I keep a number of 5 gallon buckets with lids that I can used for hauling both waste and water, but not both in the same bucket (lol).


----------



## paraquack (Mar 1, 2013)

One thing I added to my human waste preps is odor control chemicals used in RVs. Having been an RVer for 35 years, I've learned the stuff works pretty well. I have both dry and liquid types. The only problem is I've never tried it except in the high water systems of RVs. I hope I'm not wasting my money.


----------



## Will2 (Mar 20, 2013)

What is waste?

Why are you throwing away perfectly usable Sh!t?

I think you fail to really grasp SHTF.

You need to start asking, how can I use all this crap.

Fact is an apartment building just from human waste alone is able to generate methane for heating and other usages.

Pretty much everything has a reuse.

Most of western society is a consumer driven waste society they throw away a lot of resource because the people that control things would rather you buy new junk and give away your useful stuff to keep you dependent on them.

Human waste has massive use in agricultural and energy production. Big oil would rather you add to the air pollution and buy their refined stuff ripped from the bowels of the planet through destructive and non renewable process.

Just the way it is. But in SHTF big oil is dead, and you will learn that your crap has a use.

Gaza is a good example of the human strugle in SHTF.

Its not that SHTF hasn't happened, it is just that it hasn't happened to you yet. Syria and Ukraine are two new areas experiencing SHTF although at different stages. GAZA is a SHTF Mecca.

None the less India and China in areas are experiencing their own resource and infrastructure issues. They have some good models.

Learn a little but don't throw anything away it is all useful. Now in terms of sanitation - its more a question of "smell" shit is harmless.

Your piss turns into ammonia --- after a urea process. Ammonia is used as a cleaner. but don't piss on your crap. It makes black sludge which is nasty. Urine alone and shit alone arn't bad. One toilet will do a human a couple months. And shit will naturally decompose and sink down your pipes. Methane will be produced overtime and that is the smell. You can try adding straw dead grass which should be growing to it to make it more sanitary. Otherwise shit is mostly aseptic and if you have a pair of gloves you can just scoop it out and dump it in a box outside. Scent wont kill you though it isn't a primary need to remove.

The ammonia is also an active ingredient for stimulating compost heaps. It is also a cleaning agent to kill pests and insects. You can expect to need a litre for every couple days if you are drinking a fair amount of water. In a city though if your water system goes expect to have a shortage of water real fast if you don't have your own supply so piss isn't a problem.

If you are in SHTF in a city you havn't prepared. A city will not be a good place to be after a few weeks due to the pandemonium created from the food supply through logistics routes being killed. If you are in the city you will more or less be on lockdown in your appartment, and who knows what will happen once WROL comes into play.

Of course the chances of SHTF short of major disaster on a continental scale are pretty slim in the near term. None the less I don't think anyone wants to be in the city a few weeks into meltdown.

https://www.google.ca/#q=human+waste+gaza

Note I don't use municipal water or sewage here usually.. due to all the rain they need to use generators to pump the water system here luckily the rain is ending .. last year there was a raw sewage leak. All in all you can't depend on anyone but yourself. The government systems arn't built for major failure scenarios. Some plan on not containing failure as their cost effective solution.

If you are really concerned there are both incinerator toilets and composting toilets.


----------



## sparkyprep (Jul 5, 2013)

There should be very little waste in a SHTF scenario. Human fecal matter should be composted into fertilizer, as well as just about any other organic waste. Non organic trash should almost universally be repurposed into something else.

Resources will be very limited, so almost nothing should go to waste.


----------



## Deebo (Oct 27, 2012)

sounds "too shitty" to me. I dont live in a apartment, but I dont want to composting human waste. Any meat eating animals (humans included) would be disgusting. I have seen and dealt with fresh horshe shit, cow shit, and they are nothing compared to any animal that touches meat. Sorry, not for Deebo.


----------



## paraquack (Mar 1, 2013)

Can't argue with you, Deebo. Plant eaters a lot easier on the nose. Hell, I even sold (sort of) the manure from my boarding stable. Locals growers would come and pick it up, so I didn't have to pay to get rid of it.


----------



## RNprepper (Apr 5, 2014)

You can also build a small methane generator to take care of waste. Human waste always has be be handled carefully, but it can be used to generate free cooking fuel. The technology is simple. Third world countries all over the world are doing it. One guy on youtube has a small set up in a bedroom where he dumps diaper waste from his baby. It is enough to make enough methane for 1 hour of cooking fuel each day.


----------



## Guest (Jun 8, 2014)

i will burn all my poop and other waste. actually a good thing to do is the burn all your shit and spread the ashes on your soil before you plant..the release of carbon is great for plants. burning it is the best option you can use...composting human shit is a bad idea in my opinion..spread of bacteria would be a dangerous kickback. not all shit is created equal.


----------



## RNprepper (Apr 5, 2014)

About Composting Toilets | Greywater Action

There are safe ways to deal with human waste by composting. Burning human waste as fuel or for fertilizer involves a lot more contact with the contamination. If it comes down to dealing with waste on this level of societal breakdown, there is not going to be extra fuel around to burn it, in my opinion. Better to compost the waste or else turn it into methane that you can cook with.


----------



## PaulS (Mar 11, 2013)

Solid waste is a fuel. Just dry it and light it.


----------



## SquirrelBait (Jun 6, 2014)

I have 13 gallon trash bags, Contractor's bags, Pine shavings, and a bucket. I will be putting the used bags inside the contractor's bags away from my building. 

I should talk with my land lords about plans for disposing of said waste...


----------

