Today there exists a big tendency aiming to save available raw materials and re-position the waste to consider them as potential resources.
Dry toilets have an important place in this process insofar as they save a significant amount of water (Within a household, 30 % of the water used is by the toilets) and also insofar as the final product (the earthworm compost) is a very nice loam, the only odour being forest soil, rich in nutrients for plants and easy to spread in vegetation.

Dry toilets, like organic farming, renewable energy or eco construction get their roots from very ancient knowledge calling up extremely modern technologies: As the large megawatt wind generators that originate from wind mills from the middle age, dry toilets revive very ancient traditions, or even very far removed from our western countries.

Thus, we travelled to Mali in Africa (to MOPTI in the interior delta of the river Niger), and also to Yemen (Sanaa and the Hadramahout) in order to study remarkable traditional systems: dry toilets in cities (even in buildings over 10 meters high). These are based on the principle of the separation of urine and faecal matter, they are dry toilets that enable the elimination of bad odours and flies (in spite of the heat) and control sanitary risks (no spreading of pathogenic germs). The unit needs very little maintenance (once every 5 to 10 years!).

The first « modern » dry toilets (not the ones from our grand-parents back garden!) first appeared in Scandinavia a few years before World War 2. Those countries have since remained pioneers in this domain, to such a point that today there are towns in Sweden (eg. Tassum – 12000 inhabitants) that impose dry toilet installations in new buildings in order to gain planning permission.

Dry toilets aren’t just technical; they provide a moderate but real sense of belonging, to a vast reappraisal of the way we interact with our environment. Not a masochistic, guilty reappraisal based on deprivation, but a joyful reappraisal. Not having to accept the inconveniences of the past (modern dry toilets inevitably have a flush!) is something very invigorating. It gives us great pleasure to have a – small - place in the big challenge to invent a new society, more respectful of the ecosystems surrounding us! And we think it is all worth it.