Having an emergency toilet is not just for convenience, although, having a safe place to park it in its own way is reassuring.

Raw sewage and poor disposal is a major risk to you and your family's health, so having a sanitary way of going and disposing it is a must for your short and long-term health.

How to Make an Emergency Toilet

Supplies:

• 5 gallon bucket
• Bag of scoopable kitty litter (regular works, too, but the scoopable helps alleviate urine better)
• Heavy-duty garbage bags (you don’t want the cheap ones that easily rip
• Toilet seat – these toilet seats are available at most camping stores and online. They fit most standard 5 gallon buckets you can get for a few bucks at your local DIY stores.
• Toilet paper – unless of course you’ve come up with a few ideas of things to use when the toilet paper runs out!

Directions:

1. Remove the metal handle from your 5 gallon bucket and thread the toilet paper roll on. Return the handle. This is an easy way to keep toilet paper handy without it getting dirty on the ground. Another great option is inside one of the plastic coffee cans that can serve as a protective home for it. You can also hang it using this nifty hack I found on Pinterest.

2. Fit a 13-gallon trash bag into your bucket and cinch it tight around the top.

3. Place your toilet seat on top and secure into place.

4. Keep kitty litter nearby in another waterproof canister

How to use the Emergency Toilet

1. Pee or poo as you normally would.

2. Take a scoop of cat litter and cover your ‘stuff’ up

3. As bag becomes full for you, remove and cinch the top. You can then bury it in a safe location, well away from a water source

Setting up an Indoor Emergency Toilet

There’s an indoor option to this. You can turn off your water supply running into your toilet, empty out the water with one more flush, scoopy out any remaining water and drain it dry, and use a similar set up as the emergency toilet above. It will give everyone a little comfort of something familiar, even if the procedure is somewhat unfamiliar. You’ll want to be sure to plug up the hole to make sure no sewer gas smells seep out over time (just as if you were replacing the toilet and had to plug up the sewer hole). This is a great solution when you know this hack will only be needed for a short time.

For our family, though, this wasn’t going to be the best option for more than a few days. For one, it is hot more often than not. Our house is also not set up with a great ventilation system of cross breezes, etc., so the inside of the house can stay hot for a long time. Having a bucket of poo sitting in the house all the time isn’t the best option for us. So we’ve scoped out a place in our garage where we can make a potty station. If worse comes to worse, we also have a great nook on the outside of the house where we can set up a similar station if needed, including a bolt in the fence to stick the toilet paper on when we’re out there. That’s why we love this plan.

Storage

You can keep a small bag of scoopable litter, the trash bags, scoop, toilet paper and some cleaning wipes stored inside of your bucket with the seat nearby in the event of an emergency.

An emergency toilet is one of those survival items that most everyone will overlook or forget until they need it – and improvisation on this item is no easy gig!

By having one stored in a dry location with a few rolls of toilet paper, ready for use whenever it is needed, you can alleviate some of the discomfort that comes with a longer term survival situation and make sure your surroundings stay livable and healthy!

To learn more about practical survival projects, check out Mom With A Prep.