Basically, these cabins are portable toilets, which store the poop and pee of crowds at large events that do not have fixed sanitary facilities or water and sewer networks. The cleaning of the poop only happens after everyone has used the device. Before that, the digestion and filtering by-products of the crew’s blood are deposited in a closed box with a capacity of up to 220 liters of dirt – to avoid the bad smell, the mixture receives a small amount of deodorizing substance. The basic bill for organizers who use these booths is to order one chemical toilet for every 200 people. A musical event that lasts four hours and receives 10,000 people, for example, will need 50 of these booths. At the limit, each of the portable toilets can be used up to 200 times per night, considering a higher percentage of “numbers 1” than “numbers 2”. If you go beyond that, let’s say that the toilet will expand its contents over the rest of the cabin’s floor… If you want to throw your own little party and thought it’s good to have a chemical toilet available, get ready to shell out around 100 reais per cabin, per day.
VENTILATION TUBE
From the corner of the cabin comes a tube that connects the inside of the waste box with the outside environment. It allows an exchange of gases between the two environments. The objective is to oxygenate the air in the box, as the bacteria that cause bad odors multiply quickly in the absence of this gas.
DEBRIS BOX
Here is the soul of the chemical toilet. It is in this container that users discharge their solid and liquid needs. It holds up to 220 liters, but, for safety reasons, its use is dimensioned for 100 to 150 liters
DISCHARGE
On simple models, the debris box contents are visible. In VIPs, there is a bulkhead that avoids the unpleasant landscape. For the poop not to accumulate in this place, the user triggers a vacuum pump with his foot. It sucks the liquid out of the box, which in turn pushes the big poo into the same box of debris.
CABIN
The cabin has a square base measuring 1.2 meters on a side, approximately 2.3 meters high and weighing 80 kilos. It is completely collapsible and its walls are made of fiberglass or polyethylene, a recyclable, lightweight and hygienic plastic. A cabin made with it lasts up to ten years.
CLEANING
To clean the cabin, a truck with a suction pump sucks up the debris and then dumps it into a sewage treatment plant. At the headquarters of the company that rents the cabins, they are washed with soap and water. And they’re ready for another one!
DEODORIZING SUBSTANCE
Before being used, the box receives 20 liters of an aqueous solution with 5% of a substance that deodorizes and prevents the proliferation of bacteria in the mixture of poop and pee. At the end of use, the mixture with 100 liters looks like this:
80 liters urine and feces
1 liter deodorant
19 liters water