Hazard and Environmental Considerations in Toilet Design

Live & Learn Environmental Education’s training manual for toilet location and design is now available in English and Bislama! This practical manual contains a training schedule, and step-by-step instructions for the range of issues that need to be considered when a person or family decides to improve their household toilet – including cost, management of solid waste, and potential natural and environmental hazards. This publication was supported by the Australian government, through the Civil Society WASH Program. You can read or download Hazard and Environmental Considerations in Toilet Design resource here.

Lonely Planet launches guide to world’s most spectacular toilets

Lonely Planet launches guide to world’s most spectacular toilets | Source: CNN, April 14 2016|

Read the complete article.

India launches national monitoring of toilet use

How does India’s new large-scale sanitation monitoring effort compare with similar initiatives in Bangladesh and Indonesia?

Image: Government of India (GoI)

According to some media the Indian government has unleashed “toilet police” or “toilet gestapo” into the country [1]. In fact, the central government has instructed local officials to take photographs of new toilets to prove that they have not only been constructed but are also being used. If states don’t upload photos by February 2015, the water and sanitation ministry has threatened to withhold funding from a new national sanitation programme [2].

You too can become a poo!

You can dress up as a poo and get flushed down a gigantic toilet in Tokyo’s Miraikan science museum. The toilet is the centre piece of an exhibition on human excrement and the search for the ideal loo. At the end of the exhibition, visitors are thanked by a choir of toilets.

Photo: Japan Times

The exhibition, sponsored by the LIXIL Corporation, runs from 2 July until 5 October 2014 and costs 1200 yen (around US$ 11 ).

Web site: Miraikan – Special Exhibition “Toilet!? – Human Waste & Earth’s Future” English | Japanese

 

WEDC – A Collection of Contemporary Toilet Designs

A Collection of Contemporary Toilet Designs, 2014.

• Download, pdf | Order print version

Author: Rod Shaw, ed.

This collection is the result of the findings of EOOS research which was supported by Sandec, the Department of Water and Sanitation in Developing Countries at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag). It covers a wide range of contemporary toilet designs along with a valuable list of website links where additional information about each design can be sought.

This volume is a synthesis of the initial research log, designed and produced by The Water Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC) at Loughborough University. As conventional toilet designs are not included, it does not claim to be fully comprehensive but it nevertheless provides a useful overview of current research and development for fieldworkers and practitioners as well as engineers and researchers.

Thai researcher reinvents toilets for urban poor

Thai researcher reinvents toilets for urban poor | Source: Ishani Bose, dna – Aug 18, 2013 |

Dr Koottatep aims to create a toilet that converts waste water into power, biogas. 

Studies show that while 900 million people in India have access to mobile phones, about 600 million people have no access to proper toilets. This interesting fact set the tone for our conversation with Dr Thammarat Koottatep, who has about 18 years of experience in environmental engineering, waste water treatment and decentralised sanitation technologies and planning.

A researcher in the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Thailand, Koottatep was in the city on Saturday with regards to his ongoing research on the subject of reinventing the toilets in the countries which received $5 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Dr Thammarat Koottatep

“Before coming up with this project, we conducted a study and we realised that there are two fundamental sanitation challenges. First is to expand and improve sanitation without central sewers, because this is by far the most common type of sanitation services used by the poor and the other is to make sanitation services safe and sustainable by addressing the failure to effectively transport, treat and reuse waste captured in on site facilities,” said Koottatep.

Caltech’s prize-winning solar-powered toilet – video

A video demonstrates the working of the prototype of the solar-powered toilet that won the first prize of US$ 100,000 in the Reinventing the Toilet Challenge issued by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Solar-Powered Self-contained Human Waste Water Treatment System was developed by Prof. Michael Hoffmann‘s research group at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

In 2011 the Caltech team was awarded a US$ 400,000 grant to create a toilet that can safely dispose of human waste and reuse water for just five US dollar cents per user per day.

Solar energy powers an electrochemical reactor, which converts human waste into fertiliser and hydrogen, which is stored in hydrogen fuel cells as energy. The treated water can be reused to flush the toilet or for irrigation.

The toilet, which could cost US$ 1,000 or more per unit according to the Seattle Times, is still a prototype and would need to be adapted before it can be launched commercially.

Source: Marcus Woo, Caltech, 15 Aug 2012 ; Theodoric Meyer, Seattle Times, 14 Aug 2012

‘T is for Toilet’ wins ‘ABCs of Death’ film contest

Lee Hardcastle‘s clamation ‘T is for Toilet’ is the winner of a contest to find the “next great horror filmmaker” launched by Drafthouse Films, Magnet Pictures and Timpson Films.

Inspired by children’s educational books, the ‘ABCs of Death‘ is an anthology film by 26 leading horror directors who each were assigned a letter of the alphabet.

“T is for Toilet” tells the nightmarish tale of a frightened young boy and his first attempt using the bathroom all by himself. Not recommended for toilet training.

Source: MrDisgusting, BloodyDisgusting.com, 15 Nov 2011

South Africa: Harvesting Nutrients That Are Flushed Away

Durban — It might seem unusual for a waste utility to be concerned with the goal of ending world hunger, but that’s part of the mission of the Water and Sanitation department in South Africa’s second largest city of Durban. AllAfrica’s Julie Frederikse spoke with Neil MacLeod, who heads this department for the municipality known by its Zulu name, eThekwini.

“Intensive agriculture requires fertilizers, whose main component is phosphorus, yet where does our phosphorus go after it goes into crops and is digested?” said eThekwini Municipality Water and Sanitation director Neil MacLeod. “Into a toilet. And then it goes into a treatment works, then into a river, and it gets washed into the sea.”

With an estimated 30 percent of household water used to flush Durban’s toilets – water which the city has paid to pump and purify – MacLeod sees flushing toilets as unsustainable technology. Like much of Africa, South Africa is water-scarce, with water restrictions expected soon for this city of 3.7 million, whose population is swelling by some 150,000 people per year.

MacLeod sees salvation in an alternative toilet that uses no water at all. Called the Urine Diverting (UD) toilet, it separates urine from faeces so that nutrients can be recovered and returned to the earth. Nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus – aka NPK 5:3:1 – is an excellent fertilizer for growing vegetables.

Global Toilet Design Guideline Ready for Public Comment

ICC, WTO Draft of Global Toilet Design Guideline Ready for Public Comment

(PRWEB) June 16, 2011

Alarming statistical facts such as 2.6 billion people do not have access to proper sanitation, a child dies of a waterborne illness every 15 seconds, and safe drinking water is not available to 1.1 billion people likely generate compassion. But it does much more than that for global sanitation leaders and professionals in the water- and plumbing-related fields who can drive change and help save lives.

One major initiative intended to facilitate easier, less costly construction of restrooms is the “Global Guideline for Practical Toilet Design.” Developed by the International Code Council (ICC) and the World Toilet Organization (WTO), with assistance from committee members representing sanitation-related organizations around the globe, the document is in the final stages of development, scheduled for late summer release.