We lost our compost toilet’s walls, partially, and roof to the torrential downpour over the session that lasted 36+ hours in our farm between 16th December evening to 18th December noon. The deluge that occurred in Tirunelveli and neighbouring districts has been atrributed to cyclonic storm near Sri Lanka.

We had transplanted our rice saplings by December 2nd thankfully. For nearby farmers who had transplanted in the 2nd week of December, the saplings had not established. So, a lot of rice crop has gotten damaged. I am sure a lot of trees, crops planted recently would have gotten washed in the rain.

The overflow from the pond flows right in front of the entrance to our farm. The flood like conditions prevented us from leaving the farm on 17th, 18th and 19th December, even by foot. Two worker folks somehow managed to wade through the knee deep water on the road to reach the farm. The road resembled a stream more than a path. Arokyam and Kumar helped us take care of the animals despite facing difficulty to reach the farm. About 200 metres of the road from the gate of the road was flooded because it is a low lying area.

Compost Toilet Structure Compromised

The compost toilet was our first structure and a volunteer build. We tested our sun dried bricks, mud and lime plasters, mason skills on madras terrace in this construction. 10 newcomers from all over the country had joined Deepak and Sohn to get the environment friendly built. It was completed in July 2019; so it stood strong for 4.5 years before succumbing to the elements.

The roof was not able to drain the water at the same rate at which it was raining. It rained 350+ mm within a span of 1.5 days. For context, it rains 1000 mm on average in the entire year in Tirunelveli district. We made judgement errors and a few mistakes in the design, which in hindsight, could have been avoided and prevented this collapse.

• The overhangs length weren’t sufficient – 2 feets only in the east and west walls; Barely a few inches in the north and south walls. It should have been 3 feet minimum in all directions to prevent rain water from hitting the walls.
• The walls built were 5.5 inch thick – the adobe bricks were 12 inch X 5.5 inch X 3 inch. The wall thickness should have been at least 12 inches. Especially considering the fact that the roof was a heavy flat roof viz. Madras Terrace. If it was a tiled roof
• Madras Terrace is not recommended to be left open to the elements of nature. Usually a space with thatch or tiles roof is built on top of Madras Terrace roofs to keep it dry. (In case anyone is curious about and wants to read the BIS standards for Madras Terrace, click here)

Climate Collapse and Climate Resilience

January 2021 had also seen excessive rains in this part of Tamil Nadu. The compost toilet didn’t get affected then. I was foolish to assume that the shortcomings of the structure will be able to overcome the forces of nature. I underestimated the amount of rain i needed to protect the building, mud or otherwise, from. Thankfully, we had incorporated the learnings from the compost toilet construction to Bhoomi, the Mud House, where all the 3 points are addressed.

It would be easy to label this occurrence as a failure. I think events such as these can be used either as demotivation or they can open up new paths for learning – It is eventually nothing, but a choice to be made.

Which brings me to my most important point of the blog : Am I to blame for underdesigning a structure? Are the extreme weather events to blame for the collapse? I am sure both are to blame. While i will learn and rebuild the structure, i am anxious for certain things i need to consider: what kind of assumptions should i take into consideration – how much should i overdesign? Should i consider even more extreme weather events to redesign the roof? Should i use cement, a major contributor in climate collapse, to make my structures resilient in the short term? Or should i choose a local natural environmentally-sustainable building technique which is great for the long term and risk damage in the short term because of the unpredictability of the extent of the extreme weather events? These are the questions thay keep me awake at night, occasionally.

Who should be paying for the repair to damage caused by extreme weather events?

Most of the runaway climate change that is occurring in front of our eyes have been caused by the Developed economies of the Global North. Global North should be paying for the loss and damage caused by the such extreme weather events. COP28 negotiations has made it extremely clear that countries that have had historically high carbon foot print per capita and total emissions should be the ones paying for the damage being caused to the historically colonized Global South. To the people reading this blog, especially if you are an Indian living in the Global North, please consider helping me rebuild my compost toilet.

What next? And a Crowdfunding Request…

Once we get back sunny days, we plan to rebuild the walls and build a tiled roof on top. Those were the first thoughts when i saw the roof collapsed from more than 150 feet away. Tiled roofs are lighter than flat roofs such as Madras Terrace. We will gather our thoughts with pros and cons for both roof techniques over the next few days before deciding one way or the other.

We have adobe (sun-dried) bricks left over from the Compost Toilet construction. These bricks were made with the subsoil from our farm. We will use them, helping us reduce costs. We also got 2nd hand tiles from a demolished house nearby a few months back to use as support for raised beds, in case we choose to build a tiled roof. We also have used palmyra rafters that we can use to increase the lengths of the overhangs, in case we choose to build a madras terrace roof. We will reuse as many bricks as possible we can recover from the debris. That is the advantage of building with reusable and local materials. The cost of repair and rebuilding is much lesser.

This is actually a crowdfunding-campaign disguised as a blog. Please DM me if you would like to help me raise Rs. 30000 towards the rebuilding of the Compost Toilet walls and roof in January 2024. If there is left over funds from this, we will use them to try out more sustainable techniques in our upcoming constructions. We will share updates over a whatsapp group with our patrons during the construction.

Regards,
Sudhakar R.