Dear John and other SuSanA members

MARI has conducted research study on Faecal Sludge Management in 25 Slums in Warangal Municipal Corporation. I was associated as a technical consultant in the study. We have devised survey formats for collection of primary data from the slums and conducted FGDs with all stakeholders. With the help of these tools, we analysed the existing sanitation status and recommended slumwise potential initiatives for improving sanitation (FSM and DEWATS) initiatives and a consolidated city potential initiatives for improving slum sanitation.

Warm regards G. Kondala Rao

Hi John and other SuSanA members.

John’s original post hasn’t received any responses in a while so I thought I would post something just to make it active again. Surely there have been further development in FSM technology in the last few years. If you are working on something, or know of someone working on something, that other members would be interested in, please mention it on this thread (even if there is already mention of it elsewhere). Posting the SuSanA site can raise awareness of what research and development is going on, who the stakeholders are, identify technical roadblocks that others may be solving, and expedite solution delivery (presumably the main objective of all of us).

I recently completed a small landscape analysis of what FSM tech is in development (concept through testing) or available. I’ll post a table soon that includes information I compiled. Maybe that can become a working document for John’s thread.

Regards,

Andrew

Hi John,

Beaumont has been managing the Omni-Ingestor (OI) project on behalf of the BMGF for a few years and actively involved in developing some of the systems and subsystems of the OI. Feel free to contact me about what you are looking to design and if I can't help, I might be able to point you in the right direction.

Cheers,

Andrew

if it is mobile then it needs to package well - as in deploy, assemble, work, demount (and clean) and redeploy.
I have spent years rabbitting - since late 2010 during Haiti - on about the potential benefits of mobile, flatpack raised latrines.
Contain the waste effectively in the first place and it is easier to come up with local resource maintenance/extraction/processing.
I presented the idea as a CAD at a UNESCO water meet in Holland in 2012.
Now my company, AirCell Structures, is finalising pre-production samples of a complete flatpack latrine and raised latrine 800litre tank kit that flatpacks onto a standard 120*80cms pallet.
The latrine structure can accept a direct drop squat or sit-on plate or a proprietary loo and the tank box can utilise standard 240L oil drums or our custom 800L bag. Extraction is design for either vac-sucking through a rear hatch or you can slide the oil drums out and drag them off on our 'sludge-sledge'.
It is designed to work anywhere and to provide a robust and dignified solution to the major problem in world sanitation!

Hi Sebastien,

Great ideas. However, what I am looking / hoping for is something that gives the experience of the pour flush toilet and that also is off set, so not a direct drop like these models you mentioned. Ideas?

John

Hi John,

Regarding your mobile septic idea, I would advocate for household-level container-based sanitation, as practiced by x-runner in Peru, SOIL in Haiti, CleanTeam in Ghana, and Sanivation in Kenya as the right way to provide service to residents who have transient or uncertain land tenure. The toilets that all these services use are easy to transport to a new home for uninterrupted service.

Initial results from the pilot service we at re.source helped set up with SOIL can be found in this open-access peer-reviewed paper just published, and another one by Kory Russel that will be published in October.

Cheers

Hi John,

Coming back to the original topic (and as you know) Mott MacDonald and Cambridge Uni have been working together on R&D, to date mostly focused on pump benchmarking and providing technical support to Water for People's sanihubs. Much of this is indirectly linked to BMGF funding in some way. Can't claim to have commercial R&D/prototyping facilities, but the uni does have capacity for making 1-offs - eg the original ball penetrometer we made there for testing the physical strength (i.e. ("mechanical"/undrained shear strength/"pumpability") of FS. Main benefit is being able to plug MM's WASH network (drawn from a few 1000 water-sector professionals around the world) into university R&D projects at minimal cost, the drawback is being limited to the academic project cycle in terms of programme.

We are a group from the Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai. We have received a grant from the RTTC to make a water-less toilet.

We have ordered the prototype. It should be here by Tuesday. We will post videos and photos for your feedback.

Hi John,

In follow up to our chats recently - yes Envirosan Sanitation Solutions is doing just this. We have been in sanitation R&D for years, separate to the BMG work, specifically focused on the South African Dry Sanitation market (VIP's and UD's) as well as the disaster relief and export side of things. We have also recently prototyped, tested and developed a low/pour-flush toilet which is fully up-gradable from VIP to UD to Low-flush OR Pour-flush.

The South African government does not have an incentive scheme specifically aimed at sanitation R&D itself, but it does come to the party in terms of broad manufacturing incentives, as well as funding a fast-paced and large-scale country wide sanitation roll-out (hence creating a developing sanitation market).

We have increased our manufacturing capacity to around 50 000 toilet pedestals a month, and do a full range of hand-washing facilities to compliment the hygienic factor. We have also increased our range of machinery to be able to blow-mold High Density Polymer Doors for stand alone sanitation units. This is having a big effect on the privacy and security aspect of sanitation in South Africa, as the door is not stolen to be sold as scrap (which is what happens to metal doors).

All of our R&D is done in house here in Durban, South Africa, and we're very keen to have anyone over for a visit if they wish! All the best, Tim.

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Note by moderators: This post was made by a former user with the login name TimK who is no longer a member of this discussion forum.

Hi All,

Thank you for these informative responses so far. In terms of R&D -- i'm also keen to know if there is any commercial level R&D happening above and beyond the Gates Reinvent the Toilet work.

I'm thinking companies with manufacturing facilities and the capacity to make and test prototypes, etc.

I'm also wondering if there are any advocacy efforts focused on encouraging governments to make investment in commercial R&D for sanitation as was recommended in WSP's Report Tapping the Market --

openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/16538
Tapping the Market Report

Thank you again for all of the responses so far.


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Note by moderator:
Another example was posted here but has now been moved into its own thread ("Experiments regarding pit emptying devices and clog-proof toilet (mechanical toilet that uses little water) - Ohio, USA"):
forum.susana.org/forum/categories/99-fae...ittle-water-ohio-usa

We are! Just developed a field latrine/raised latrine kit prototype based on our previous production field latrines which we have been making and selling since 2008 - we have done this in 'partnership' with the wonderful Netherlands Red Cross. The raised latrine kit allows for the use of oil drums (220litres) or a custom tank (800 litres). It is called the CCubicle.TTanker (my product code names!)and will be trialled by the Austrian and Norwegian Red Cross teams in the summer field trials
Is that up your street?

Hi John,
Mzuzu University is working with WRC to develop low-cost pit latrine emptying devices. We would also be very interested to start a community doing product and technology design work related to sanitation. Several of the other WRC partners might be a good fit to join as well.

Rochelle