PORTABLE EVAPORATIVE TOILETS
change:WATER Labs Inc.
THE CHALLENGE
Globally, 2.6 billion people lack proper toilets. With urbanization outpacing infrastructure expansion, approximately 1 billion people in urban slums and displacement settings must use poor communal facilities or open defecation as their only sanitation option. Rampant raw sewage pollution of communities and their water sources traps them in a vicious cycle of chronic disease, malnutrition, and poverty. Women and girls suffer particularly, because leaving their homes to relieve themselves exposes them to high risks of sexual assault and violence. As the poor water infrastructure in informal settlements and camps typically does not make flush toilets a viable option, there is a need for locally adapted alternatives. Without these, many densely populated vulnerable communities have no means of accessing safe, clean, and dignified sanitation, and so remain disproportionately affected by waterborne and other diseases.
THE SOLUTION
Considering the unmet sanitation needs of densely populated communities within displacement camp, urban slum, and disaster relief, among other, settings, change:WATER Labs designed a novel “self-flushing” evaporative toilet that could improve sanitation while supporting more scalable, sustainable servicing by reducing the required waste collection frequency compared to other container-based toilets. By introducing a novel, low-cost polymer membrane as a sewage evaporating collection pouch, change: WATER Labs’ toilet can convert liquid sewage to clean water vapour, enabling rapid onsite sewage elimination without significant waste discharge or use of water or energy. Implementation of this model in Kiboga, Uganda provided improved sanitation to a total of 377 female users. Several benefits were documented including 100% containment of waste, vastly reducing local pollution; increased safety for women and girls due to the feasibility of locating evaporative toilets closer to schools and worksites; and local jobs created in the areas of supervision/training and waste collection.
