Affordable Twin Purpose Toilet For World’s Rural Poor

SINGAPORE, Nov 17 (Bernama) – The world’s poor and rural communities will soon have access not only to proper sanitation but also use of human waste fertiliser when a Singapore-based company makes available its locally-designed affordable toilets.

The company, Rigel Technology, has designed a prototype of the toilet, a modular squat toilet consisting of three-in-one pan with a raised platform with a step, a compost chamber and urine collector.

The prototype which is in the final stage of development will be exhibited at the World Toilet Summit and Expo (WTSE) 2009 here early next month, according to the company’s managing director, Christopher Ng today.

Speaking at a media conference here, Ng said the company decided to join hands with the World Toilet Organization (WTO) to produce affordable toilets for rural communities that had no access to sanitation as its corporate social responsibility in serving mankind.

He said the maintenance-free, light (25 kg) and low-cost toilet, made of recycled materials, could be easily deployed without the need to be connected to a conventional sewerage system.

The solid waste is composted for re-use as fertiliser, while the liquid waste is piped out separately via a built-in urine diverter and urea is extracted from it.

Ng said the toilets, to be priced between US$30 and US$100, cheaper than building one that usually costs US$300, would be mass-produced in its factories in Sichuan, China, initially 10,000 units monthly, and marketed from early next year.

Meanwhile, the locally-based WTO founder, Jack Sim said about 2.5 billion people in the world had no access to proper toilet, an emerging market estimated to be worth more than US$1 trillion.

He said the toilets could also be easily deployed and practical for use in disaster areas affected by flood or earthquake, or areas where there were refugees, another new market for the toilets.

The WTSE, ninth in the series and to be held on Dec 2 to 4, is jointly-organised by WTO and MP Asia, in partnership with Asian Development Bank and Singapore’s Restroom Association.

Source – http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsbusiness.php?id=455939

India’s ‘green and clean’ village

“A small village in the north-eastern Indian state of Meghalaya has become the envy of its neighbours. Large crowds of visitors have been thronging to the village curious to find out why Mawlynnong has earned the reputation for being arguably the cleanest and best educated in India – all its residents can read and write and each house has a toilet”.

Discover India magazine declared Mawlynnong as the cleanest village in Asia in 2003

For the villagers, cleanliness is next to Godliness. Photo: BBC

“About 90km from the state capital Shillong and barely 4km from the Bangladeshi border, Mawlynnong is much loved by its inhabitants who work hard to keep it clean”.

“The streets are all dotted with dustbins made of bamboo. Every piece of litter and almost every leaf that has fallen from a tree is immediately discarded. Plastic is completely banned and all waste disposal is environmentally friendly. Rubbish is thrown into a pit dug in a forest near the village where it is left to turn into compost”.

“The villagers here say that lessons in hygiene start in school so that children can be taught from an early age how to keep their surroundings clean and green”.

“There is a fine imposed by the village council for anybody found to be throwing litter around or cutting trees [...] says village headman Thomlin Khongthohrem. Children are taught to collect litter at an early age. “Besides, the council carries out strict inspections of the sanitation facilities in each house”.

Experts attribute the village’s cleanliness an effective local governance system, a matrilineal society which makes women economically more powerful, and the local inhabitants’ respect for nature. Mawlynnong’s reputation for cleanliness has made it a popular destination for tourists. The Meghalaya state government is promoting eco-tourism in the area but the locals, who have a “fierce sense of self-determination”, are resisting this.

Source: Jyotsna Singh, BBC, 25 Sep 2009

Child undernutrition, tropical enteropathy, toilets, and handwashing

The impact of sanitation and hygiene on child mortality and health has been underestimated, contends Dr Jean Humphrey in The Lancet of 19 September 2009 [free registration required].

“Of the 555 million preschool children in developing countries, 32% are stunted and 20% are underweight. Child underweight or stunting causes about 20% of all mortality of children younger than 5 years of age and leads to long-term cognitive deficits, poorer performance in school and fewer years of completed schooling, and lower adult economic productivity.”

“A key cause of child undernutrition is a subclinical disorder of the small intestine known as tropical enteropathy”, Dr. Humphrey states, which “is caused by faecal bacteria ingested in large quantities by young children living in conditions of poor sanitation and hygiene”. “Provision of toilets and promotion of handwashing after faecal contact could reduce or prevent tropical enteropathy and its adverse effects on growth”. “The primary causal pathway from poor sanitation and hygiene to undernutrition is tropical enteropathy and not diarrhoea”.

