For the full version of this article, check out our free Substack post. Crystal’s dog, Lucifer, playing in the sawdust while she turns over the bins. Compost needs time. When we collect poop from a Toilet Equity toilet, it isn't compost yet. We can give it carbon, air, moisture and time. We can tend the conditions. But we can't make compost. A whole living ecosystem does that. Bacteria and fungi break things down. Tiny organisms feed on what they find and become food for othe

For the full version of this article, check out our free Substack post. Earlier this year, a team of Colorado Mesa University civil engineering students took on an unusual challenge with Toilet Equity: help design a permitted composting site for collected human excreta. The students called their team BrownTown. Erin Brown served as Project Manager, alongside Chase Brown on hydrology and hydraulics, Nolan Morse on environmental engineering, and Alex Spink on structural enginee

For the full version of this article, check out our free Substack post. The Western Colorado desert has a way of reminding us what's important. We can ignore a lot of problems in March. We can pretend systems are working in May. But by August, when the pavement is radiating heat and the forecast has read triple digits for a week, everything gets tested. Heat tests our fields and the people who grow our food. It tests our power grid as air conditioners and swamp coolers work o

We're honored to be featured by Colorado Public Radio in a story exploring one of the most overlooked public health challenges facing communities across Colorado: access to safe, reliable restrooms. The article follows our team into the field as we clean up human waste near encampments and work to expand toilet access for people who have nowhere else to go. Along the way, it highlights an important reality: when people don't have access to toilets, the consequences affect eve

The Daily Sentinel recently published a follow-up to our wastewater disposal story with Persigo, covering Toilet Equity's decision to withdraw our appeal with the City of Grand Junction after securing a new disposal partnership with Delta Compost. While the previous article focused on the challenges we faced, this one highlights what came next: finding a path forward. By partnering with Delta Compost, we're able to continue providing safe, reliable restroom access while ensur

The Daily Sentinel recently published an article about Toilet Equity's appeal of the City of Grand Junction's decision not to renew our wastewater disposal permit. This decision affects where we dispose of the material we collect—not whether we continue providing restroom access. Our toilets remain open, and our team continues to clean and service them every day. We have arranged an alternative disposal site while we work through the City's appeal process, ensuring that the w

The Daily Sentinel recently covered Toilet Equity's search for new host locations as changes to local shelter services created new challenges for restroom access in Grand Junction. As community needs change, our goal remains the same: ensuring that people have access to safe, clean restrooms while helping keep human waste out of our parks, alleyways, and waterways. One of the things that makes Toilet Equity possible is our incredible network of host partners. Churches, nonpro

We're incredibly proud to share that our Project Coordinator, Kuiper Curtis, gave a TEDxGrandJunction talk about Toilet Equity and the power of making overlooked problems impossible to ignore. In "Making Toilet Equity Impossible to Ignore," Kuiper explores why something as ordinary as a toilet can have such an extraordinary impact on human dignity, public health, and the environment. Drawing from their experiences maintaining our composting toilets and working alongside commu

We're honored to be featured by the Rich Earth Institute, one of the nation's leading organizations advancing ecological sanitation and nutrient recovery. Rich Earth Institute has spent years researching how human waste can be transformed from a pollution problem into a valuable resource. Their work has helped shape conversations around circular sanitation, clean water, and sustainable agriculture across the United States. In their recent Partner Spotlight, they highlight Toi

For the full version of this article, check out our free Substack post. What do you do when there isn’t a clear answer yet? That question came up again and again in a recent conversation with Dr. Bill Hilty, emergency physician, longtime Toilet Equity board member, and someone who spends a lot of time making decisions in situations where certainty simply isn't available. In emergency medicine, patients don't always arrive with clear diagnoses. Sometimes the first job is simpl

For the full version of this article, check out our free Substack post. Most of us live close enough to a toilet that we rarely think about it. We wake up, use the bathroom, flush, wash our hands, and move on with our day. A restroom is usually nearby when we need one. That kind of access is a privilege many of us never have to notice. “Human needs do not disappear when infrastructure does.” This month, we sat down with several people living along the river to talk about some

For the full version of this article, check out our free Substack post . This month, Toilet Equity turns four. Four. If you’ve ever known a four-year-old, you know that’s a very specific age. Old enough to walk confidently into a room. Young enough to still ask “why?” about absolutely everything. Capable. Curious. Occasionally chaotic. Full of big dreams and very sticky hands. Four-year-olds aren’t babies anymore. They’ve found their footing. They have opinions. They test bou

For the full version of this audio, recorded by writer, coach, and TE volunteer Rebecca Mullen, check out our free Substack post . This year at Toilet Equity, our theme is incubation . Compost doesn’t become healthy soil overnight. It needs the right ingredients. It needs structure. It needs time. And apparently… so do engineers. We sat down with Professor John Boulden (CU/CMU Partnership + City Engineer for Fruita) to talk about his senior engineering students taking on a bi

Because of you, people had a safe place to go in 2025. Imagine needing a bathroom, and having nowhere to go. For many people living without shelter, that’s a daily reality. But this year, you changed that . Because of you, toilet access was clean, reliable, and treated as the essential infrastructure it is. (If you’ve ever had to go right now, you already get it.) Because of you: 7 toilets stayed open and clean 365 days of reliable access 200+ people served each day 4 locatio

For the full version of this article, check out our free Substack post. On a trip years before Toilet Equity existed, our founder Paul Padyk found himself standing on a wooden platform over a creek in a high Himalayan valley. There were no trees to hide behind, only the river flowing below, and the uneasy relief of needing a bathroom and not having one. The smell, the exposure, the sound of water carrying everything away: it was a small, sharp lesson in vulnerability. A few

For the full version of this article, written by TE CEO Kaitlin Louise Pettit, PhD, check out our free Substack post. At Toilet Equity, we’re used to dealing with what falls through the cracks. We give people a place to poop—it’s basically our superpower. Unfortunately, our funding sometimes does the same thing. This year, I dreamed of doubling our toilet footprint in the Grand Valley. Instead, our plans had to shrink to match our budget, leaving hundreds of neighbors—unshelt

For the full version of this article, written by TE Intern Mason Bunce, check out our free Substack post . Take a moment and think about...

For the full version of this article, written by TE CEO Kaitlin Louise Pettit, PhD, check out our free Substack post or subscribe to...

For the full version of this article, written by our Founder and Board Chair Paul Padyk, MD, check out our free Substack post or...

For the full version of this article, written by TE Board Member Avery Pope, check out our free Substack post or subscribe to our...