👋 Welcome & Introductions: Tell Us About Your Work and Challenges

General Discussion
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Welcome! We’re glad you’re here.

This forum is designed to bring together people across North America working on, or interested in, waterless human waste solutions in wilderness and recreation settings.

Whether you’re managing a backcountry site, planning infrastructure, researching solutions, supporting public education, or simply exploring ideas, this is a place to ask questions, share experiences, and learn from others facing similar challenges.

The Toilet Tech team, along with some longtime waterless waste implementors and experts, will be active here helping answer questions and contributing insight from their experience in the field.

1. Getting Started

Before jumping in, please take a moment to:

  • Add a bit of info to your profile: your job title, organization, region, and level of interest or experience (for example: Here to Learn, Field Operator / Land Manager, Designer / Engineer, Vendor / Manufacturer, Researcher, Experienced Practitioner) would be great!

  • Review the Community Guidelines

  • Browse existing discussions and join the conversation

This is a space for both simple and complex questions, and we encourage constructive discussion, knowledge sharing, and collaborative problem-solving.

2. Introduce Yourself Here

We’d love to get to know who’s here and the perspectives you bring. Reply below and tell us a bit about yourself, including:

  • Name / organization: Who you are and who you work with (if applicable)

  • Type of environment: Backcountry, front country, arctic, coastal, desert, alpine, etc. Where does your work focus?

  • Biggest current challenge: What challenge related to human waste management are you currently trying to solve?

  • Experience: What types of human waste management systems do you have experience with? Examples: composting toilets, vault toilets, pit toilets, urine diversion systems, pack-out waste programs, or no direct experience yet

Feel free to add anything else you think is relevant.

This community will grow through your participation, so don’t hesitate to ask questions, share lessons learned, or contribute your perspective. We’re looking forward to learning from each other and building a valuable knowledge-sharing community together.

We’re excited to have you here!

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  • Name / organization: Hi! I’m Natalie and I work at Toilet Tech leading our Waterless Human Waste webinar series and doing outreach, among other things.

  • Type of environment: This question is more for folks who work for parks, forests, and other recreation sites. I work in the front country trying to get more urine-diverting toilets installed in the backcountry.

  • Biggest current challenge: I’m trying to figure out how to spread awareness and education about waterless, urine-diverting toilets.

  • Experience: I don’t have experience operating or maintaining a toilet, but I have firsthand experience using most of the waste management systems (composting, pit, vault, and urine-diverting toilets as well as pack out programs). My favorite has been the urine-diverting toilet! I was so impressed with it I asked if I could work for them (and here I am).

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  • Name / organization: Hey there! I’m Ines and I work at Amazon as a program manager. Big outdoorsy person and have spent a large portion of my life visiting National parks and forests and recreating outside on my own, with friends and family and various orgs.

  • Type of environment: While I don’t work for national parks/forests, I spend a great deal of time outside recreating through hiking, backpacking, mountaineering, rock climbing and alpine climbing. The issue of waste impacts everyone, especially the user and the Earth we call home.

  • Biggest current challenge: Figuring out ways to educate and spread awareness about proper/sustainable waste management solutions and waterless, urine-diverting toilets.

  • Experience: I only have experience using most of the waste management systems (pit, vault, and urine-diverting toilets) and the urine-diversion is the way to go. Intuitive, better for the environment and operators and cost-effective.