Have you ever thought about what it would be like to live without toilets? Right now around 2.6 billion people live with out them. Not only is this hard to comprehend but in those areas sans le toilet it can cause serious health issues. One of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals is providing lavatory access for everyone in the world by 2025. The World Toilet Summit presents an opportunity to showcase cheaper and more efficient toilet technologies. Sulabh International Social Service Organisation (SISSO) presented attendees of the summit with a souvenir ball of dried human feces made by one of the NGO’s toilets, undeniable evidence of their ability to render the matter bacteria-free. From the article:
The organisation’s toilets, which include 6,500 public facilities, are based on two simple innovations. By setting the bowl—of a shallow Asian variety—at a downward slope of 22 degrees, the toilet can be washed clean with two litres of water (a flush toilet uses 10 litres). The toilet empties into one of two cess-pits, which are rotated every three or four years. That is long enough for the contents of a full cess-pit to turn into a harmless fertiliser, or paperweight.
In addition, much of the methane—a gas that contributes to global warming— that is emitted by the waste will be harmlessly absorbed by the surrounding soil.
As an alternative way of disposing of the gas, 175 of SISSO’s public loos have been rigged with bio-gas digesters. These are underground tanks which create the right conditions for methane to be produced and stored. It can then be burned for heating or cooking, or used to generate electricity.
In another innovation, the organisation has linked waste-water treatment to pisciculture. This involves purifying domestic waste-water, from bathrooms and toilets, by growing duckweed in it—then fattening up fish on the weed. The purified water remains rich in potassium, phosphate and nitrogen, and a useful fertiliser.
As its contribution to battling global warming, SISSO calculates that each year its 1.2m toilets conserve 87.6m cubic metres of gas that would otherwise be emitted into the atmosphere.
On top of what sounds like the coolest toilets ever made, SISSO also boasts a museum of toilets section on their webpage. It makes some good bathroom reading.
