Industrial Design Engineering - Reinvent the Toilet

The business model that is developed around the recovered resources and other revenues allows us to limit capital and operational costs to less than $0.05 per person per day. However, affordability is not the only necessity to ensure successful adaptation of the system within the targeted areas. Other key aspects are availability and accessibility, respectively developing a system that is adapted to local demands and that includes a diverse group of target users. 
From a user point of view, one of the biggest challenges is to develop a solution that is desirable. In the end, a sustainable solution is only guaranteed if people are persuaded to stop defecating in the open and start using our solution. This does not solely require educational efforts, but above all the design of a clean, convenient and safe user experience that brings users privacy, independence and dignity.  

Our design proposal

The first year of our participation in the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge resulted in a demonstration of the technology's feasibility as well as a collection of important user insights. Within this second year of the challenge, the focus lies on the integration of technology and user-centred design. A concept will be developed for people living in urban slums in India, which is a context that brings several constraints such as the dense population and lack of space and infrastructure. 
As shown below, the proposed concept involves smaller Community Sanitation Centres, each serving 100-500 people per day (5-10 toilets per facility). These facilities are scattered around the slums and operated by local entrepreneurs under a PPP (public-private partnership) scheme. This relatively small set-up makes sanitation more accessible and creates a better sense of ownership among the users. Human waste is collected from these facilities and transported to a central Plasma Gasification plant that is located on the outskirts of the slum. At this plant, the human waste of more than 2,000 people can be processed every day. With this concept we aim to demonstrate the potential of a distributed sanitation system that does not rely on a network of sewage pipes but on the empowerment of local collectors and distributors.