Hi Mona:
REQUEST FOR INFORMATION REGARDING MASS PRODUCING A TOILET IN PLASTIC

Hi Mona:
I have designed a new type of UDDT – and created a prototype in fibreglass. It is a simple design with no mechanical parts except for toilet seat hinges. I posted it
in workgroup 4 and had some very positive replies, with potential for field trials
in India and full production. My plan is to go into full production worldwide to
meet global demand. My plan is to sell production rights under license, after field trials.

I would like to find out the following and wonder if you could help me?

•The price for each separate part for production – and the total cost for finished product ie; one UDDT complete
• The tooling up costs for each part. Can you do the tooling up?
• How long it would take to tool up & would you require me to do the autoCAD
• Which type of plastic to be used for a quality product (recycled if possible)
• Outputs – how many could be produced in a day on one machine (or set of machines)
NOTE: a very smooth surface would be preferred for the part with the urinal.

Would you be willing or able to manufacture this product in plastic? I was initially planning to do 100 units for field trials in fibreglass (here in Cambodia) but if you can do it that would also be great. You would just need to give me a price for 100.

I am currently writing up a business plan for an NGO in India and hope to start field trials in the first quarter of 2015

Please find attached a pdf photofile and details of Prototype 1 in fibreglass
I have also attached the proposal I've been sending out to NGO's as it has a lot of data in it.
PS: I can get the hinges made here in Cambodia.
PPS: congratulations on your own MoSan - I know how challenging it is to get that far : )

Thank you
Best regards
G A ‘ Mike’ Carmichael
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eco1solutions.com

Example of Rickshaws use for toilet waste collection in Bangladesh:
practicalaction.org/blog/news/safer-citi...sanitation-projects/

I doubt one could move a 200kg loaded rickshaw with all the hills (and badly maintained road-sides) here in Kampala though. Never the less, cheap and convenient transport is probably the missing link for a full sanitation service provision chain.

Hello Kris, what a great website and article. Indeed Im very interested in low-tech collection devices for informal settlements - the home for the MoSan toilet
Just today I talked with Sanivation about the challenges of up-scaling a container-based sanitation solutions. It all depends on the collection and transport. Sanergy does a great job and shows that it is possible, even with big and heavy feces buckets from public toilets. For a household toilet, like the MoSan, the challenge is to keep the collection as low-cost as possible. On one hand we want to provide an always fresh toilet to the user, on the other hand the cost rises if multiple people are emploeyed to collect a high number of buckets several times per week. I admit, we are still looking for the best compromise between convenience and cost. Luckily a few MoSan prototypes are still in use in Kenya, so we are able to test different options.

Thanks again for the link!
Mona

@Mona

I saw on your website that you are looking into non-motorized fecal sludge transportation options. Ever since reading about the Chinese wheelbarrow type here: www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/12/the-chinese-wheelbarrow.html I thought this would be a great option for transporting fecal sludge through the narrow roads of a typical informal settlement.
Maybe something to look into?

Time for more updates, here some findings from the field work in Karagita/ Kenya in February 2014!

I asked users to deliver their inner feces containers from the MoSan to our central treatment site, where Sanivation's concentrator is located.
- We had little time to find people who are willing to try it. Either people were busy preparing their crops, others find it more convenient that the collector comes to their house and others were limited in mobility (disabled person and mother with children)
- to simplify the container collection, I still think the deliverance/ drop off of feces containers by users themselves could be an alternative, but it is important to have well planned servicing zones and short ways till the next "Treatment Site"
- in this case the container plays a more important role. it does not only need to fulfill technical requirements for safe transport, also cultural and aesthetical. people will be more willing to carry "a bucket of shit" if it transports attributes like cleanliness, hygiene and supports the idea of sanitation as a status symbol!

During collection times, people were not at home and we had to deal with delays:
- one solution is to place container outside the house at a safe place (e.g. behind the gate)
- in this case, the container needs an outstanding design or labeling to avoid stealing and confusion with existing containers in the neighborhood

Another interesting fact is that users prefer a male collector!
- the reason is that women are more likely to do gossip and are more curious regarding your home and privacy. Users explained that our male collector is perfect for the job, because he is just doing his business and not paying attention to your house and private things.

In Kenya people buy things usually on demand (single-portion packages for tea, coffee, washing powder, phone credit in very low amounts, etc.)
- this should be considered when designing the payment options for the sanitation service, e.g. pay per week or number of collections per month
- in Kenya phone payments are very common and famous. It could be possible to transfer a small fee after each collection

I will upload a flickr photo album and share more pictures with you!

All the best,
Mona



The collector service: The user asked the collector to enter her house and do the replacement inside.

Dear Krischan, thanks so much for sharing the envirosan!
I wish I could have joined the "Unclogging the Blockages in Sanitation" conference in Uganda in February to meet you in person and share ideas. Unfortunately I could not make it on a short notice.
I saw the Envirosan toilet at Eawag in Zurich and really liked it. Kentainers in Kenya has a very similar toilet, but produced in a little lower quality: flic.kr/p/bv4mSs

And yes, actually I am looking for ways to up-scale the MoSan production. We will do another pilot with 8 prototypes this year and afterwards look for ways to lower the cost and decide on the production location. Many conversations with engineers and manufacturer are ahead!
I will definitely get in touch with Envirosan. Thanks again for sharing!

Hello everyone,
I have to apologize for my absence from time to time. I really love the SuSanA forum, just sometimes when being very busy and traveling a lot, it can be difficult to keep track of the huge amount of knowledge shared.