Dr. Humphrey concludes that “that prevention of tropical enteropathy, which afflicts almost all children in the developing world, will be crucial to normalise child growth, and that this will not be possible without provision of toilets”.

Full reference:

Humphrey, J.H. (2009). Child undernutrition, tropical enteropathy, toilets, and handwashing. The Lancet ; vol. 374, no. 9694 ; p. 1032-1035. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(09)60950-8

In an earlier WHO study, the authors estimated that 860 000 deaths per year in children under five years of age were “caused directly and indirectly by malnutrition induced by unsafe water, inadequate sanitation and insufficient hygiene”. This raises the total number of children that die every year as a result of unsafe water, inadequate sanitation or insufficient hygiene to 2.2 million instead of the 1.4 million usually quoted.

Full reference:

Pruss-Ustun, A.; Bos, R.; Gore, F. and Bartram, J. (2008). Safer water, better health : costs, benefits and sustainability of interventions to protect and promote health. Geneva, Switzerland, World Health Organization (WHO). Read the full report [PDF file].

Twittering on the toilet: Britain’s bathroom habits

Three-quarters of Britons text, blog or surf the internet while on the toilet, according to a survey of more than 2,000 people. The poll was carried out by Yakult to mark the launch of Gut Week, which aims to raise awareness of digestive disorders.

Television personality and former cricketer Phil Tufnell launching Gut Week. Photo: Love Your Gut

More than a third of those polled said they had sent a text message while on the toilet, 33 per cent admitted they had conducted a telephone conversation, 7 per cent revealed they had searched the internet, and 1 per cent said they had sent Twitter updates.

Despite 18 per cent admitting they had suffered from cramps or pins and needles, nearly two-thirds (65 per cent) were unaware that sitting on the loo for too long could cause haemorrhoids.

The research also revealed men were more likely to look for a distraction when on the loo than women and 14% of males polled said they read football match programmes while 18% of men completed a crossword or Sudoku puzzle behind the locked bathroom door.

Almost twice as many men (58 per cent) read newspapers and magazines than women (29 per cent), the survey found.

Former England cricketer Phil Tufnell, who launched the awareness campaign, said: ”Touring the sub-continent we tended to spend a lot of time on the toilet through no fault of our own and in these circumstances the odd toilet read was understandable”.

Dr Simon Gabe, consultant gastroenterologist at St Mark’s Hospital in Harrow, north-west London, said there some health risks that people should be aware of.

”There are problems which can arise from spending too long on the toilet, such as haemorrhoids, bleeding and worsening problems with emptying the rectum. More importantly, eating on the toilet runs the risk of contaminating the food with bacteria from the toilet. This may cause a bacterial gastroenteritis, which is an infectious diarrhoea and can be very severe.”

Organised by digestive health charities Core, The Gut Trust and St Mark’s Hospital Foundation in association with Yakult, the campaign – www.loveyourgut.com – offers advice on how to maintain gut health and ensure a regular bowel habit.

Source: The Telegraph, 24 Aug 2009

Nepal: No toilet, no job

Staff of some organizations in Dolpa [Karnali Zone, western Nepal] will [lose] their job if they do not construct [a] toilet in their house by the end of this fiscal year in mid-July 2009. [S]taff working in Deprox Nepal decided to request the management not to extend the term of the staff who do not construct toilet within mid-July.

Similarly, Decade Dolpa has also decided not to extend the term of the staff if they do not construct toilets [by] mid-July. Staff working in these organizations have also agreed to the condition. Chief District Officer Dil Bahadur Ghimire has requested all the staff to construct toilets [after] the District Drinking Water Office requested all offices, schools and organizations to construct toilets to make the district an open defecation free zone.

[...] Less than 12 percent of the population in Dolpa use a toilet.

Source: Kantipur / NGO Forum, 29 April 2009

‘Green’ toilets should not be a flash in the pan

AN INVENTOR said his air-flushing toilets could ‘change the world’ if people gave them a chance.

Loos built by Garry Moore, 44, from Ilford, are currently being piloted by Greenwich council employees at a Thamesmead depot.

The pioneering propelair loos have a sealable lid that allows pressurised air to trigger a flush instead of a cistern of water.

They need a sixth of the water used by normal systems and could be fitted into any home for £330, but the design engineer said he still needs to find an investor.

He said: “If everyone had one of these toilets it could really change the world – it would certainly lower the UK’s national water use by 10 per cent.

