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The concept of a portable toilet is simple: It’s a bucket that you poop in. In fact, putting a seat on one of those five-gallon buckets every hardware store sells would probably be the easiest way to make such a thing. But if you’re looking for more refinement in your off-grid excretion experience and don’t mind spending a lot more money, something like the Trelino Evo toilet has significant advantages.
The Bottom Line
| Trelino Evo M Compostable Toilet | |
|---|---|
| Material Quality | 8/10 |
| Comfort | 8/10 |
| Performance (Odor Management, Ease of Cleaning) | 9/10 |
| Portability | 8/10 |
| Overall | 9/10 |
Price and Purpose
I’m sure many of you will see this plastic toilet‘s $475 list price and think something along the lines of “500 bucks for a dang bucket?” That was my initial read, too. This is a specialized product—if you can’t imagine needing it, you’re not the target market.
For road trippers and casual campers in America, we’re never really that far from a public bathroom. Lugging a case full of (literal) crap doesn’t make a lot of sense. But for overlanders doing multi-day off-grid trips, or for somebody who has a primitive hunting camp without plumbing that they like to spend consecutive days at, a self-contained toilet ends up being a boon.
Large RVs often have their own plumbed bathrooms that function similarly to the one in your house, on a much smaller scale. Waste and water goes into a tank (the contents of which are called “black water,” which ultimately needs to be pumped out when full). A toilet like a Trelino will need to be emptied much more often, however, it’s also far less complex.
If you’re overlanding in an SUV or a small van that doesn’t have a real bathroom, it’s much easier to make a little storage cubby for one of these than to build an entire vehicle-scale sewage system.
Digging a hole to leave a dump in is frowned upon for the same reasons you should clean up dog poop whenever possible. Human turds are not necessarily great for the environment, and leaving used TP in the woods isn’t cool on a lot of levels. Leaving no trace, besides tire tracks and footprints, should always be the goal when overlanding.
Build Quality and Portability
When closed, the Trelino Evo toilet is just a plastic cube that feels about twice the width of an office trash can. (It comes in three sizes; I tested the “medium.” You can get the specs of each on Trelino’s site) The weight of the plastic is perfect—it’s just thick enough for the product to feel robust and durable without seeming unnecessarily cumbersome. It’s not featherlight; I wouldn’t hand it to a young kid to carry to the car. But it’s much easier to move around than a mid-sized bear-proof cooler. As far as spacial efficiency, it’s a home run. The waste tanks make the most of their small space.
We’ll get into comfort in a moment, but, the lid is soft-close (you just smack it down and it lowers itself gracefully) while the seat material is excellent.
The waste storage is so well isolated from the seat that it probably would not spill much if it fell on its side in your car. That, however, I was not willing to test.
Comfort and Usage
Fair warning: You’re about to read a review of using a toilet, so, this section’s a little … vivid.
The throne itself is an ultra-smooth plastic that’s pleasant to sit on. I mean, it’s not just “acceptable,” which is what I was expecting. It’s a damn-fine toilet seat in any context—I guess that’s what you’re paying for! The height seemed fine to me too, maybe a smidge on the low side, which is probably good for the average user because I think my legs are on the long side.
The way the Trelino Evo toilet manages smell, which we’ll get into momentarily, is through what I’ll call a plumbing system and a user-added absorbent. What I mean by that is: kitty litter, or some equivalent. The plumbing here isn’t really plumbing—the only liquid in this thing is what comes out of ya. It’s more like a pan-and-pot system with one-way valves.
I’ll describe it specifically because you definitely don’t want to watch a video. Basically, sitting down, you pee into a little funnel at the front and poop into a larger open bucket in the back. The reasons for separating urine and fecal matter are to mitigate smell and make cleaning easier. Plus, the waste storage elements are smaller. Basically, liquids are trapped in a tiny tank while solids fall into a trash bag.
