Sanitation · Choose and design blackwater treatment · sanitation-25

Set up an emergency two-bucket toilet

If flush toilets, pumps or the composting toilet fail, a two-bucket toilet keeps waste contained from day one. Keep the kit ready before you need it.

How

Use two sturdy 15 to 20 L buckets with lids. Label one for urine and one for faeces (WREMO, New Zealand).
Urine bucket: add 2 to 3 cm of water first. Put only urine in it, and close the lid after each use.
Once a day, dilute the urine with extra water and pour it onto unused garden or green space (WREMO).
Faeces bucket: line it with a bag, or, if you have a garden, start with a nest of dry material. Toilet paper goes in this bucket.
After each use, add a large cup or handful of dry mulch, such as sawdust, straw, dry leaves, soil or shredded paper. Keep this bucket as dry as possible.
Empty it at least every 3 days. With a garden, bury the contents in a hole 50 cm deep (WREMO).
Without a garden, tie the bag tightly and put it in a large lidded bin, away from other household waste (WREMO).
Site any burial hole away from wells, springs and watercourses, using the distances in sanitation-6.
Wear gloves when emptying if you can, then wash hands with soap. Rinse and clean the bucket, using dilute bleach to disinfect if needed (WREMO).
Keep the toilet away from food preparation. Put period products, nappies and wet wipes in the rubbish, not the buckets (WREMO).
Budget about 2 L of water per person per day for this system (WREMO).

Safety: Faeces carry germs. Wear gloves, wash hands every time, and keep children and pets away from the buckets.

Emergency toilets (two-bucket method). Wellington Region Emergency Management Office (WREMO), New Zealand, accessed 2026-11