Dear Doreen,
Please note that our office Address is Clearly stated in our Web page (www.ecolooafrica.com) and a map indicating our current location.That is a fact.
We are in Kileleshwa 11 Kangundo Road next to Evans Kidero Centre.My Mobile No is +254 726227737.
We are well established and Our Ecoloo single unit is currently being used by All our Staff at the office premises.
We will appreciate hosting you in our offices.

Indeed Ecoloo is an amazing sustainable toilet technology


--
With Kind Regards,
Abdifatah Mohamed
(Managing Partner)
EcoLoo Africa Ltd
Kileleshwa, Plot No. 11 Kagundo Road,
P.O. Box 7661 – 00100 Nairobi.
Cell: (+254) 726 227 737, (+254) 725 484 837
Office: (+254) 20 230 5204 | Fax: (+254) 20 258 7866
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Website: www.ecolooafrica.com
Skype Id: ecoloo.africa
“Sustainable toilet technology”
No Odour, No Pollution, No maintenance, No water flushing, No energy consumption

Dear Christoph,

I am also clueless about how the toilets look like as I have not seen any of them here in Kenya.
Imad could you inform us where the toilets are situated here in Nairobi? That way I can go and use one and take pictures for colleagues here. In addition, since they are already currently in use, why don't you post some pictures here?

I think the pictures would be able to answer a lot of our questions.

Thanks and best regards,

Doreen

Dear Elisabeth,
Thank you for refering to the former discussion. I don´t want the discussion to get into personal opinions and disputes again, as I have pointed out already at that time. My point is to understand the process and the technical implementation that are justifying the statements as announced.

Dear Christopher, of course, there is a need for a certain volume to achieve a complete composting process for hygienic reasons and to receive a compost-like end product. To reduce volume and speed up the process, one has to intensify the biological activity and decomposition by additives and facilities like they do e.g. in a compost plant.

As far as I could see, both systems use an IBC container of about 1 cbm volume, at least for seasonal use. There is a larger container by CompostEra for year-round use. Further I could see that both systems are equipped with an outlet for discharge of leachate. So there must be a kind of drainage inside for surplus fluids, which is state of the art in many composting systems.

Dear Imad, perhaps it would help the discussion and the explanation of your statements, if we know more about the patent pending, which is announced in the Ecoloo brochure. Maybe it offers more substance for an objective assessment and understanding.

Best regards

Wolfgang

Dear all,

About the CompostEra question and what EcoLoo has to do with it - whether it is different or a "copy" - we have actually had a "friendly" conversation about this here on the forum before:
forum.susana.org/forum/categories/87-new...ation-of-susana#1891

I think we didn't reach a conclusion at the time, but heard both sides of the story (i.e. the story of Carl from CompostEra and from Imad from EcoLoo). My personal conclusion was that the compost toilet market seems to be hotly fought over somehow...
Anyhow.

I have another question:

Imad wrote:

We have units installed in some Countries now such as Sweden, Kenya, Malaysia and South Korea. If you have any doubts, please visit any of our up and running facilities and give it a try. Seeing is believing. Doreen might assist you in testing the unit in Nairobi on your behalf and give you her honest experience and feedback.

Yes, seeing would be nice, but not everyone of us can travel to Sweden, Kenya, Malaysia or South Korea.
As we do have quite a few forum members from Kenya, perhaps some of them can tell us something about your toilets there. Are they all in Nairobi?

How many toilets have you sold outside of Sweden (roughly)? Are they mainly in towns or in the country side?
How many are in Kenya and where in Kenya (is this information available on your website? I checked your references page on your website (www.ecoloogroup.com/references.html) but couldn't find this information.

Kind regards,
Elisabeth

Hi Wolfgang,
I looked up the COMPOSTera
seems to me that they still work with a large container. Why do you compare?

Hi Doreen,
as Imand mentined your expereinces... could you provide us with some of your pictures? Is ist really just the small house or is there a container below? Colud you provide fotos from the back and the chamber? 70 °C ("burning feces") seems to be a very "hot" toilet to me... could you comment?

Hi Imand,
thanks for your understanding. are you able so to feed us with some more information?

Yours
Christoph

Dear Imad,

Thank you for introducing the Ecoloo dry toilet system. However, the same kind of promotion reminds me to the CompostEra toilet system. It would be interesting to learn about the possible differences between the Ecoloo and the CompostEra toilet system.
Thank you in advance.
Best regards

Wolfgang

Dear Christoph,

Thank you for the feedback, and I can understand that you have many questions and feel skeptical, but you are not the only one who feels that

Clivus Multrum previous owner as well as the new owner are very good friends to me and partners and we did some projects together in the past and we are going to cooperate in the near future for this new ECOLOO. You must have met Torbjörn Lindström while you visited the composting facility in Sweden. A very humble and nice person.

The references are for a normal composting toilets developed by Clivus and no updates have been done for a long while as this new solution I developed is now in mass production fase and distributed through our offices around the World.

We have units installed in some Countries now such as Sweden, Kenya, Malaysia and South Korea. If you have any doubts, please visit any of our up and running facilities and give it a try. Seeing is believing. Doreen might assist you in testing the unit in Nairobi on your behalf and give you her honest experience and feedback.

We don't sell the bacteria. We sell a whole toilet system together with the bacteria as a package including support and awareness program.

