Ladies, does answering the call of nature rank among one of your least-favorite parts of hiking and camping? Whether it be the midnight shuffle to a stinky outhouse or the thrilling “dig your own hole” event, it’s rarely a trip highlight.
Photo courtesy of code poet / creative commons
Still, since you care about the environment, you want to “poo responsibly” in the great outdoors, right?
The benevolent minds at Clearwaste have created an outdoor girl’s best friend in their lovely Pett Compact Dry Toilet System. This sweet little compact number has fold-out legs which create a standard-sized toilet in seconds that you can, um, rest easy on and read the paper. (Clearwaste boasts they have rested two trucks on this baby!)
Part two of the system are Clearwaste’s Wag Bag Toilet in a Bag waste kits. These fully biodegradable bags fit into the Pett toilet’s mesh bag holder and is (thankfully) made of double-strength puncture-resistant materials. Simply do your doo-ty, zip up the bag and let their patented non-toxic Poo Powder render the contents odorless and solidified foreasy transport. The bags are landfill approved and ready to toss at the next available trash site.
The deluxe little camp toilet folds compactly into a it’s own self-contained plastic case — at 7lbs and dimensions of 5″ x 19″ x 14″ it’s an easy size for car-camping or for sherpa-aided treks, but not an ideal backpacker’s item. (You could just take the bags on the go, though)
My Pett toilet is going to become a permanent staple on those car camping trips we like to do that are not at established campsites. I could also see the Pett toilet doing fabulously on a multi-day trekking trip, such as the trek I did this summer with Crooked Trails in the Himalayas of northern India (as a staffer, of course). Environments like this are under a lot of stress and it is vital for all visitors to tread as lightly as they can in these disappearing habitats.