And sorry again for getting this personal but, for my fellow fellas, be advised that the relevant appendage can hit the funnel while you’re sitting down, which grossed me out. You kind of need to hold up Mr. Johnson to keep it from dangling into the peed-on plastic. There can also be a minor, but not insignificant, factor of splashback if you understand me.
That said, gentlemen have the advantage of being able to urinate elsewhere—using the “facili-trees” as one of my old camp counselors used to call it.
The whole experience is pretty close to the comfort level of a home toilet, which is a big part of the value proposition here.
Smell
Keeping a lid on the fouler odors of a bathroom is one of the Trelino Evo’s most impressive accomplishments. I hope people appreciate this review because I took a huge risk on this aspect of the test. After eating a moderately pyroclastic dinner of beef jerky and beer, I relieved myself of some weight in the morning using the Trelino inside a standard nylon-style tent. That tent sat in direct sunlight, in summer heat, for a full day while I was out racing—late that afternoon I returned to the tent smelling completely acceptable.
I mean, no tent that my grubby self occupies is going to smell great. But there was nothing like the construction site porta-potty stank I’d been fearing was waiting for me.
Trelino recommends using a specific type of material, made of coconut husks, for laying down in the bottom of your waste bag and sprinkling on top of waste after you go. I wasn’t able to find that, but kitty litter was readily available at a Dollar General on my way from home to my campsite. I used it liberally, but not excessively. Plus, kitty litter is good to have when hillclimb racing—it makes a good oil-spill absorbant if you have a leak or a crash.
The final smell test was driving home. I packed the loaded (once-used) Trelino into the trunk of my Civic and drove home. After the six-hour ride, my car didn’t stink, but the trunk kind of did.
Need an intermission from reading about bowel movements? Here’s some helmet cam footage from the race I was running while camping and toilet-testing. I managed to not crash that day:
If you’re going to run a toilet like this in a van or large SUV, I would recommend building a box for it to live in between uses. And, of course, going for a high-end equivalent of kitty litter.
Cleaning and Emptying
Dumping the pee tank grossed me out more than the poop bag. With the poop hopper, you’re pretty much just emptying a garbage can. If you’ve been adding absorbent after your movements, you don’t even really see anything offensive. You can just quickly twist the bag up and dispose of it. But the urine … there’s just something about seeing a large quantity of it, even for a second, that feels wrong.
That said, you can take most of your backcountry pees behind trees, which should keep your tank load minimal.
Luckily the whole machine comes apart into pieces that are easy to hose out or hit with your cleaning product of choice.
Your mileage will vary depending on your diet, but Trelino specs put its capacity as “9 to 11 pees” and “6 to 12 poos” on this medium-sized model. More scientifically speaking, the urine capacity is 1.3 gallons and solids container is 2.1 gallons.
The Verdict on the Trelino Evo Toilet
If you’re looking to dabble in adventure driving and overlanding, save your money and take a dump at the last gas station you hit before your overnight off-grid. But for those who are committed to some kind of vehicle-based adventure and are just trying to decide on the best poop-management system, the Trelino Evo toilet is pretty compelling.
It makes defecating in the woods about as comfortable as it can possibly be, and if that matters to you, you’ll love this thing. It really offers the most value to overlanders who are running a smaller (non-RV-sized) van or SUV. It saves you from having to build a proper vehicular plumbing system or stopping at RV places to empty a blackwater tank. Ultimately, the Trelino Evo is a comfy and tidy solution to “I’d love to go camping, I just wish I had my own bathroom out there.”
Whether or not it’s worth the price comes down to how often you’re going to use it, and of course, whether or not $500 is a lot of money in your budget. In a market where some people are dropping $269 on shovels, anything’s possible. Since the smell management and seat comfort are excellent, I think you could buy with confidence if you’re sure you need and will use a portable toilet. Be wary if this is a splurge, though. I have a feeling it’d be tough to sell used.
Got an idea for another product we could test? Drop us a line at tips@thedrive.com
