Dear Sahidul, once you are loged in, you should be able to see and download the attachments which appears at the end of the post,
Regards Dorothee

Regards to Mbawe and Ibra sow. This is Sahidul from Bangladesh met you in Indah Water Konsortium, Malaysia.
How to get the newsletter?

Thanks,
Sahidul
SNV Netherlands Development Organisation
Bangladesh

Thank you to find enclosed the newsletter “Boues mag” of Program of Structuring of Fecal Sludge Market for the Benefit of poor households in Dakar, Sénégal (ONAS).
Good reception.

Best regards,

Aissatou


Table of contents:

P. 03 Editorial
P. 04 News
P. 04 • Technical Committee of the PSMBV
P. 06 • The call center for pit emptying
P. 07 • Information and sharing with stakeholders at the municipality level
P. 09 Project dynamic
P. 09 • A guarantee fund for empties
P. 12 • Project for flood-prone areas in Pikine and Guédiawaye
P. 14 • Mechanical emptiers in Dakar : profile, work and services offered
P. 16 • Organizing the transportation of fecal sludge: A new approach in progress
P. 18 • Testing Platform for innovative sanitation technologies
P. 20 • Fecal Sludge: A Promising Market
P. 24 Innovation
P. 24 • After the PAQPUD ... towards an innovative and cost-effective management of fecal sludge
P. 28 Focus
P. 28 • Collection and transportation of sludge
P. 33 Interview
P. 33 • M. Ibra SOW, president of the Association of Senegalese Emptiers (AAAS)

Dear Colleagues,

If you start thinking about the post title "Structuring of the fecal sludge market for the benefit of poor households..." I would understand this project is not mainly about technology like e.g. GIS-traking of the whereabouts of "honeysuckers" or de-watering of FS (Omni-Ingestor) at the spot...

If collection and treatment is 100% driven by private service providers as it is stated, should it not start with a clear and transparent line of financial interests involved? About possible profits to be made along the FS-line, from collection of FS to sale of surplus renewable energy produced. If no profits to be made with FS-business, who will cover the losses in future?

Possible way forward:
First the state want to improve FS-situation in Dakar (just a political statement), to do so the state is starting with an incentive (maybe financial supported by WB, EU or AfDB and others):

- Incentive, a clear commitment to purchase (via realistic price) in future ALL surplus renewable energy produced by the current (converted) three and future additional fecal sludge treatment plants (in future several biogas plants + CHP) = biogas-service providers.

- This biogas-service providers having through sale of energy reasonable profits and would have to PURCHASE by then collected fecal sludge from the owners of "honeysuckers", or they establish their own "honeysucker" fleets.

- Any sewage nearly without fecal sludge, as it is currently delivered by Dakar's "honey-suckers", would have no caloric/financial value for the biogas-service providers, therefore less payments. This means, in order to keep quality of delivered FS the "honeysuckers" are paid by the fecal sludge content (TS) delivered only.

Having an energy producing system with an open & transparent financial interests involved, will minimize illegal dumping, as the owner of "honeysuckers" would loos profit and additional it would avoid e.g. costly "gadget systems" of distrust like GIS-traking of the whereabouts of "honeysuckers" and avoid too high maintenance intensive de-watering of FS (Omni-Ingestor) at the spot. For the time being, not functional lance nozzle at nearly all Dakar's "honeysuckers", would be repaired by the owners (without "capacity building"), as functional lance nozzle would increase fecal sludge content during collection and would direct increase payments by biogas-service providers.

Is it too simple and too much "believe" in commercial thinking and interests?

Best Regards,
Detlef SCHWAGER

PS: My suggestion is not at all about any PPP (Public Private Partnership), as "open honesty & transparency on financial interests" are not part of any PPP-business strategies, as democratic controls are explicitly denied by secret treaties. see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public%E2%80%93pri...tnership#Controversy and bankwatch.org/public-private-partnerships

Dear Mbaye,

I have some further questions for you which arose when I listened to your presentation (link above):

(1)
You said that the institutional set-up in Senegal is very clear, and that ONAS is well placed because it is responsible for everything to do with sanitation. On the other hand, up until now, it was not concerned with emptying of septic tanks and pit latrines, as that's done by the private sector. Isn't that a contradiction? Does that mean ONAS was only responsible for piped sanitation until now, and not for non-piped sanitation?

