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My $.02 worth...
It could be a good solution on a "no discharge" inland lake, but in waters where the discharge of treated waste is legal--and it is on the Chespeake Bay--it makes more sense IMO to install a Type I MSD (i.e. Lectra/San) for about the same price and even lower power requirements. Why store waste aboard in any form if you don't have to AND can send it overboard without any negative impact on the environment? And then there's the matter of what to do with excess liquids. Some are evaporated, but not all...They cannot legally be drained overboard inside 3 miles, so they must be held aboard in something—in the jugs provided with the Airhead, which must be carried ashore and dumped, same as a portapotty--or in a holding tank...and if you have to have a holding tank to store the liquids--which, btw, present just as much of an odor control problem as fecal matter--what's the point of having a system that separates urine from solid matter? Especially when you consider that solids don't take up that much room in a holding tank. A gallon of urine every 30 hours = 5.6 gallons of urine a week. Doesn't sound like much because it's undiluted by flush water...but the odor-causing properties in it are also undiluted, especially since it's not just urine...solid waste is mostly liquid too. And there's something else to consider: Temperature. The warmer the temperature, the more active bacteria (the li'l buggers that create odor) are...so the harder it becomes to keep any waste storage system odor free. Otoh, because a certain level of bacterial activity is necessary for composting to happen at all, composters don't work very well when the temperature is below 60 F. And, there is the matter of power...the fan and heater must run all the time--even when you aren't aboard--to work...and power can be hard to come by if you keep your boat on a mooring, or on any boat that isn’t connected to shore power. Otoh, the Lectra/San only uses power when the toilet is flushed. So if someone who owns a houseboat (those floating mobile homes on barge hulls that litter the inland lakes and rivers) were to ask me if I thought a composter or the Airhead is a good idea, I'd say it's definitely an option worth considering...but on a sailboat in waters where the discharge of treated waste is legal—I don’t think so.
It could be a good solution on a "no discharge" inland lake, but in waters where the discharge of treated waste is legal--and it is on the Chespeake Bay--it makes more sense IMO to install a Type I MSD (i.e. Lectra/San) for about the same price and even lower power requirements. Why store waste aboard in any form if you don't have to AND can send it overboard without any negative impact on the environment? And then there's the matter of what to do with excess liquids. Some are evaporated, but not all...They cannot legally be drained overboard inside 3 miles, so they must be held aboard in something—in the jugs provided with the Airhead, which must be carried ashore and dumped, same as a portapotty--or in a holding tank...and if you have to have a holding tank to store the liquids--which, btw, present just as much of an odor control problem as fecal matter--what's the point of having a system that separates urine from solid matter? Especially when you consider that solids don't take up that much room in a holding tank. A gallon of urine every 30 hours = 5.6 gallons of urine a week. Doesn't sound like much because it's undiluted by flush water...but the odor-causing properties in it are also undiluted, especially since it's not just urine...solid waste is mostly liquid too. And there's something else to consider: Temperature. The warmer the temperature, the more active bacteria (the li'l buggers that create odor) are...so the harder it becomes to keep any waste storage system odor free. Otoh, because a certain level of bacterial activity is necessary for composting to happen at all, composters don't work very well when the temperature is below 60 F. And, there is the matter of power...the fan and heater must run all the time--even when you aren't aboard--to work...and power can be hard to come by if you keep your boat on a mooring, or on any boat that isn’t connected to shore power. Otoh, the Lectra/San only uses power when the toilet is flushed. So if someone who owns a houseboat (those floating mobile homes on barge hulls that litter the inland lakes and rivers) were to ask me if I thought a composter or the Airhead is a good idea, I'd say it's definitely an option worth considering...but on a sailboat in waters where the discharge of treated waste is legal—I don’t think so.
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