Thanks Chris, Christoph, Krischan and Joe for sharing the discussion about dried feces as cover material.
I see the risk when people handling dried feces the feeling of cleanliness and hygiene is not given. Even when a scoop is used, people handle shit. From interviews in Kenya I learned that some people even feel ashamed to look back into the toilet to do any covering. A health-worker from Naivasha explained to me that is why she is teaching people the importance to look back and pay attention to your poop, especially when being sick. She said, that most people feel ashamed to do so, no matter where and how the toilet looks.
Also with the MoSan we had cases, where people did not cover feces sufficiently with ash. It is difficult to find the reasons, since most users have plenty of ash. The behavior change of looking into the toilet for covering your own poop could be one reason. But usually when people realize that the smell can be avoided, the covering gets better!


I wanted to share some news with you. Just a few weeks ago, the MoSan toilet was published in the book "A Collection of Contemporary Toilet Designs". Many other great toilet designs are collected and briefly explained. Links for further information are provided. The book can be ordered for £19.95 or downloaded for free! Many thanks to EOOS for selecting MoSan and publishing it!!!
Publisher: EOOS and WEDC Loughborough, UK, Author: Rod Shaw
wedc-knowledge.lboro.ac.uk/details.html?id=21302
Bernhard from EOOS also posted the book on SuSanA > Urine diversion systems (includes UDDT and UD flush toilet)



source: wedc.lboro.ac.uk/resources/books/Contemp...y_Toilet_Designs.pdf; page 23

christoph, I've been thinking about this for some time since the above discussions. Would you agree that this comes down to a perception of risk?

Compared to open defecation, UDDT dried faeces is very likely to be an improvement. One might say that the risk has significantly reduced.

On the other hand, the absolute risk of infection from dried UDDT faeces calculated by a form of Microbiological Risk Assessment might be higher than many/most people think is acceptable. Generally it appears to me that those who are looking for engineering-type solutions take a 'better than it was' approach, those looking at it from a microbiological standpoint are more likely to think that this is not 'good enough'.

It sometimes feels like we're looking at the problem down two opposite ends of a telescope.

I spent some time looking for academic papers considering the risks of different sanitation schemes, and my opinion (for what it is worth) is that the risks of handling any 'untreated' faeces is high, where 'untreated' refers to any system which is not monitored by professionals, preferably with access to regular microbiological batch testing. The risk can be reduced successfully to levels that are acceptable by having several different consecutive treatments and by taking precautions (such as thinking about where the resulting compost is being used, using gloves and so on).

It seems to me that until we have an agreed absolute standard of microbiological infection risk which we can test any given sanitation intervention against, we are always going to continue having these discussions - because almost anyone can come up with a system which is 'better' than open defecation, but still produces a finished material that is dangerous.

And another quick thought - there is a danger in someone who obviously has a lot of skill and experience in doing something safely encouraging others to do it when they might well have a lot less skill and care in doing it.

Hello Mona

With the pilot running (being finished?) are there any plans to scale up production?

At the SaaB conference this week here in Kampala a South African company presented their Ecosan products, and I believe they could be a good company to produce the MoSan also.

envirosan.co.za/

They produce for example the urine diverting plastic seat you can see in the attached picture. Interestingly they use a special plastic that sweats out a wax which makes cleaning especially easy.

Hi Mona,
this post in fact is more for you than for Chris, but I adress Chris as he brought up the issue again.

Dear Chris,
Those of us who use this forum frequently are well aware of your idea of direct „reuse“ for the dried feces. As I would not like to repeat all the discussion we had about this, I will just post some of the entries where we discussed the subject and in my opinion it does not get less critical, just because you mention it over and over again. I understand you are convinced that it is right to use is, but please respect that are some doubts out there.

Not to force those with doubt, to answer always (as I´m doing now), I think it would be good, when you mention the concept again to write something as “although we have dicussed it several times on the forum ia a controverse manner, I would like to suggest…… and the full discussion can be found here…. and than mention an entry.

Here some entries to the discussion.
forum.susana.org/forum/categories/17-fer...rt-of-processing#599
You mentioned it in post 596,
You mentioned it in post 793,
It has been discussed largely and been answered by Elisabeth in Post 4133
forum.susana.org/forum/categories/34-uri...by-giz-now-published

And if they use lower-quality compost with their bare hands when they grab a fist full from a bucket (even with a scoop), they could end up with pathogens on their hands. An average user has no way of knowing if a compost is "finished and safe" or not (yet), i.e. whether it still contains Ascaris eggs or not. So could be a little risky.

You mentioned it in post 3901 where you mention as well that it is critically seen in the UDDT tech review.

This is just to clarify to Mona that Chris idea is not common opinion.

Yours
Christoph

Hi Mona,

Both dried ex-feces and composted ex-feces would be excellent as cover material in UDDTs, and the difference between the two is not so great as many may think. In fact, this is more of a gradient than a dichotomy, given variation in temperatures, humidity of the air, thickness of the pile, type of container, etc. What we use here in the great humidity of the Amazon is somewhere in between: we store sacks of feces and recycled cover material on sticks on the ground (to keep them from absorbing moisture from the soil), under a house so they are protected from the rain and sun, for over a year. Then we sift it and see that there are abundant fungi of white and other colors, in addition to all the black humus. Sometimes the deposits maintain their original shape, but are nonetheless converted to humus and fungus. Next we set it in buckets in our simple solar dryer for roughly a week, to have it as dry as possible before reuse.

Closing the cut-off 6-liter PET bottle would not be complicated. I would put a mesh or cloth over the top, then push a 3-cm-thick ring cut from a 16-cm-diameter PVC pipe to hold the mesh firmly in place. Then, a lid on top that is loose enough to allow for gas exchange.

Yes, it is very important to teach our users and then test them to make sure they will properly manage their UDDTs before we build them. MoSan can be a great tool for this.

Best wishes,
Chris Canaday

Sanivation kindly made this great video with interviews of MoSan toilet users from Naivasha in Kenya. Many thanks again!