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With all the snows still around the Cougar Rock Campgrounds, there were no visitors inside. But we did find a group of park rangers and some Japanese businessmen celebrating the opening of a new campground toilet.

So what's the big deal? Well, this is an eco-friendly toilet. Get this, instead of using chemicals, it uses cedar chips to treat the waste. The heat generated during decomposition kills any bacteria, and the waste materials are vaporized in one of its tanks. The water used is purified and is re-circulated, so it's like a self-contained sewerage treatment plant.

The inventor came all the way from Japan for the dedication ceremonies. "They flew in yesterday... "

"You never replace the chips. You may add water occasionally, but does have a rain-catch system which will add water to the tank, and it's so easy to maintain it."

"And just like most toilets in Japan, this seat is heated. Yeah, trust me, it's also made to fully flushable, no waste water, no sludge and the best part about it, it's odor-free. "

And it's a gift to Mount Rainier from a Japanese environmental group active on Mount Fuji, which gets more climbers in a day than our mountain gets for the whole summer.

 "Now it's about over, over forty units we are working in Mount Fuji and been, has contributed to the significant improvement for those waste management in Mount Fuji area."

"You know we have some systems we're experimenting at Camp Muir with different solar systems. We have a lot of backcountry use to kind of figure out what's the best and then when they said, they wanted to donate this as a model for us to experiment, well, then it was welcomed."

A seventy thousand dollar gift for all to enjoy.

WORDS IN THE NEWS

ranger: noun

A wanderer; a rover.                                       

campground: noun

An area used for setting up a camp or holding a camp meeting.
cedar: noun

Any of a large number of evergreen trees having fragrant wood of great durability. Arborvitae is sometimes called northern white cedar.

sludge: noun

Semisolid material such as the type precipitated by sewage treatment.

odor: noun

The property or quality of a thing that affects, stimulates, or is perceived by the sense of smell.

backcountry: noun

A sparsely inhabited rural region.