As you can see on the image you sent, a ventilation pipe is connected to the base. A wind-powered (or any other renewable energy source) fan is used to supply oxygen to our system.

Dear Imad,

I read the material posted by Doreen (thanks Doreen). Basically you write as if you found the solution the BMGF is searching for. So I would say – all the research groups reinvent the toilet should stop their work - the solution is here.

You are stating some aspects which are wrong or misleading from my understanding. I admit that I am skeptical when I read advertisements with wrong information but very strong affirmations, which do not give the information necessary to build an own idea. As I hope you are not one of the many "I sell wonder bacteria" sellers I would like to point out my understanding and please correct me were I´m wrong:

• You use bacteria - and those do the work. You don´t need a separation in the bowl.
• Even though you don´t do a separation, the final product is ashes!! in one chamber and liquid fertilizer on the other.
• You are not using energy to dry or separate the material. Evaporation and gravity and the “burning process” brings the water content down to the point that the solids are totally dry.
• The bacteria do a nitrification process (you named it nitrification) so there is a very strong need for oxygen
• The bacteria transform the product into ashes (which means a burning process above 70 °C at least).
• The lifespan for the ashes removal is up to 20 years. (I guess 1 person using the toilet once a day?)
• The picture of the toilet gives an impression as if this toilet has the same size as o normal VIP or UDDT toilet.



From the overall description your solution seems to be a very fast and super reduced compost toilet, with the difference that your bacteria overcome all the typical problems of compost toilets. I remember very well my visits to Clivus multrum composting toilets where the whole basement is full with a container (several m³ - Wolfgang could you perhaps comment why you need so much space for composting? Or am I on the wrong track?) which has a separation grid. They get out a liquid as you describe, in a lower chamber by “gravity pull”.

Most compost toilets need at least a fan to enhance air flow. I never heard of compost toilet which came to “burning” the feces. The material has to be removed about once a year and it is not recommendable to use just feces and urine as there is a need for structural material.

Apparently you overcame all these aspects adding bacteria (as it is the only difference I am able to see). Your chamber seems to be about 30 times smaller, the material can stay in the chamber for much longer cycles (about 10 times more), so we are at a solution which found a way to reduce volume requirements by factor 300. All the others developers must be really pissed.

A solution which burns (as the rest is ashes) the feces (seems impossible to me) and reduces volume with the bacteria mix by factor 300 (seems impossible to me) and gets to nitrification of urine (which is normally a very, very hard problem and very energy consuming – maybe the EAWAG people could comment?) without aeration (seems impossible to me) and does not give my more food to think about, I would classify as “wonder”.

To our Swedish colleagues – could you comment on experiences, because there are some references on the site , but I had the impression that these are normal composting toilet references.


Imad, I apologize to be so skeptical but we have seen too much rubbish on this Forum, please help us out with some more sientific information.

Regards
Christoph

Dear Doreen,

ECOLOO - Sustainable Toilet Technology is an odor free and sewage free system. This system involves the collection of waste and the treatment of both solid and liquid waste, using special formulated bacteria which is safe to use and effective only on human waste. The toilet works without connection to an energy and sewage system.

It's a dry toilet, water is used for hygiene purposes instead of flushing. It can be used for both family and community in urban slum areas, public events, hospitals, schools, construction or mining sites or residential areas. It can be located both indoor and outdoor.

ECOLOO base is made of a 2-tier chamber: the upper chamber is where human waste including urine (not urine diversion system) is collected and treated by bacteria whilst the lower chamber is where the organic fertilizer in liquid form is rendered to by gravity using no water to flush.

ECOLOO has only one chamber with one hole and all the waste, including toilet paper, urine or wash water, will all go down naturally by the pull of gravity into the upper chamber. Users have an option to dry flush the solid waste by flattening it with a special built-in mechanical device.

The end product is partly a brownish liquid fertilizer (NH4NO3-ammonium nitrite & ammonium nitrate) rich in nutrients and free from odor and pathogens (organisms generating diseases).

The ECOLOO facilities have now been installed at different locations in Sweden, Korea, Malaysia & Africa (Kenya) for both, public and private use. (you can contact our office in Nairobi for further information and if you need to visit the facility).

Please visit: wwww.ecolooafrica.com or www.ecoloogroup.com for contact details.

Dear Imad,

I received the following documents which are attached to this post from Ulrike that you sent to her. I still have some questions:

- Can you please send us pictures of the inside of the toilet?
- What type of bacteria are you adding?
- So its a dry toilet? right?
- How does the waste look once you have treated it?
- Can you please post pictures of the vaults please?
- Where have you tested the toilet?







Thanks and best regards,

Doreen

Dear Imad,

Thank you for the information. Just like Ulrike I have quite a number of questions regarding the technology behind Ecoloo. Could you please elaborate for us here in the forum exactly how it functions? Where does the urine and faeces go? Is it separated? How does the treatment actually take place?

We look forward to your feedback.

Best regards,

Doreen

Dear Imad

Thanks for the information. Your toilet sounds very interesting. Could you please give us some more technical details (technical data sheet or brochure)? In particular:
- Is it a urine-diverting toilet? How does the separation work and where do faeces and urine go?
- Where does the long-term composting take place?
- What are the urine fertilizer production processes and where do they take place?
- How much energy do the urine processes require?

Thanks and kind regards
Ulrike