This is my first big self directed building adventure. This is a custom designed cart for the hauling of buckets filled with human waste. We don’t have flush toilets at East Wind (however, our bathrooms do have heat, running water, soap, toilet paper, and even toilet seats!). Instead of ‘flushing’ we use peanut skins (a very useful ‘waste’ product from our factory) to cover our business and get rid of any smells. Fillmores are just for poop, because we live within a forest if you need to pee you just walk off the path and go in an appropriate location. We collect our waste and compost it to enrich our soil, prevent water pollution, and save money.
Everyday, one person who signed up for the ‘Comptoil’ shift goes around to each of our Fillmores (the word we use for ‘bathroom’… the names comes from Millard Fillmore, the last US President to use an outhouse at the White House) and collects all the full buckets and cleans the Fillmore.
The buckets are dumped in a small yard, far from anything else, where they are left to sit for at least three years. During this time all harmful bacteria are killed and what was once shit becomes great compost. We use this compost in our orchards and on our herb garden beds.
Design is very important in cart building. I would do a couple things differently, but I’ve been able to make it work and it is certainly functional. Almost all the wood was from pallets (from our factory) that I broke down. The handles and legs are oak. I still need to be
nd some conduit and brace the legs because I fear they will break. The axle should be an inch or two closer to center, but the way I designed I can’t easily move it. I have the axle that far back because this is one cart that you never want to have tip over.
My next cart will hopefully be a custom built harvest cart. This cart will be made to be lightweight and will be used exclusively to bring up harvests from our Lower Garden to our walk-in refrigerator.