Fifty three per cent of Indian households defecate in the open (600 million people) and the absence of toilets contributes to increased disease burden, malnutrition and impaired cognitive development in children, according to the World Bank.
The developing world's sanitation problem has received attention and funding from various quarters. One of these campaigns has been by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which funded 16 research institutions since 2011 across the world as part of the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge. Last year, India's department of biotechnology with the Gates Foundation and Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council had also launched the Grand Challenges India to reinvent the toilet under an investment of US $2 million.
For the 40 exhibitors who arrived in Delhi to showcase their idea of a complete solution, the challenge was simple—to design toilets that capture and process human waste without piped water, sewer or electrical connections, and transform waste into useful resources, such as energy and water, all at an affordable price. The cost of the service cannot exceed Rs 3 per user per day. From solar powered toilets to web-connected ones, from automatic toilet-seat sanitization to electronic latrines to modular ones that can be assembled in 40 minutes to those which turn organic waste into charcoal brickets that can again be used to fuel stoves—there is no almost no path that teams have not gone down. The team from University of Colorado, Boulder, has used concentrated solar energy to transform both faecal matter and urine into commercially-viable products such as solid fuel, heat and fertilizer.
Karl G Linden, civil, environmental and architectural engineering professor from UCB and the principal investigator on the team, pointed to a pack of peanuts he had roasted using the charcoal that his toilet had produced. He said, "The most important part are the fiber optic cables we have used to move the solar energy to the reaction pot where everything gets incinerated." .
Apart from the energy use, piped water requirement and waste treatment, odour and cleanliness issues are also reasons why people might not use a toilet and prefer to go out in the open. Eram Scientific Solutions Pvt Ltd has built and installed toilets that have an automated pre-flush, post-flush and a floor-wash system across ten states.
Anvar Sadath, CEO, Era, Scientific, said, "We found that people were put off by the dirty floors and squat potties. So, we put in the floor wash system that is completely unmanned." Eram's public toilet unit also has SIM cards and is web-linked which means it can be monitored remotely in case the toilet malfunctions.
CalTech's innovation from 2012 has attracted the interested of US-based Kohler Company that is now working with them on minimal water use in toilets and waste handling. Doulaye Kone, senior programme officer (water, sanitation and hygiene), Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said, "There have been hundreds of schemes and community mobilization. We are still stuck with no perfect solution. We are trying to solve one part of the problem. You have to understand that you cannot be using a clean flush-toilet at home and providing a stinky one to the poor"
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