Toilets and water sanitation at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP)
Toliets and water sanitatation at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP)
Fast Company magazine just covered Easy Latrine a low cost toliet created by IDE which costs $25, which won a prize in the International Design Excellence Awards. What is the Easy Latrine?
The solution: a low-cost sanitation system that villagers could build themselves from locally available parts. It consists of a pan, a bucket of water with a ladle, and pipes to connect a hut to a latrine buried in the ground. The latrine itself has three receptacles made of rings of concrete bound by the ash of rice husks — material that’s readily at hand and much cheaper than cement. Once a receptacle is full, it can be capped, and after two years, the sediment can be used as compost.
One latrine costs about $25, and since 2008, 2,500 villagers have installed them.
You can learn more about the the Easy Latrine toliet at IDE Canada.
Thank you for the information on the IDE latrine. We’re actually building a latrine as part of our demonstration farm here in Samoa and this information is helpful.
IDE has begun a pilot program to help the poorest buy a latrine. Families pool one dollar a month, and each month the agent builds another latrine. Eventually everyone gets a toilet. Although the program is new, Jacks says the approach seems to work and gradually is helping Cambodia’s rural communities fight disease and improve incomes – with the lowly latrine.
(Thanks to Ned Bresslin of Water for People, whom mentioned this article on his Twitter:
http://twitter.com/NedBreslin You might also follow: http://twitter.com/waterforpeople
as well as http://twitter.com/wateradvocates )
Incidently, Water for People is also in the sanitation space (although I don’t know the price point or their model):
“Water For People is honored to receive this grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It will allow us to test, improve and expand our entrepreneurial Sanitation as a Business program,” said Ned Breslin, Water For People CEO. “Ultimately, we seek to do more than bring sanitation to millions of people in developing countries. We seek to do so in a way that fundamentally transforms the sector. This model will challenge subsidy-driven, loan finance and passive private sector approaches to the global sanitation crisis.”
“Identifying profitable business models that engage local communities is critical to creating safe and sustainable sanitation systems,” said Rachel Cardone, program officer with Water, Sanitation & Hygiene at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “Water For People is developing and testing these kinds of models, which have the potential to scale up across regions and improve the health, economic, and social conditions of millions of poor people.”
Water For People first began experimenting with Sanitation as a Business principles in Malawi, Africa in 2008. Since then, sanitation entrepreneurs have developed ongoing maintenance relationships with households to service over 1,000 latrines.