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lostagain 
Senior Member 
Joined: 06 Sep 2016 Location: Quaker Hill, CT Online Status: Offline Posts: 2595 |
 Topic: A Delicate and Maybe Stinky TopicPosted: 19 Mar 2018 at 1:33pm |
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Yes, thanks, Dpod. I have come to the conclusion that they could be especially helpful when we take our Pod out for short trips when it is winterized and are not using the plumbing system. The cost is considerable so I'd think it would be something that would only be used very sparingly.
Otherwise, I might try to convince my wife that it's really fun to drain the waste water tanks while I wait in the truck. [Joke disclaimer: This is only a joke. I would not really do such a mean thing to my lovely wife. If I tried, I'd be sleeping in our Pod with no heat {another joke}. One does not mess with Colombianas {not a joke}.]
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Never leave footprints behind.
Fred & Maria Kearney Sonoma 167RB Our Pod 172 2019 Ford F-150 4x4 2.7 EcoBoost |
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Dpod56
Newbie 
Joined: 03 Jun 2017 Location: Minnesota Online Status: Offline Posts: 17 |
Posted: 19 Mar 2018 at 1:19pm |
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Hi lostagain,
To answer your question about the poo bags, yes we have them , and yes, they work great. I have purchased the Cleanwaste brand from REI. They aren’t cheap, but we use them sparingly. The cost is $34.00,for 12 bags. Our adult kids use them in their portable toilets, in their pop up campers, for the little ones. It’s a lot easier than running to the campground bathroom in the middle of the night, and they don’t have to mess with any chemicals. We’ve used them in the R-pod as well, especially if we’re only staying one night someplace. They are easy to use. Hope this helps.
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Dpod56
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lostagain
Senior Member
Joined: 06 Sep 2016 Location: Quaker Hill, CT Online Status: Offline Posts: 2595 |
Posted: 19 Mar 2018 at 11:42am |
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The problem with burying your waste these days is we don't really know what the levels of concentration of pathogens is in any given area and whether we are creating a problem in contributing to that concentration. Clearly, when we are out in the middle of the Amazon basin, where there is one person per square Km, in a highly digestive landscape, dropping a load probably isn't going to be an issue. But we don't have too many areas like that in North America.
There are people who study pathogen concentrations in the places we go camping and my preference is to follow their advice. These are good hard working folks who are trying to protect us and our environment and I appreciate and respect their work. If they say "pack it out" then I will do it. As for pathogens, yes, concentration is an important factor in getting an infection. For most people with healthy immune systems, we can defend ourselves against limited contact with most pathogens. Indeed, it may well have a beneficial effect to have that contact, kind of like doing push-ups for the immune defenses. On the other hand, consuming pathogens, whether from beaver poop or from the guy trekking along the Appalachian trail, in sufficient concentrations may make you wish you hadn't. The problem is, unless we've done an assay on pathogenic concentration, we don't know if there is sufficient dilution. So moral of the story, don't mess with mice in the forest because they can carry fleas that have bacterium Yersinia pestis.
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Never leave footprints behind.
Fred & Maria Kearney Sonoma 167RB Our Pod 172 2019 Ford F-150 4x4 2.7 EcoBoost |
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Happy Tripping
Senior Member
Joined: 27 May 2014 Online Status: Offline Posts: 473 |
Posted: 19 Mar 2018 at 11:16am |
Giardia from beavers wasn't around whjen you were young? Obviously, wild animals also carry a long list of scary organisms. "The solution to pollution is dilution" If I am camping away from other people, am away from the edge of a stream or lake, and bury my waste, NO problems will arise before the waste degrades into harmless humus. Granted, in the arid west, the process will be slower, and the density of other campers is quite important, we're talking about real boondocking here.
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furpod
Moderator Group - pHp 
Joined: 25 Jul 2011 Location: Central KY Online Status: Offline Posts: 6128 |
Posted: 19 Mar 2018 at 11:09am |
We have done this when trying to eek out a solid 7 days off grid. Only shower water found it's way into the grey tank.. In fact we still do it this way in the new camper which has 45 gallon tanks across the board. We almost bought a different floor plan, partly based on it's 90 (ninety) gallon grey tank setup.. woot that's a lot of showering..  |
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TheBum
Senior Member
Joined: 26 Feb 2016 Location: Texas Online Status: Offline Posts: 1407 |
Posted: 19 Mar 2018 at 11:04am |
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I know some people who dump their dishwater down the toilet to delay the gray water tank filling up...and they still have plenty of capacity for excretions.
