Community Corner
SEE IT: $2.3M Toilet Will Compost Human Waste In Prospect Park
The human waste will be collected, but state law keeps it from being able to be spread — for now.
PROSPECT PARK, NY — A new $2.3 million bathroom in Prospect Park will turn human waste into compost.
While the new "composting toilets" at the Prospect Park Wellhouse will store the excrement, officials can't yet use it as fertilizer because a state law prevents it.
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The waste needs to be stored for 10 years anyway, so there's plenty of time to try and get the law changed before that's needed.
The new facility, which parks officials called a "composting comfort station" in an announcement, cost $2.34 million, money that was awarded by the city council.
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That money went toward restoring the wellhouse, which pumped water throughout the park in the late 1800s but wasn't used in the early 1900s once the city started providing water to the park. Exterior walls and the roof of the wellhouse had to be restored.
The new toilets are expected to save 250,000 gallons of water a year.
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