Read designed a sand-only toilet that allows the urine to be turned into compost instantly.
More than 1.7 billion people do not have the basic sanitation services provided by private or public toilets. About 500 million people still defecate in open spaces, and 92 percent of them live in various rural areas, mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The aim of the young inventor in designing the said toilet was to provide basic cleaning services to these people living in rural areas where infrastructure systems are not available.
Only one prototype of the structure has yet been developed, but if it goes into mass production it is hoped it will fix a major problem in rural life.
The toilet bowl is designed with double compartments to separate liquid and solid wastes from each other. In this way, it can work without water.
The design includes a conveyor belt covered with a fine layer of sand to remove solid excrement. Read prefers sand because it prevents excrement from sticking to the conveyor belt, but says sawdust or dust will also work.
The second chamber directs the urine to a container below.
The toilet, which works through a mechanical siphon, does not need electricity either. The prototype was tested with mashed potatoes mixed with varying amounts of water.
In previous similar designs, various methods were tried, which would not require water. However, most of them did not have a siphon mechanism.
Read suggests that this mechanical siphon will ensure hygiene. When the siphon is pressed, a mechanical lever activates the process that turns the conveyor belt and carries the feces into a separate container below.
In a house with 7 people, the liquid container must be emptied every two days and the solid container must be emptied every 4 days. The toilet bowl is designed to hold a total of 3 kilos of solid and 30 liters of liquid waste.
Thanks to the separation of liquid and solid, users can use the urine as fertilizer immediately and bury the rest to use as compost 4 weeks later.
The most important aspect of the design is that it is low-tech. “If you have a nice, complex mechanism and you’re in a village 80 kilometers from any technician who can fix it, you can’t expect a technician to travel 50 miles to fix a toilet,” Read said.
“90 percent of people should be capable of repairing the toilet on their own.”
Source: The Independent
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