I'd bet that "R-Pod knockoff" has a tiny holding tank. I was camped next to a friend with a Jayco not much bigger than our 179. Over the course of a week, he had to empty his black tank into a portable dump tank and take it over to the dump station because the black tank was so small. I looked at several small campers before deciding on the R-Pod, and one of the main factors in choosing the R-Pod was the ample holding tanks. |
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Alan
2022 R-Pod 196 "RaptoRPod" 2022 Ram 1500 Lone Star 4x4 Three cats |
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lostagain
Senior Member
Joined: 06 Sep 2016 Location: Quaker Hill, CT Online Status: Offline Posts: 2595 |
Posted: 19 Mar 2018 at 10:38am |
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For a weekend to fill the tank, you'd have to have a pretty bad case of giardia to fill the tank. But after two weeks, I guess it depends on whether you fill your fresh water tank without the opportunity to drain the waste tanks. Obviously, it's not possible to fill both wast tanks if you don't have a source of fresh water other than the 30 gallon fresh water tank and the few bottles of extra water you may bring along, and with boon docking, that's not likely.
My reluctance to fill the black water tank comes from a rather awful experience I had when I owned an Ericson 38 sailboat. The prior owner had plumbed in a holding tank that was a big neoprene bladder with compression fittings that connected the inlet and outlet hoses. I was staying on my boat and came down with a terrible case of the flue. There was not an orifice in my body that was not draining some horrible substance. After using the head for the "13th" time, as I was pumping its contents into the holding tank, one of the hose fittings came off and I had a flood of black water suddenly overfill the bilge and onto the cabin floor. While running a fever of a 104 and trying to control the effects flu, I had to clean up the mess, and repair the holding tank. It wasn't a very fun experience. Thus, dealing with malfunctioning black water tanks is not one of my preferred activities.
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Never leave footprints behind.
Fred & Maria Kearney Sonoma 167RB Our Pod 172 2019 Ford F-150 4x4 2.7 EcoBoost |
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StephenH
podders Helping podders - pHp
Joined: 29 Nov 2015 Location: Wake Forest, NC Online Status: Offline Posts: 6429 |
Posted: 19 Mar 2018 at 10:25am |
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+1
Use of sufficient water to avoid the "pyramid of poo" is important. Use of a good biological tank treatment such as "TankTech's Rx" or "Happy Camper" or "Unique RV Digest-It" will help to liquify and make sure the wastes are able to be emptied. Even they are not foolproof on keeping the black tank sensor working properly. It does take a long time to fill the black tank. The gray tank will fill much faster, especially if you take showers in your R-Pod. Your fresh water tank will be empty long before you fill either tank. I've wondered why there is a 30 gallon black tank instead of a 15 or 20 gallon. We have made whole multi-week trips without filling the black tank. 30 gallons seems to be overkill for the actual use. |
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StephenH
Happy is the man that findeth wisdom,... ouR escaPOD mods Former RPod 179 Current Cherokee Grey Wolf 24 JS |
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furpod
Moderator Group - pHp
Joined: 25 Jul 2011 Location: Central KY Online Status: Offline Posts: 6128 |
Posted: 19 Mar 2018 at 9:39am |
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Panel lights, and sensors, are hokum. Ignore them, then you don't worry about if TP is stuck. When it quits going "sploosh" when you flush.. full.
Then dump. We have very very very rarely seen anyone fill a BT in normal use. You have to try pretty hard to poop and pee 30 gallons in a weekend. By far.. and I mean FAR, more often, we see people who get a clog, usually in the "down tube" because they are trying to "save water and tank volume" by not using enough "liquids" with their "solids", when flushing. Then we have to go through the whole "find stick, poke clog, flush with more water, burn stick, never mention again" speech.. |
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lostagain
Senior Member
Joined: 06 Sep 2016 Location: Quaker Hill, CT Online Status: Offline Posts: 2595 |
Posted: 19 Mar 2018 at 9:12am |
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When I was young and went camping in the Sierra Nevada mountains, you could drink from pretty much any stream or lake. Even lake Huntington, a big P.E.& E. reservoir was safe to drink. Over the years people pooped in the woods while camping and buried it in little. Now you are at risk of a number of diseases if you don't treat your drinking water no matter where you go. Cytosporidium,
giardia, shigelia, norovirus, are just of few lovely bugs we've left behind in our poop. This is one of the reasons the folks at the U.S. Forest Service, the BLM, and the various park services tell people to "pack it out." There are plenty of articles and discussions in cyberspace about the consequences of using little holes and such bury our droppings. There are unexpected consequences no matter how you dispose of your scat. Suffice it to say, all have adverse consequences on the environment and there isn't room her to review them all. So, the issue for me is which is ickier: to deal with the solid waste at the pump out station and fight with paper clinging to the tank sensor giving a false alarm that the tank is full or to deal with the plastic bag liners that have to be stored somewhere for proper disposal later. And proper disposal later seems to be one of the complications. This is something that is a biological hazard and can't just be thrown in the trash. Garbage collectors don't like it when they encounter broken poop bags; disposable diapers are bad enough. I think I'm leaning in favor of not bothering with the toilet liners.
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Never leave footprints behind.
Fred & Maria Kearney Sonoma 167RB Our Pod 172 2019 Ford F-150 4x4 2.7 EcoBoost |
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A Delicate and Maybe Stinky Topic