EcoJohn - The Incinerating Toilet

by Jill Harness

There's something comforting about the reassuring flush after you use the restroom. We like knowing the water is washing away our waste to a place we never have to think about. But what if there was no flush? What if there was instead no water at all? What if you were actually sitting on a gas-fueled toilet.

That's the radical thinking we need to save the environment. And it's where the EcoJohn Sr. steps in. Pioneers Stefan Johansson and Mattias Johansson (no relation) have developed a waterless, incinerating toilet to help reduce waste and keep our environment cleaner.

According to the Stefan, "Toilets haven't really changed for the past 100 years, people are always looking for better products, better solutions. The EcoJohns are better, cleaner and good for the environment."

These waterless wonders can be used as a household bathroom or added to a trailer and made to be portable. They operate similar to regular toilets, except that in place of water taking away your waste, you close the lid and the waste is carried away to a burn chamber where it is "cremated" into ashes. The small bit of smoke created is then filtered through a catalytic converter before being released into the air, to assure you aren't replacing one form of pollution for another.

While it sounds like a brilliant idea and I love giving my waste what it deserves, I can't help but feel terrified to sit on something so close to a barbeque.

You can check out the incinerating toilet video here .

Jill Harness
Guest Blogger
InventorSpot.com

Our guest blogger, Jill Harness, is a freelance writer in San Diego, California. She's an expert of the weird and a purveyor of the strange. Her blog is at RuetheDay .

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Comments

Interesting...

Submitted on September 3rd, 2008 by Anonymous

Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'it burns when I pee'.

Hmm.

Submitted on September 3rd, 2008 by Toby

I think I'll hold my water as long as I can.

(Well, at least our waste is not going into compost, is it?)

About as eco as my ass

Submitted on September 4th, 2008 by Anonymous

Calling the thing the ecoJohn is really a total greenwash misnomer - using propane to burn piss and shite? Have they not heard of carbon emissions? what about composting toilets?

No good

Submitted on September 4th, 2008 by Anonymous

Uses much more energy than is consumed using a standard water based toliet system. Unit is way to expensive, the maintenance is beyond most homeowners. Also what do you do if you had a large meal and need to do a "two flusher?"

Might be okay in some remote wooded area in a cabin with zero power, but then again, an outhouse works there too..

Incinolet

Submitted on October 2nd, 2008 by Anonymous

Along the same lines of design and purpose, Incinolet is more eco-friendly by utilizing a renewable source of power, electricity, in it's waste reduction process.

http://www.incinolet.com/