(2)
You said ONAS wants to phase out the manual pit emptying. Which technical solutions do you have in mind to make very thick sludge (bottom layers of pit latrines) pumpable? I can only think of dilution with water. Or converting pit latrines to pour-flush latrines maybe (to reduce the amount of solid waste), like it was proposed by Dave Still in a WRC report in South Africa.

(3)
How well are the 3 faecal sludge treatment plants that are already operational actually working? Do you have photos? When were they built and by whom? Which processes do they use? Which effluent quality do they achieve on the liquid stream? What happens with the solid part (e.g. dried faecal sludge), what is done with that? Any reuse activities?

(4)
You mentioned 2-3 innovative toilet technologies suitable for areas that are prone to flooding. What technologies do you have in mind there? UDDTs perhaps (urine-diverting dry toilets)?

(5)
I didn't understand how this call centre works that you mentioned? Does that mean residents can call up a call centre when they want their septic tank emptied and then get quoted the best possible price for their location?

(6)
Can you tell us more about the proposed biogas plant for faecal sludge treatment (you mentioned co-treatment with other organic waste). Is this entirely funded by the BMGF? Is it a full-scale plant? Why would they fund such a plant for you, what is their reasoning behind it? What is the connection here with China?

(7)
And finally a question about the Omni-ingestor: how far progressed is the development by now? Do you have any photos? Is there a prototype yet?
I read the report by the company Synapse (www.synapse.com/home-page?destination=node/427) (link to the report: susana.org/lang-en/library/library?view=...eitem&type=2&id=1718). The report is pretty interesting (thanks to the BMGF for commissioning the report and sharing it). This could be a big business if such an omni-ingestor could be developed. Mind you, I fear the maintenance issue could be a real headache since already the conventional vacuum tankers are not well maintained usually...

I found this schematic for a possible Omni-Ingestor in the report (susana.org/lang-en/library/library?view=...eitem&type=2&id=1718), is this still the design that is being pursued?

FIGURE 1: FKC System on Omni-Ingestor Trailer (flocculation tank shown in dark blue and rotary thickener in teal):


Thanks in advance for taking the time to answer my questions.

Regards,
Elisabeth

Dear all,

The recording of the presentation of Mbéguéré from our webinar number 5 on "Resource recovery and reuse" on 21 January 2014 is now available.

(All the videos from our webinars with BMGF sanitation grantees held so far are now available here under this one link which leads to a Youtube Playlist:
www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0gMdVBup...ymOPomtqL_XYT5YtLTSK )

Mbaye had to recorded his presentation a second time because the recording from the live event was unfortunately too choppy. We thank Mbaye for agreeing to record it a second time!

Presentation title:
Structuring of the fecal sludge market for the benefit of poor households in Dakar, Senegal
By Mbaye Mbéguéré, Senegal National Sanitation Utility, ONAS, Senegal

You can watch Mbaye's presentation here (sorry about the bright window behind his face which made it hard to make out his face properly; but his voice is very clear):



Powerpoint slides from his presentation are available in the attached file below:


For the benefit of those who can't watch youtube videos very well (according to Wikipedia, these four countries have standing national bans on YouTube: China, Iran, Pakistan, and Turkmenistan), I am highlighting below some main points from Mbaye's presentation which I found important:

