Dry toilets

A dry toilet is a toilet that operates without flush water, unlike a flush toilet. The dry toilet may be a raised pedestal on which the user can sit, or a squat pan over which the user squats in the case of a squat toilet. In both cases, the excreta (both urine and feces) falls through a drop hole. The urine and feces can either become mixed at the point of dropping or stay separated, which is called urine diversion.

A dry toilet can be any of the following types of toilets: a composting toilet, urine-diverting dry toilet, Arborloo, bucket toilet, pit latrine (except for pour flush pit latrines), incinerating toilets, or freezing toilets.

There are several types of toilets which are referred to as "dry toilets". All of them work without flush water and without a connection to a sewer system or septic tank:

People mean different things when they talk about a "dry toilet". Often, the term "dry toilet" is used for a composting toilet, but sometimes also for a pit latrine. Calling a pit latrine a dry toilet is not good practice because:

The term "outhouse" refers to a small structure, separate from a main building, which covers a pit toilet or a dry toilet. Although it strictly refers only to the structure above the toilet, it is often used to denote the entire toilet structure, i.e. including the hole in the ground in the case of a pit latrine.

Dry toilets, or more generally speaking "dry excreta management systems" are useful in all areas and may be especially suitable in situations where water flushed toilets or sewer-based sanitation systems and their required infrastructure are not feasible:

Dry toilets are used for three main reasons

Dry toilets are used in developed countries, e.g. many Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Finland, Norway) for summer houses and national parks. They are more widely used in developing countries in situations in which flush toilets connected to septic tanks or sewer systems are not feasible or not desired due to resource limitations, poverty, for environmental reasons or other reasons. Sewerage infrastructure costs can be prohibitive in instances of unfavourable terrain, sprawling settlement patterns or poverty (in the case of developing countries).

...
Wikipedia