“School sanitation is an important but often neglected issue for public health. Children are most vulnerable and affected by poor sanitation conditions. Related diseases, particularly diarrhoea and parasite infections hinder the children´s physical and intellectual development. In a number of countries, evaluations have shown that pupils are dropping out of school due to bad toilet conditions.

This publication gives background on what are important issues to make school sanitation sustainable and success stories. The focus is on urine diverting dry school toilet (UDDT) systems …(which)…offer high quality and comfort. Because of the separation technology in the toilet device, these toilets do not smell or attract flies. For the operation, no water is used for flushing. Water is however needed for the hand washing facilities which are always included in the projects.

This publication is in particular intended for school directors and teachers, administration employees, engineers, architects and construction workers from the field and NGOs.”

The 28-paged publication contains examples from Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia.

One reason for coming up with this blog certainly was the lack of such public facilities, and it is projects like the Kenyan Ikotoilet that my main interest is focussed on (~ seeing “sanitation as a business”, not only as an unpaid for, unappreciated public service). While we will blog about Ikotoilets in the coming days (will be published on AfriGadget.com first), let me introduce you to a Dutch company called Urilift that produces so-called “pop-up urinals”:

Urilift: “The Urilift is placed where it is needed: at hot spots in entertainment districts, for instance. Three people can use the urinals in the attractively styled stainless steel cylinder at the same time without seeing or being bothered by each other. The Urilift is only above ground when it is needed. For the rest of the time, it is completely hidden underground.” And there’s one interesting detail: “The Urilift is connected to the water mains but can also be supplied with a water tank, or without water. The water tank operates on an ecosystem that is filled automatically with rainwater.”

UriGienic… is similar to the Urilift, but with a toilet seat: “The unique UriGenic toilet pan, a ‘wok’ with a suspended toilet seat, is the perfect solution for men and women. Since the toilet seat returns automatically to a vertical position after use, the unit can also be used by men as a urinal. Splashes on the seat are therefore a thing of the past. Naturally the unit is completely lockable so that the user can enjoy total privacy. It is also practical to use and exceptionally hygienic.”

UriVisable “…can not be hidden below ground level. For this reason the UriVisable is extremely suitable for locations where permanent placement does not cause any objections and where, taking into account the pattern needed, a urinal is required 24 hours a day.”

There are also videos available online on the website of Urilift as well as on YouTube which demonstrate how such a public toilet pops up on the street and how they submerge e.g. during daytime.

Now, being connected to the mains sewer means that these toilet system will probably only work in cities where the sewage system already exists and that all valuable nutrients contained within the waste streams are actually wasted. The interesting questions are:

• How much does such an installation cost and what kind of permits are required from the City Council?
• Are there any subsidies from the local City Council to promote such public toilets (which, to my understanding, would have to be paid for by bar/restaurant owners)?
• Would a waterless urinal also work in such an environment?
• Would it make sense to turn a UriLift urinal into a waterless urinal in order to save on flushing water and to collect the urine for use in urban agriculture projects (e.g. allotment gardens within the city)?

UriLift sure is an interesting technology and the right step forward. I’d love to have one of those toilets right here in Frankfurt/M., btw.

[via]

Highlights of this release are the translation into French – done by our colleague and dear friend Dr. Abdoulaye Fall from Paris/Dakar – which will hopefully also reach those from Francophone countries. The newsletter currently has 3.960 subscribers from all over the world

The newsletter is available for download as a PDF file (English or French, 0.4 MB) and may also be subscribed to on this page (which also offers other interesting GTZ newsletters). An archive of previous editions is also available on the website of the GTZ ecosan program.

These 2-page guidelines focus on the operators and users of the different installations, to improve acceptance, maintenance and safety.

Available are:

• Nutshell guideline 1: Small scale composting of human faeces (PDF; 0.5MB)
• Nutshell guideline 2: Fertilization with human urine (PDF; 0.5)
• Nutshell guideline 3: Maintenance of public urine diverting toilets (PDF; 0.5MB)

Further publications from RESPTA are available here.

• School Based Sanitation
• Community Based Sanitation
• Emergency Sanitation
• Sanitation for Hospitals & Hotels
• Sanitation for Agro-Industry
• Sanitation for Prisons
• Real Estate Sanitation
• Sludge Treatment Plant
• Health Impact Assessment & Hygiene Education
• Sanitation Mapping
• Capacity Development

The German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) recently introduced a new newsletter mailing tool which enables the ecosan program within GTZ to refocus on the actual content of each newsletter and at the same time highlight some sustainable sanitation projects that are partly funded by the German government and other donors.

The newsletter is available for download as a PDF file (0,4 MB) and may be subscribed to on this page (which also offers other interesting GTZ newsletters). An archive of previous editions is also available on the (relaunched) website of the GTZ ecosan program.

What’s this?

It’s liquid gold.

A colleague of ours in Burkina Faso just posted this photo with the following explanation on the EcoSanRes Discussion Group online:

Anyway, I was in Fada (eastern Burkina) a couple of days during the end of last week and the 10 urban farmers there who had tried urine as fertilizer were not disappointed. The photo attached provides evidence – it is at one of the farmer’s homes, and the bottles do not contain fanta…

CREPA HQ
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

What started in October 1997 as an international research project on urban and periurban vegetable production, has resulted in eight allotment gardens for almost 100 urban poor families of Cagayan de Oro, a city in the Philippines.”

“So what’s the relation to sanitation?” you may ask…well, they’re using Urine-Diverting Dehydration Toilets on all allotment gardens – which (among the provision of sanitational facilities) allow a reuse of treated faeces and urine as soil conditioners and free fertilizer.

The Philippine Allotment Garden project also provides answers to the question of urban farming – a challenge for the 21st century that may go hand in hand with proper sanitation.

The latest version of the “Philippine Allotment Garden Manual with an Introduction to Ecological Sanitation” of Xavier University’s Periurban Vegetable Project (PUVeP) is now available online as a PDF (0,8 MB).

“The idea for the creation of this Global Atlas of Excreta, Wastewater Sludge, and Biosolids Management originated at the IWA Biosolids Conference, “Moving Forward Wastewater Biosolids Sustainability: Technical, Managerial, and Public Synergy” held in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada in June 2007.”

The 5,4 MB PDF is 632 pages long and can be downloaded here for free.

(ISBN: 978-92-1-132009-1)

The new fact sheet of the SuSanA working group “Sustainable Sanitation for cities and planning” summarizes the 3 most important planning documents: Sanitation 21 (IWA), HCES – Household Centred Environmental Sanitation (WSSCC/Eawag-Sandec) and SSA – Strategic Sanitation Approach (WSP). The fact sheet can be downloaded here: http://www.susana.org/images/documents/05-working-groups/wg06/final-docs/en-susana-factsheet-WG06-planning-version-1.1.pdf.

The Austrian Development Agency (ADA) in cooperation with the EcoSan Club has published a brochure on planning principles “Solutions in Sanitation – Planning Principles”. The publication is available as download: http://www.entwicklung.at/en/service/publikationen/folder-und-broschueren.html. That link offers also the possibility to order hard copies.

Furthermore NETSSAF also published a participatory planning tool which was distributed at the final conference of the network “Pathways towards Sustainable Sanitation in Africa” in September 2008 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. It will be available soon at the webpage of the network.