1. The current cost of pit desludging is about 130 USD per year per household. This is entirely done by private service providers.
2. The amount of faecal sludge collected in Dakar is predicted to increase rapidly from currently 1500 m3/day to 2500 m3/day in 2030 (imagine all the additional traffic this generates as well!).
3. The plan is that the management of the current three and future additional faecal sludge treatment plants will be by the private sector.
4. ONAS wants to improve with this BMGF-funded project the operation of each component of the sanitation chain (i.e. collection, transport, treatment, reuse).
5. For example in terms of collection: there are areas in Dakar that are prone to flooding. Here the project wants to develop 2-3 innovative toilet technologies for flood prone areas, which should be replicable to other areas (see also here the announcement by their partner Oxfam America: forum.susana.org/forum/categories/95-cal...ood-areas-in-senegal). (would this include UDDTs?)
6. To optimise the transport, ONAS will introduce a licencing and certification process for the operators of the tankers but also for the manual pit emptiers.
7. There is also a call centre for emptying services; more competition amongst the private companies and hence lower prices is expected. (I didn't fully understand who this call centre works).
8. New trucks are being developed (called "Omni-ingestor") which should achieve separation of solids and liquids inside of the truck, whereby clean water would be produced and discharged at the premises, and only the thickened sludge would be transported.
9. The costs of faecal sludge treatment could be reduced via resource recovery initiatives. To this end, a biogas plant for faecal sludge treatment will be built with funding by the BMGF (this is part of a project between China and Senegal). (note this was also mentioned in the discussion above in this thread)
10. Due to this BMGF support: ONAS and pit emptiers are now sitting in the same room together discussing things... this is resulting in an improved relationship between ONAS (national authority) and non-pipe sanitation service providers.

+++++
For the Omni-Ingestor, see also this report:
Frederick, R., Gurski, T. (2012). Synapse Dewatering Investigation Report - Omni-Ingestor Phase 2, Milestone 1. Consultancy report by Synapse (USA) commissioned by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, USA.
susana.org/lang-en/library/library?view=...eitem&type=2&id=1718
+++++

Questions during the webinar and during the re-recording:

(1)
Chris Buckley asked how the team in Dakar tackles emptying of very thick faecal sludge?

Mbaye explained that the vast majority of households in Dakar rely on septic tanks which produce faecal sludge which are very low in total solids, thus, emptying is easier (in contrast to Durban where the majority relies on dry toilets or latrines which limited water use).

Nelson asked in the re-recording also how to empty very thick faecal sludge from pits?

Mbaye's answer:
"We have pumping trucks who collaborate with manual emptiers. The trucks pump the upper liquid part, and afterwards the manual emptiers empty the lower thickened sludge part."


(2)
Chris Buckley asked if a GIS-based tracking system could be used for the sludge trucks (new system in South Africa).

Mbaye explained that the system which will be implemented by ONAS will include a tracking system. Tracking of trucks is useful and relevant; a GIS tracking system is essential. Therefore, all trucks will be geo-localised in future. ONAS will know where the trucks go and could potentially identify illegal dumping of faecal sludge.

Already now they have quite a good system of tracking sludge tankers; they know where they are, illegal dumping is no longer happening in Dakar.

The first contract has been signed for the operation of 3 existing faecal sludge treatment plants (FSTPs) in Dakar. This is important because you cannot police illegal dumping of faecal sludge if the tanker operators have no legal place where the faecal sludge can be dumped and treated properly.


(3)
Jeremy Kohlitz asked about the regulatory framework and institutional set-up.

Mbaye explained that this is very clear in Dakar where everything in terms of sanitation is managed by ONAS (in contrast to other cities where we have overlapping institutional responsibilities). This includes faecal sludge management. ONAS is a strong organisation and working well. The framework in Senegal is very clear.

(4)
Nelson asked if there are health protection measures for manual pit emptiers like in South Africa?

Answer by Mbaye:
"Manual pit emptying is still wide spread. Our objective is to make manual emptying disapper (by 2015: reduced manual emptying, introduce a licencing system). We are not so much focussing on improving the manual pit emptying for this reason."

(5)
Nelson asked about the size of the Omni-Ingestor

Mbaye's answer:
The Omni-ingestor would be processing the faecal sludge on-site with the aim to separate clean water from it, so less water would have to be transported. Currently a vacuum truck can carry about 8 m3 of faecal sludge. This faecal sludge typically has a concentration of 4 g of dry solids per Litre (this means it is quite thin). The Omni-ingestor should thicken this up to 20 gTS/L inside of the tank (i.e. on-site), which means one Omni-ingestor would have the capacity of 5 ordinary trucks (or could empty 5 times as many pits or septic tanks before it is full).



Thanks very much to the presenter (Mbaye) and to the people asking questions during this webinar! Once again, a good presentation raises more questions - I have a few more which I will put in a separate posting later. If others have questions to Mbaye, feel free to ask here.

