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The best compost bulking agents are absorbent and carbon-rich
A bulking agent is a carbon-rich and absorbent material that you add to your composting toilet to help maintain the ideal environment. Absorbing moisture is important for the composting pile as the idea moisture content is about 60% so you don't want it to dry out or become too wet. Also, the bulking agent will help maintain the optimum 25:1 carbon to nitrogen ratio.
We highly recommend using the following products as bulking agent:
- Hemp mulch
- Wood shavings
Hemp mulch and wood shavings are absorbent and carbon rich, which makes them excellent bulking agents.
Based on the toilet system or your situation, we may recommend:
- Peat moss
- Sugar cane mulch
There can be complications when using peat moss with some systems as the fine particles can be sucked up by extraction fans, peat it is highly absorbent and compact which makes it well suited to self contained toilets.
Sugar cane may be a tempting bulking agent because it smells nice, but the ammonia in urine can leach the sugars from the mulch which will attract flies. The fibres also tend to be longer which can get caught in composting toilets that have mixer arms.
We do not recommend:
- Grass clippings (or any garden waste)
- Wood chips
- Shredded paper or paper clippings
Grass clippings, in comparison with the other bulking agents, are very watery and not absorbent enough to balance the moisture content of a composting toilet.