Getting Everything Together

Commercial reuse of plastic buckets for food is illegal so supermarkets, restaurants and bakeries often give them away for free. The Donated buckets may lack lids but both buckets and lids are sold at hardware stories and online. Twin-Bucket

Buy seats that fit buckets at camping stores or online. Or adapt seats from home to fit. PHLUSH (Public Hygiene Lets Us Stay Human) is an all-volunteer advocacy group based in Emergency Handwashing is critical. Use of hand sanitizer Portland, Oregon. We receive support from the and disposable gloves and wipes will help you Old Town Chinatown Neighborhood Association Toilet conserve your emergency water supply for and Neighbors West-Northwest. PHLUSH is a essential handwashing. member of the World Toilet Organization and a partner in the Sustainable Alliance. Keep , soap, bottled water, disposable gloves, towels or wipes and starter We are grateful to the New Zealand Permaculture bags of carbon material in a bucket. Include Emergency Response Network for the practical sanitary napkins or diapers, if needed. Nest in elegance of their design. empty buckets that remain available for everyday cleaning chores. The Portland Bureau of Emergency Management has reviewed the design and posted instructions at http://www.portlandoregon.gov/pbem

We are indebted to Molly Danielsson and Mathew Lippincott of MDML for their expertise and permission to use illustrations from their For More on Disaster Sanitation Sewer Catastrophe Campanion. See www.phlush.org and www.cloacina.org P H L U S H For Public Hygiene Lets Us Stay Human handwashing, make the Tap 115 SW Ash Street #400G, Portland, OR 97204 Up two-bucket www.phlush.org hand sink. See [email protected] directions in Twittter: @PortlandPHLUSH Facebook: PHLUSH MDML’s Sewer Catastrophe A Household Toilet Companion. for Oregon Preparing that is safe to use in gardening requires extra work. The process is Emergency Kits explained in Sewer Catastrophe Companion and on website of the New Zealand team. www.composttoilets.co.nz Why do we need toilets in our The Solution The No-Mix Principle emergency kits? The Twin-Bucket Emergency Toilet adapted The great thing about pee is that it’s clean from the New Zealand design works even for (unless a household member has a kidney Giant earthquakes off the coast of Oregon high-rise apartment dwellers. infection or blood in their ). It poses almost have occurred 40 times over the last 10,000 no health risk. With extra buckets and lids, you years, or at about 250-year intervals. The • Safe and manageable. can store pee until it can be sprinkled on land Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral • Buckets, lids and a seat cost $20 or less. as a fertilizer. High-rise apartment dwelllers Industries states that last megaquake was a • Supplies in nested bucket make a hygiene kit. without access to land may have to dispose of magnitude 9+ in 1700. The next Big One can • Twin buckets separate urine from feces. pee in a functioning street drain. happen at any time and will likely cause widespread damage to water and sewer A dayʼs worth of pee has 10 times the volume of The poo bucket contains most of the systems, preventing our plumbed toilets from poo. Pee is generally sterile while poo contains pathogens. Poo needs to be treated, or working properly. pathogens and requires special care. contained until treated. But, the great thing about poo is that it doesnʼt take up much space. After the earthquakes in Christchurch, New Not mixing urine and feces is a proven principle Each of us produces only 4-10 oz daily. It takes Zealand in 2011, people quickly built twin- of . In separating pee and a couple of weeks for 3 people to fill the bucket bucket toilets appropriate for the emergency poo, the twin-bucket toilet reduces disease risks with poo and carbon material. stage of the crisis. Sewer service has not yet and odor and makes the contents of each been restored to all parts of the city so many bucket easier to handle. residents continue to use these waterless Using the Twin-Bucket Toilet toilets in their homes. Toilet Components 1. Mark the twin buckets “pee” and “poo” (or • Plastic buckets - #1 and #2, or urine and feces, or yellow 5 or 6 gal. size; 2 and brown, etc). buckets for 3-4 2. Put buckets in a private space with carbon people for 3 covering material nearby, along with a days; a dozen plastic scoop. buckets for a month. 3. Decide if you need to use the pee bucket or the poo bucket. The seat can be moved from one to the other. • Lids for buckets. 4. Try not to mix pee and poo. This is important although it’s understandable that there will be mistakes. The pee is the • A plastic seat that fits the component that produces the bad smell in toilets that mix the two. Guidelines on emergency preparedness buckets. usually fail to mention toilets as they are not 5. After using the pee bucket, you can put the compromised in most emergencies. toilet paper in the poo bucket. Then • Carbon material remove the seat from the pee bucket and to cover the poo: In the Pacific Northwest, some agencies cover with a lid that closes well. A supply of recommend single-bucket camping toilets. , coffee 6. After using the poo bucket, sprinkle as These fill up fast. The assumption is that husk chaff, finely much carbon material as needed to disruption of water or sewer service will be shredded paper, completely cover the surface of the poo. short term and that toilet contents will be or coir fiber. This eliminates odors and keeps flies away. buried, or bagged and trucked away. Such About a gallon practices can lead to polluted and 7. Put the back down on the poo bag per day. the spread of disease. bucket so it doesn’t invite pests.