Hi Elizabeth,

I apologize for this late reply. We are currently working on the Roll-out of the PTS hopefully by early next year.

In your inquiry, the Pilot with the Clean Team toilet was on 2015, and I was not yet part of the PTS team beforehand. It was shared to me by the team back then. I have also attached in this discussion the presentation material that was made way back in 2015 to describe what has happened during that test trial.

During the Pilot, we had a total of 33 household that participated however only 26 HH have experienced both toilets due to pullouts because of transfer of residence, unfamiliarity to the PTS, or preference to old ways (i.e using neighbor's toilet). Our Year 1 scale up plan will involve a total of 100 HH on Brgy. Macabling.

The reason for the tempered scale is to validate the findings we had during the pilot especially on the "change of behaviour" and implement our revised business plan to make the PTS more sustainable. As for the toilet on the roll-out, we will be using Loowatt's toilet considering the high acceptance from our pilot participants.

Regards,
Cyril

Dear Cyril,

Oh wow that must have been a powerful chemical in the blue liquid that the Clean Team used for odor control in their container-based sanitation systems! To upset the process of a treatment plant with a capacity of 11 ML/d you either have to have a very toxic component, or a lot of it. What was their reaction when you told them about the problems with your treatment plant?

How many people are currently using the portable toilet systems (Lixil and Loowatt) in those pilots of Manila Water Enterprise?

Regards,
Elisabeth

Hi Elizabeth,

Thank you for your response.

Our treatment plant has a total capacity of 11 MLD for sewage and 70 cubic meter per day for septage. The upset was due to the chemical that killed the bacteria in our aeration tanks that lead to increase effluent parameters that we monitor. The saw dust also induced also posed some difficulty to the operations of the treatment plant.

So far the PTS solution from both Loowatt and Lixil didn't pose any issues with our Treatment Plant.

Cyril

Dear Cyril,

Thanks for your response. Please do keep us posted about your progress with this initiative. I wish we had more people from water utilities join us here on the forum like you have done.

Interesting that you said: "Clean Team Toilet, however, during our trial run they odor and waste mitigation process contributed to the process upset of our Sewage-Septage Treatment Plant (SSpTP)". I remember previous discussions about their "blue liquid" (forum.susana.org/253-mobile-toilets-cont...agement?limitstart=0)

That's surprising though that the content of a few of those Clean Team Toilets manage to upset a whole large treatment plant! Or was it a really small treatment plant?

Regards,
Elisabeth

Hi Elisabeth,

Thank you for your query.

1. We have started piloting the PTS way back in 2014 with the Clean Team Toilet, however, during our trial run they odor and waste mitigation process contributed to the process upset of our Sewage-Septage Treatment Plan (SSpTP). Toilet Board Coalition and one of its members, LIXIL, got in touch with us on developing a CBS solution way back in 2015 and our initial pilot on 2016. However, the study involved only 2 families hence our Senior Management request for a Large scale pilot. GCC funded these recently concluded Pilot and one of the requirements that we need was to test a different CBS technology which they suggested Loowatt as they were previous recipients of GCC funding.

2. We didn't put any photographs of the toilet technologies as these are still prototypes and we are on a NDA with both vendors. We appreciate both vendors for developing and innovating on toilet solutions that focused on our needs.

3. We are now preparing to present the results of this study to our New Business Investment Committee at Manila Water. We are readying for a Scale-up of the PTS and potential implementation to other subsidiaries of Manila Water Enterprise.

Thank you for the articles.

Regards,
Cyril

Dear Cyril!

Welcome to this discussion forum! What prompted you to make this post here?

Very interesting report. May I ask some small questions:
- Why did you choose these two particular portable toilet types - Lixil and Loowatt? What kind of pre-selection was done, why not others, too?
- I couldn't figure out what the Lixil toilet looks like, there was no photos in your report either or did I miss them? From Lixil I only know SaTo pan but that's not for a portable toilet. The Loowatt one I know - we also had it on the forum here: forum.susana.org/170-shared-toilets-comm...-madagascar?start=12
- What's the way forward from here for Laguna Water? Can you integrate the portable toilet systems into your business model? (if you're interested, some other similar toilets - called container based systems - have been discussed on the forum here: forum.susana.org/253-mobile-toilets-cont...ts-bag-based-toilets We also have a Wikipedia article about this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container-based_sanitation )

Regards,
Elisabeth

Note by moderator (EvM): the text below is a copy of the abstract from the attached report:
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The Laguna AAAWater Corporation (Laguna Water) provides water services to approximately 80% of households in the cities of Biñan, Sta. Rosa, and Cabuyao, in the Province of Laguna, Philippines. Part of their expansion plan includes the consideration of various options on wastewater management programs.

In line with this, Laguna Water secured a grant from Grand Challenges Canada to conduct a two-phase pilot study that facilitates the scalability and replicability of the portable toilet system model tucked in our Utility Business Model, the model describes the cross-subsidy of Water Revenues to support the operations and maintenance of our Used Water Services after the collection of Environmental Fees. The report attached covers an assessment of Phase II of the Portable Toilet Solution Project, which involved continued testing of two prototype systems with 30 target households in Barangays Don Jose, Pooc, and Macabling, Sta. Rosa, Laguna.

This report details the comparison of the two prototype systems, by vendors LIXIL Group Corporation and Loowatt Ltd., through a Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA). This report also details the baseline water quality analysis and the project risk assessment. The findings detailed in this report are the result of consolidating and cross-validating information and data from interviews, observations and discussions, logging of portable toilet use and cleaning machine use and water consumption, and water sampling.

The MCA scores were based on the identified criterion: financial, environmental, health and safety, customer satisfaction and ability to scale up the business. Each criterion were given specific weights and corresponding scores for each technology. Overall, Loowatt’s system is the recommended PTS with a total MCA score of 87.48% as compared to LIXIL’s system with a MCA score of 54.18%. Loowatt’s system is preferred in terms of financial, environmental and customer satisfaction criterion. LIXIL’s system is preferred in terms of health and safety, and ability to scale up criterion.

Water sampling from four sampling stations reveal that there is high level of BOD and total coliform in Barangays Macabling and Pooc sites of the pilot study, which can be attributed to the improper disposal and treatment of human excrements in the area. Risk assessment identified extreme risks such as insufficient funding, difficulty in land acquisition, possible theft of AS/IBS equipment and potential migration or resettlement of households. Mitigation measures are recommended for each of the identified risks.

The Laguna Water team are excited to share and describe our experiences during the 4-month Pilot Study we recently concluded and on the current phase of presenting our findings to our Top Management for possible roll-out in the coming months.