Almost everyone at one point in their life has used or will use a portable toilet while attending a public venue. And there is an unspoken but commonly known fact about these contraptions: If you are one of the first to use it since it has been serviced, you will get the obligatory blue splash effect – and if you are the latter of its users, you get to add to the mounting island at the base of the hole. And let’s not even get into the horrid smell of those things.
A little graphic, yes, but this is the business of human excrement we’re talking about here, and business is booming. The portable toilet enterprise is a $3 billion dollar industry in the United States, servicing private and public venues, national parks and construction sites 24/7, 365 five days a year.
In March of this year, local entrepreneurs Sean Taylor and Matt Gunn began a portable potty venture never before attempted by building eco-friendly portable potty trailers that, instead of using the industry standard antibacterial chemicals to break down the waste (the blue stuff), use a composting method that effectively increases the rate of breakdown to 80 percent. The company is Eco Commode.
Using trailers constructed by Sean and Matt as well as retrofitted existing portables, the company services public venues and currently has over $50,000 in work lined up for 2014 with the RAGNAR Trail Series and First Friday in Las Vegas. You may have seen them at this year’s Zion Canyon Music Festival.
The trailers and retrofitted portable potties use a system of wood chips and drainage into portable containers to effectively clean up the process using significantly less water and no chemicals whatsoever. But the draw is not just the environmentally friendly aspects. The real draw for the user is a more pleasant experience when “facilitating” since the wood chip system guarantees no splashing and no mounting islands. Also, the odor is significantly improved.
Sean and Matt have aspirations to grow their business and expand upon what is quite literally the first company of its kind in the country, essentially revolutionizing an enterprise that has used the same mode of operation since the 1950s. With a patent on the retrofitting of existing portables and their currently operating four trailers, the company boasts 58 ready and usable stalls and growing.
The owners also plan to expand their efforts to third world countries that have sanitation issues, such as Haiti, to help people use eco-safe methods of disposing waste affordably. These guys aren’t just business owners and entrepreneurs. They really give a crap.
Locals can expect to see Eco Commode at venues from here to Las Vegas – and when you see it elsewhere in the future, know it started right here in St. George.
For more information, visit www.ecocommode.com.
