With a pricetag this big, these crappers should be made of gold.
Prospect Park boosters spent $2.34 million in taxpayer money to install four composting toilets, which will collect human waste that they hope can be spread around the park as fertilizer one day.
There’s just one catch. Spreading “humanure” around public spaces is illegal, according to state law.
“Right now, New York State doesn’t allow for the compost to be used,” said Prospect Park Alliance spokeswoman Deborah Kirschner.
No problem though, says the Alliance, because the poop, like fine wine, needs to be aged for 10 years — enough time for the law to be changed.
“We’re hoping by then we’ll be able to use it,” said Kirschner.
“It’s benign and perfectly fine,” the bathroom’s architect, Alden Maddry, insisted. “It just makes people squeamish.”
The composting toilets inside the park’s historic Wellhouse will open Monday.
They look just like regular white-porcelain thrones, but instructions tell users to “flush before and after use” by pressing a small computerized button on top of the toilet’s tank.
Instead of water, a lubricating foam oozes out the top of the bowl to help slide the waste down a 3-foot chute.
The contents then land in one of three 9-by-5 foot compost bins in the basement, where the solids are separated from liquid waste and mixed with woodchips.
Hundreds of worms are then added to the brew. The wriggly critters consume the dung and excrete it again, which compresses the size and eliminates bacteria.
“After a few years all the harmful pathogens will be gone because the worms and microbes process them out,” Maddry explained.
Smell won’t be a problem as fans funnel the fumes to a rooftop vent.
A contracted employee will come once a month to check on the dung to make sure it’s aging properly, Maddry said.
Some pooh-pooh’d the idea of sprinkling human stool on the park’s grounds.
“Thinking about human excrement getting dumped on purpose, covering the ground of Brooklyn’s largest park is vomit inducing,” said Olive Dever, 28, who was on a run in the greenspace. “It’s pretty repulsive.”
Others don’t plan on using the new amenities.
“I don’t think it’s sanitary, especially for women,” said Marilyn Estevez, 39, who was on a stroll. “I also think the money should be used for something more important than toilets.”
Some believe the environmental benefits are worth taking a squat.
“I think it’s a good idea. I’d rather have it than porta potties,” said Brooklyn resident Jessica Neri, 33.
There are composting operations at The Bronx Zoo and Queens Botanical Garden, but the ones in Prospect Park are the first to open in a free public venue.
The Wellhouse building — located in the southwest region of the park and named after an old water tank that once pumped water throughout the park — has sat unused for nearly a century.
The $2.34 million also paid for two waterless urinals, a repaired roof, new concrete walls and a colorful portico.
The green bathroom will also pump used water from sinks into an irrigation system that feeds park plants.
The “environmentally friendly” process will save 250,000 gallons of water each year, the Alliance claims.