Regards,
Elisabeth

Dear all,

If you have followed this thread about the research of Mbaye Mbéguéré in Senegal, then you might be interested in participating in the webinar on 21 January 2014 where Mbaye will present about his research project and answer your questions:

+++++++++++++
Tuesday 21 January 2014, 16:30 - 17:15
(CET - Central European Time; use this time converter if you are unsure of the time difference to your location: www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html)

Topic: "Innovation in resource recovery and reuse"

Agenda:

16:30 Recording starts

(1)
VUNA - Valorisation of Urine Nutrients in Africa
By Kai Udert, EAWAG, Switzerland - the project is taking place mainly in South Africa
Previous discussion about it on the forum: forum.susana.org/forum/categories/98-nut...-nutrients-in-africa

(2)
Structuring of the fecal sludge market for the benefit of poor households in Dakar, Senegal
By Mbaye Mbéguéré, Senegal National Sanitation Utility, ONAS, Senegal
Previous discussion about it on the forum: please scrol up

(3)
Modeling the next generation of sanitation systems
By Luiza Campos, University College London, UK
Previous discussion about it on the forum: forum.susana.org/forum/categories/97-ena...ty-college-london-uk

17:15 End of webinar

For more information on how to participate, see in this posting here on the forum:
forum.susana.org/forum/categories/139-ge...mit=12&start=12#6746

Also, I have just made a posting about a call for proposals that has been put up by Oxfam USA who is a partner in this project, please see here on the forum:
forum.susana.org/forum/categories/95-cal...reas-in-senegal#6844

Greetings,
Elisabeth

Dear Mbaye,
Sorry, I read only now in detail about your important topic.
I did not know about when I posted in the right moment a short film about bio-gas community planning and later some good examples of co-digestion from different biomass in a simple AD Reactor.

Even I prefer the simplicity of the ABR, I suggest to make your own comparisons between simple AD reactors, using the attached comprehensive paper of Shinawatra University for starch industry in Thailand only as a guide to do so by experts.

I copied from 2005 ATKINS-Report on past R&D-ABR`s by OCSD, USA an important section:

Anaerobic or aerobic treatment?

...The treatment of domestic and industrial waste-water is often undertaken via
biological means, as opposed to physical-chemical methods, primarily because of
lower costs. However, due to a number of misconceptions, aerobic rather than
anaerobic treatment is often the chosen treatment method. These misconceptions
include the perception that anaerobic treatment is poor for treating low strength
wastes (COD < 1000 mg/l), cannot tolerate inhibitory compounds, cannot operate at
low temperatures (<35 0C) and has poor removal efficiencies.

However, aerobic treatment is plagued by the problem of bulking sludges (which can
cause catastrophic process failure), it produces large amounts of waste activated
sludge (which has to be treated before disposal) and it consumes substantial amounts of energy b]1 kWh/m3[/b. In the last 15 [25] years, considerable advances have been made in understanding the complex microbial processes that occur in anaerobic digestion and in designing reactors suitable for the process.

One of the major problems confronting engineers working in this field was due to the
slow growth rate of mixed anaerobic cultures and the long residence times required
for effective solids digestion. This resulted in very large (and costly) vessels.
Furthermore, due to very low yield coefficients with dilute feeds (500 mg/l COD) the
biomass that develops is very dilute without substantial cell recycle. Hence, the
challenge has been to develop a reactor that enables the hydraulic retention time
(HRT) to be separated from the cell or solids retention time (SRT).

The development of such a reactor began in 1969 with the anaerobic filter (AF), and
then with the anaerobic attached film fluidized bed, and culminated with the up-flow
anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB). The UASB has been used extensively in many countries for the treatment of strong industrial wastes. Although the UASB has many advantages, it sometimes takes many months for the granules to develop, on which its operation depends, and it is susceptible to hydraulic and organic shock loads.

The Anaerobic Baffled Reactor (ABR) is a development in the design of anaerobic
digestion reactors. The ABR consists of a series of baffled compartments containing
freely suspended biomass through which the wastewater is forced to flow. The ABR
does not require the presence of granules to operate, and has been proven (in laboratory, pilot and full scale trials) to be very robust to most types of shocks.

