Spending a little more than a penny! £5,000 bijou compostable toilets designed for back gardens are set to take this year’s Chelsea Flower Show by storm – so, would YOU install one?
- Designer Marnie Moyles’ compostable loos feature at Chelsea Flower Show
- The eco-friendly toilet was shortlisted for RHS Product of the Year competition
- The eco-loos, designed by Oxfordshire-based Marnie will set you back £4.900
Compostable loos are set to be the main attraction at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show.
Oxfordshire-based furniture designer Marnie Moyles will be the first to ever present an eco-friendly toilet at the Chelsea Flower show this year, the Telegraph has reported.
For the first time ever, the celebration of horticulture has been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic and will take place from 21 to 26 September.
A virtual show is set to take place from May 17 to 21.
Marnie’s loos, which can set a buyer back £4,900, have been shortlisted for the Royal Horticultural Society’s Product of the Year Competition.
This year’s show has seen a great push for greener and more eco-friendly initiatives.
Oxfordshire-based furniture designer Marine Moyles will be the first ever participant to showcase compostable loos at this September’s Chelsea Flower Show (pictured: the loos prototype)
The Green Oak Compost Loo was inspired by a Sedan chair, and looks like a small, elegant cabin.
Marnie said she wanted to create a loo that people would like to go to, because outdoor and public loos could be ‘horrible.’
‘I did worry it might be too tasteless for Chelsea. We Brits whisper the word loo and are not at all easy discussing the subject. Yet the valuable resources we flush away have to be attended to,’ she said.
Marnie joked anyone could put together a compostable loo with a bucket, but she wanted to add an element of craftsmanship to hers.
Marnie, pictured, was inspired by a sedan chair to create her loos, which are made of occaya, a sustainable timber from New Zealand
The loo is sun-powered, with sunbeams used to heat a small amount of water stored in a cupboard in the toilet so that users can wash their hands.
The toilet contain a bench seat with a hole, made of scrubbed oak, and the cabin is made from Accoya, sustainable wood from New Zeland.
She is finalising the loo’s last details before presenting it at the RHS Product of the Year competition, which this years has put the focus on designers’ green credentials.
Marnie hopes her loos will be used by people with large gardens, and even on community gardens and at festivals.
The designers nine other rivals for the prize include a zero emissions lawn mower costing £1,699, as well as chairs and pots made from recycled ocean plastic.
Tim Hopson, director of horticulture and education at RHS has said he thought the loo was suitable for the Chelsea Garden Show because it showed ‘how barriers can be removed from people getting involved in gardening,
He went on to say that not everyone had a garden, and that the lack of loos in a community allotments had been a recurring issue for some.
Tim also said the loo was a testament to a growing interest among gardeners to be more eco-friendly and to have a lesser impact on nature.
He said all the gardening enthusiasts he knew were trying to minimise their impact on the environment.