“They’re not smelly or noisy, they can deal with large amounts of waste, the only difference is that you have to put the lid down before you flush.

“We’re just waiting to see what the Greenwich council workers throw at them at the moment. So far they’re dealing with it really well.”

The toilets, built by East London-based Phoenix Product Development, use around 1.5 litres of water per flush, rather than the average nine litres needed by regular loos.

Defra estimates that the average family pulls the toilet chain 27 times a day, or 10,000 times a year, meaning a family using Thames Water could save £135 a year.

Read More – Bexley Times

India – Use loos or flush your allowances

Pune: In a bid to make the Nirmal Gram Yojana more effective, the Pune Zilla Parishad (ZP) recently issued notices to 50 of its employees for having failed to construct toilets in their homes.

The ZP had recently decided to withhold the house-rent allowance of all such employees and initiate an enquiry against them after issuing notices. Despite the ZP and the district administration initiating various steps for the strict implementation of the scheme, more than 1,000 employees in the district are yet to construct a toilet.

Shyam Vardhane, chief executive officer of Pune ZP told TOI that as per the government resolution of 2006, it was mandatory for all government employees to have their own toilets. “However, the stated norms are not being followed by all. The administration has now decided to take strong steps against those who do not comply. Following this decision, notices were issued to more than 50 employees recently,” Vardhane said.

Vardhane said that over 5.66 lakh toilets were expected to be built under this scheme. “Though nearly 70 per cent work has been completed, more than two lakh toilets are yet to be built. This is our target area now,” he added.

Read More

From Thrones to Robo-Commodes: The Pitfalls of Inventing a Better Toilet

The flush toilet is a curious object. It is the default method of excreta disposal in most of the industrialized, technologically advanced world. It was invented either 500 or 2,000 years ago, depending on opinion. The ancient inhabitants of the mighty Indus Valley, in present-day Pakistan, had privies above channels of running water, whereas King Minos’s palace on Crete, 4,000 years ago, fed rainwater through terra-cotta pipes to flush privies below. Toilet historians, of which there are few, attribute the modern flush toilet to Sir John Harington, godson of Queen Elizabeth I, who thought his godmother might like something that flushed away her excreta and devised the Ajax, a play on the Elizabethan word “jakes”, meaning privy.

The golden age of the toilet, though, only occurred in the later years of the 18th century and the early years of the next, due to the trio of Alexander Cumming (who invented a valve mechanism), Joseph Bramah (a Yorkshireman who improved on Cumming’s valve and made the best lavatories to be had for the next century), and Thomas Crapper (another Yorkshireman who did not invent the toilet but improved its parts).

Read More – Scientific American

USA – If You Think You Can’t Replace a Toilet, Think Again

…

It may be surprising to learn (well, I was surprised, anyway) that toilets use 30-40 percent of the water in our homes, far exceeding all other single activities. Delivering water takes energy, electricity to be specific, since it’s pumped to our homes from great distances.

While we do take advantage of the natural fall from the Sierras, we still use over 10 percent of our total state energy budget moving water. Making electricity generates carbon in many cases (we do have some hydroelectric power in the state as well as some nuclear) and this increases global warming as well as the acidity of the oceans just to mention two of the effects we’re aware of.

As of Aug. 1 this year, East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) has us on a Drought Emergency Rate Schedule for water service. You’ve probably heard. Families will be expected to keep their use under 172 gallons per day or pay at a higher rate. The base rate is $2/100 cubic feet of water and goes up to as much as $3.05 if you can’t get your teenager out of the shower in something under an hour.

With all this in mind, I suggest that you take on the, relatively simple, task of replacing one or more of your toilets. It’s actually not that hard.

More – Berkeley Daily Planet

United Kingdom – Ultra green NI school in UK first

A County Down primary school has become the first building in the UK to be awarded the top grade in a government energy efficiency scheme.

Victoria Primary School in Ballyhalbert’s ‘A’ in the ‘Energy Performance Certificate’ scheme comes after it was recently rebuilt.

It now boasts toilets which use rainwater and its own biomass boiler.

All buildings will soon be required to have an energy performance certificate before they can be sold or rented.

The certificate explains how energy efficient a building is and the level of its carbon dioxide emissions.

Elsewhere in the UK, they are already a legal requirement, however, the average grade awarded thus far is an ‘E’ on a A-G scale.

It is hoped Victoria Primary School’s ultra green rainwater flushing toilets will save close to half a million litres of water each year.

More – BBC News