Sara Baird tries out the Trelino portable option for toileting in the outdoors.
I always need a bathroom break just as we get to the best part of our experience. It’s just one of the perks of staying well-hydrated, I guess. I love traveling with our camper because we always have a bathroom on the road and I never need to find a bathhouse in the middle of the night. When Trelino asked us to review the Trelino Evo S. Lightweight Portable Composting Toilet I saw that this could be possible without the large camper. I experienced using a composting toilet on a sailboat during a Lake Superior trip and knew they were fairly easy to use so I was excited to try out this portable version.
Trelino
Trelino is an international company that was founded in Germany. The founders, Mark and Ben, were inspired by their childhood camping experiences to create products for the outdoors. They aim to empower their customers to discover the freedom and beauty of the outdoors. They sell composting toilets that come in a variety of sizes and capacities all designed and produced with a commitment to sustainability, creating value, and beautiful design.
The Trelino Evo S. Lightweight Portable Composting Toilet
This is the lightest composting toilet on the market weighing only 8.6 lbs. It is also tiny at 13 inches wide, 15.4 inches deep, and 11.7 inches high. It comes with a soft-close lid, a toilet seat with an integrated separator, a 1.2-gallon urine canister, a 1.6-gallon solid container, and 10 compostable plastic bags.
How Composting Toilets Work
Composting toilets separate urine and solid waste to prevent smell and make disposal easier. To dispose of the waste you can either dump the urine into a toilet or outhouse or dilute it and put it in your garden. The solid waste can be composted or thrown into a garbage can. Composting toilets do not require any chemicals, making them environmentally friendly. The solids container can be filled with wood shavings, peat moss, coco peat, or litter. You start with a layer of fill and then add a layer each time you add to the solids container.
Using the Trelino While Tent Camping
I purchased a new car this summer and I could not wait to take it on a road trip. Fuel is cheaper and it is easier to find an available campsite when you are tenting rather than pulling a camper so we decided we would tent it a few times this summer. My holdout to tenting has always been the need to get up at night and find the restrooms as well as the need to use some gross restrooms at times. When I received the Trellino Composting toilet those holdouts were addressed.
We were able to reserve a campsite for the following week in Herbster, Wisconsin, right on the South Shore of Lake Superior. I considered purchasing a small changing room tent to set up alongside our tent for the toilet but we decided that our tent was large enough to accommodate the toilet with just two of us sleeping in there. If you have read my Staresso Coffee Maker review you will know that we found out that our tent was no longer water proof so we spent the first night in the car anyway.
The toilet was a breeze to set up, I put a bag in the solids container, added a layer of sawdust, checked to ensure the correct lid was on the liquids container, made sure the lid was on correctly, and it was ready for use.
During the first night while sleeping in the car, it was a breeze to slip out of the car and pop into the tent to use the bathroom in the night. I appreciated that I did not need to walk out of our campsite or worry that someone had made a mess out of the outhouse in the night. There was a nice clean bathhouse further from our camp that was easier to use during the day so I ended up using the solids container for toilet paper disposal only. In the morning I simply grabbed the liquid container and walked over to the outhouse to dispose of the liquid.
The following night there was no chance of rain so we moved back into our tent and put the Trellino on the side of the tent. This worked but in the future, I would prefer a separate tent for the toilet if possible. We did run into an issue with the ground being unlevel in this part of the tent, this caused the liquid to run into the solids container. The sawdust inside the bag soaked this up though so it was not an issue. I simply bagged it and threw it away. When I got home, I took the toilet apart, rinsed it with some vinegar and water, let it dry, then put it away for next time.
My Recommendation
I loved the ease of using the Trelino composting toilet. It was simple to set up, use, and clean. The way the entire toilet breaks down made it easier to clean than the traditional toilet in my house. It took me less than 5 minutes to clean it for storage and less than that to empty it out each day I used it. I appreciated that waste was very easy to dispose of and that I didn’t need any chemicals for this simple toilet.
This toilet is very small, it is meant for situations where you are in a small space or need portability. It would be wonderful for tenting, pop-up campers, and vans where space is at a premium. If you need something that would experience heavier use or be installed in a more permanent manner I would recommend you look at some of the larger models that Trelino sells. You can check out The Trelino Evo S. Lightweight Portable Composting Toilet as well as the other models of the Trelino at https://mytrelino.com/ in the United States and https://www.trelino.com/ in the E.U.
Your thoughts?
Have you tried Trelino or other similar products on your adventures? Do share your experiences or views in the comments below. Or check out other great reviews of outdoor products featured on our reviews page.
Sara Baird
I am an adventurer at heart, always looking for the next opportunity to learn something new. I spend my winter days working with high school students to explore their interests and develop passions.
I spend my evenings and summers developing new hobbies and being outdoors as much as possible. I enjoy camping, hiking, cross country skiing, and biking.
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