What is an Anaerobic Baffled Reactor (ABR)
An Anaerobic Baffled Reactor (ABR) is a waste-water treatment technology that uses
baffles to create multiple treatment zones in a primary clarifier. A sludge blanket is
established in each baffled zone, and different microbiological populations establish
themselves in each zone. The overall effect is to provide both primary treatment
(solids settlement) and sludge destruction in a single basin. This compartmentalized
design separates the solids retention time (SRT) from the hydraulic retention time
(HRT), so waste-water can be treated anaerobically at short retention times
(comparable to ordinary primary treatment retention times).

ABRs can be viewed both as an alternative to primary clarification and as partial
anaerobic secondary treatment providing in situ solids destruction. The ABR design
being tested by OCSD is intended specifically to be a retrofit to existing primary
basins. Previous demonstrations have been designed to create multiple
compartments using baffles such that the up-flow velocity [m/h] in each compartment does
not cause substantial wash-out of the solids blanket. The number of compartments
can be varied and for the purposes of the pilot demonstration at Orange County five
compartments were used.

[ABR = multistage AD Reactor]
Methane fermentation is the consequence of a series of metabolic interactions among
various groups of microorganisms. The first group of microorganisms secrete
enzymes which hydrolyze polymeric materials to monomers such as glucose and
amino acids which are subsequently converted to higher volatile acids and acetic
acid. In the second stage, hydrogen-producing acetogenic bacteria convert the
higher volatile fatty acids (propionic and butyric) to produce hydrogen, carbon dioxide
and acetic acid. Finally, the third group, methanogenic bacteria convert hydrogen,
carbon dioxide and acetate to methane and carbon dioxide. ...

Best Regards,
Detlef

Dear Mbaye,

Thanks for the fast reply!
You answered my questions quite well
Wishing you success with the progress of the project,
Naomi

Dear Naomi,

Thank you for your interest in our project.

We can say that all Dakar emptiers who own these 138 trucks, participate in our project. They are organized themselves in association and are even members of the coordination of the program.

We set up a call center from which emptiers are invited to submit tenders for emptying. The objective is to put these emptiers in competition not only to fight against collusion but also get lower prices for poor households. The first assessment of the call center goes in this direction.

It exists three Fecal Sludge Treatment Plant (FSTP) in Dakar and the program will build a fourth. These four stations reduce the distance made by emptiers to dump the content of their trucks, reducing thus their fuel consumption.

With 1500 m3 of fecal sludge daily produced in Dakar, 138 trucks can be considered excessive. Either way, the market will regulate itself especially in a context where ONAS will introduce a license to practice the emptying activity and only emptiers who respect the standards will practice this activity.

The objective of the program is to increase the demand for mechanical emptying by organizing a campaign to abandon the manual emptying and lower the costs of emptying (establishment of processing stations near households, increasing competition between emptiers via the call center, easy access to credit, ...).

Hopefully I answered to all your question.

Once again thank you!

Mbaye

Dear Mbaye,
this sounds like a very interesting project.
Having an economical background, I had some questions coming up:
How many desludging truck operators are participating in your call in center pilot project? I have read in your attached presentation that 138 desludging truck operators already exist in Dakar – are all of them participating?

Are there first indications whether the competition creates prices for mechanical desludging that are better accepted by the consuming households leading to less manual desludging?

Is the main problem that inhibits a functioning market for mechanical fecal sludge treatment 1) the lack of treatment facilities 2) or also the excess of desludging truck operators (138 is a fair number!) or 3) the lack of demand due to high prices or 4) collusion?

All the best to you and the project progress,

Naomi

Dear Frederik

Thank you for your relevant analysis. I think the future of sanitation (especially fecal sludge management) depend on a greater involvement of the private sector. It requires, as you say, the implementation of an enabling environment for the development of a profitable business around sanitation. Demand is high, the potential generation of added value based on sanitation services exists, it needs just a strong public sector to hold the system.

We would be happy to welcome you in Dakar to share lessons learned and learn from you. It is also an objective of this forum.

Kindest regards,

Mbaye