Jim Rinaldo has invented a portable toilet made of wood and fabric that will be made and assembled for the most part locally.
RUMFORD
Jim Rinaldo still revels in his outhouse humor. Now, though, he’s starting to think – or at least hope – that he might be laughing all the way to the bank.
Rinaldo is the inventor of, for lack of a better term, a stool stool.
It happened like this: Rinaldo was enjoying a stroll through some woods one day when nature called, and it wasn’t about to be put on hold.
After, he took to thinking about his experience. Before long, he says, a proverbial light popped on in his head. Soon he was tinkering with what has become the Jungle Jon.
Made of lightweight wood and fabric, the product is both a seat (fabric stretched over two support rods) and a toilet (a second layer of fabric under the first sports an oblong hole). Biodegradable bags fit into the hole to catch the waste and allow for its proper disposal.
Nearly a year ago, after a tongue-in-check interview with Rinaldo touting the wonders of his then-unpatented Jungle Jon appeared in the Sun Journal, his home phone started ringing off the hook. Some of the calls were from curious potential customers. Others were from early- morning radio talk shows, some from distant corners of the country, hoping that Rinaldo would share with listeners a bit of his distinct outlook on life.
The Sun Journal’s story was picked up by the Associated Press, and Rinaldo found himself with instant fame.
Fast forward to today. Rinaldo has a patent pending for Jungle Jon, has about 40 from an initial production run of 50 on hand and ready for shipping, and he has another 1,250 on order. He has also laid in plans to accessorize the camouflage-covered stool, offering corn-starch-based biodegradable replacement bags and a handy trowel to hang off the stool so people can properly bury the waste.
He also has a kid-sized version of the stool, covered – like the original – with camouflage cloth.
“It could help with potty training,” Rinaldo says. “It’ll make it an adventure.” Joking aside, Rinaldo sees his Jungle Jon as meeting more than just one need. Typical use is to offer a comfortable seat for people while they pursue outdoor pleasures.
Then there are the military applications.
Rinaldo has been talking with representatives of U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe’s office about that. An order for, say, 30,000 to give comfort to men and women in uniform would be welcomed, he says. Already one Jungle Jon has made its way to Iraq. It was the first one Rinaldo sold.
Kathy Goulette of Wilton, a co-worker of Rinaldo’s at the MeadWestvaco plant here, bought the contraption and sent it to her brother-in-law, David Bledsoe, while he was helping to liberate Baghdad.
“I’m sure it was popular there,” Goulette says. “Everything sent to our military forces has been welcomed.”
Rinaldo says the device might also be useful in emergencies, such as when the ice storm froze Maine a few years back. People without power couldn’t draw water from wells. Jungle Jon would have offered an alternative to a dry toilet, he says.
“It’s one of those inventions that’s like duct tape,” he says, paraphrasing a similar comment posted on his Web site.
Rinaldo finds pleasure in another aspect of his creation. The wooden frame for the stools is being made locally, at Saunders Bros. in Oxford, he said. The fabric seats, along with the stool’s carrying bag, are made at Fancy Stitchers at the Bates Mill in Lewiston. The shipping boxes for the stools are coming from Volk Packaging in Biddeford.
“They’re all family owned Maine-based businesses,” Rinaldo noted with a smile.
dfletcher@sunjournal.com
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