Sunday 18 August 2013

Reinventing toilets for the urban poor

Sanitation facilities among the urban poor become extremely challenging when considering the proper disposal of feces. Building toilets  is seen as a way to end open defecation and it holds true. However having a mechanism by which the human refuse is also disposed safely is equally important to maximize the benefits of sanitation. In dense cities, laying out sewerage lines is very expensive and septic tanks are not always cleaned. Therefore innovative design methods by which sewage can be treated on-site can become an important solution to problems of sewage disposal in community toilets.


Dr. Koottatep from the Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand has received $5 million dollar grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to research innovative designs of toilet construction. Currently four technology institutes in India and abroad are researching on the invention and prototyping of Decentralized Waste Water Treatment Systems DEWAT that treats waste water at source and converts it into ready for reuse products.


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