Composting toilets are one important way in which the AMC strives to minimize human impact on the outdoors and conserve natural resources. Clivus Multrum™ composting toilet systems have been used very successfully at Pinkham Notch Visitor Center, the Crawford Notch Depot, and several of our huts, and we plan to use them at other facilities as well.
Composting toilets use microbes to break down waste, rather than flushing it away. This eliminates the need to draw water from the water table for toilet use and greatly reduces the impact of designing and installing large leach fields and septic tanks. In addition, composting toilets yield a rich humus that is essentially odor-free and pathogen-free.
At Pinkham Notch Visitor Center, we estimate that more than 100,000 people use the composting toilet facility annually. We are now using waste heat from the exhaust system in the Trading Post building at Pinkham to warm the basement where the composting takes place. This has dramatically accelerated the composting process.
We also employ composting toilets at Carter Notch Hut, Mizpah Spring Hut, Galehead Hut, and Lonesome Lake Hut. We will be installing Clivus systems at Zealand Falls and Greenleaf Huts in 2002. We will also be installing these systems in the new Highland Center at Crawford Notch, which is currently under construction.
Future installations are possible at Lakes of the Clouds Hut on Mount Washington and Madison Hut in the Presidential Range. We are also investigating installing them at our facility at Cardigan Lodge in Alexandria, N.H.
A major installation was done at the AMC's Three Mile Island Camp on Lake Winnipesaukee, where a new composting toilet facility replaced very overused pit toilets. The Clivus at Three Mile is now lovingly referred to as "The Castle."
