Composting Toilet with Aquatron and Wormery

The Aquatron centrifugal separator system. Photo credit: Mia Lalanne

The swormery, which processes solid waste dropping down from the aquatron. Photo credit: Mia Lalanne

Email to learn more: Mia Lalanne, Scottish Rural Action: mia@sra.scot

On a steep hillside overlooking the Kyles of Bute in west Scotland, an aerobic septic tank system has been working steadily for over 25 years to process the sewage from David Blair’s family residence.

Inside the house, the toilet uses a wet flush. The sewage then exits the house to an Aquatron centrifugal separator system, which passively separates the liquids from solids. The liquids enter a large soakaway system, while the solids drop down into the wormery, which is inhabited by a fully self-sustaining population of red tiger worms.

Maintenance is minimal, with David Blair checking on the wormery once a month. A learning point was to be very careful with flushing cleaning products and other potential hazards to the worm population.

25 years ago the Aquatron system was already type approved in Sweden, so the local authority (Argyll & Bute council) planning department had approved David Blair’s system on the basis of this literature.

The system was supplied by Elemental Solutions.