Originally Posted By: philip
Hi, Susan,

I've lived on a farm with a septic tank, and I live in a town with a sewer system. The septic tank requires no power. Your toilet uses the water in the tank to flush the commode, which moves the waste into the septic tank. With a new tank, it sits there till you fill it with water, then each flush pushes the overflow into your drainage field, which is downhill from the septic tank.

In our town, we have occasional power outages, and our toilets flush as usual. The treatment building uses electrical power, but I've never had the power out long enough to see what happens - either the treatment center has backup power or it's far enough downhill it never filled up. :->

Here's where you lose the use of your toilet: no water. I was on St. Barth when the island ran out of water. You have one flush, and then the tank doesn't fill. We used water from our swimming pool to fill the toilet.

Q...snip ...Q

When services come back, ask our garbage company how they want to handle the waste. If they can't, who does? Ask till we get the answer. With the waste buried, it's not a high priority, but we will press till we get a way to dispose of the waste safely.


In areas with high water tables, where a conventional septic system won't work, builders may resort to raised beds and a small lift pump. If power goes out the lift pump fails and things start backing up. It's a septic system without the reassuring reliability of a conventional septic system.

As far as I can tell, living in several cities with different systems, major municipal sewage systems flow by gravity as much as is practical but resort to lift stations as needed. These typically have a significant reserve capacity and where they don't they are supposed to have a fuel supply and generator to run the pumps. How long this is designed to operate independently and how long they actually do remains to be seen. In a recent power outage near me a large lift station with redundant generators failed to activate. Sewage backed up and flowed into a stream. Big EPA/DEP fine.

The good news was that even as the lift station backed up people up hill could flush their toilets as long as they had water.

If your going to bury your plastic bag filled with human waste try to remove, or at least break up, the bag.

If your looking for a company to cart off such waste the people you want to talk to are the same people who pump septic tanks. They are set up and certified to handle such things and properly dispose of it all. But they won't come cheap and as long as there is well drained earth available burial is quick and effective.