Here is a description of a very large practical research grant that I am leading.

Title of grant: Structuring of the fecal sludge market for the benefit of poor households in Dakar, Senegal (ONAS)

Lead organization / grantee (name and location): Senegal National Sanitation Utility (ONAS)
Contact: Dr. Mbaye Mbéguéré, Project Coordinator
Partners: WSA, IPA, EDE, Association of Senegalese Sanitation Workers, OXFAM America

More details about the partners:
Water and Sanitation for Africa (WSA):
WSA is a non-governmental, not for profit organization and an intergovernmental support organization, which was established in 1989, and currently works in 18 countries in Africa. As an interstate water and sanitation (WATSAN) institution, WSA supports access to safe water and sanitation facilities for poor and/or marginalized people. It has programmes in the areas of capacity building for government agencies, research, policy analysis, and knowledge management.

Innovations for Poverty Actions (IPA):
IPA is a US non-profit organisation, which develops, tests, and scales up proven solutions to real-world problems faced by the poor in developing countries. IPA has experience working in over 40 countries around the world and their staff receives rigorous training in implementing randomized controlled trials in the field. They strive to bridge the gap between cutting-edge academic research and action by nonprofits, governments, and firms. IPA is represented in this project by three economics professors from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and University of Notre Dame.

EDE, Senegal (Engineers company specialized in water and sanitation):
An engineering consulting firm, specializing in the field of water and sanitation, established in 2001. EDE has developed a close partnership with ONAS through its consulting work on the first major sanitation project undertaken in the Dakar region (2001 to 2008), PAQPUD. EDE is the first such firm to conduct socio-economic and engineering studies in the area of public and independent sanitation, in both urban and rural areas of Senegal, as well as other countries in Africa. EDE’s role in this program will be to provide project management expertise by supporting the coordination of the program and providing technical expertise on studies, selected by mutual agreement.

Association of Senegalese Sanitation Workers:
They will specialize in maintenance and clearing of rain and wastewater networks, industrial cleaning, pumping and oil transport, desludging septic tanks. The association was created in 2007 in Dakar and registered in 2008. It covers the whole country and unites about 47 companies and 200 trucks for metropolitan Dakar. Regional structures have been put in place in Thies, Touba, and Kaolack. This exercise will be followed up in other cities. To improve their supply of services, they are in charge of:
- Increasing membership,
- Centralizing resources,
- Registration and mapping of domestic sanitation,
- The consumer network data base creation,
- Mapping of desludging services,
- Subscription services,
- Capital improvements,
- Sludge management.

This association will provide mechanical desludging services at competitive rates to targeted households. They will also be contracted by the subscription services program to perform services for subscribing households as required. In addition, they will participate in the operation of the fecal sludge treatment stations as part of a public/private partnership. The project intervention design in the operator market has been guided by the stated needs of the sanitation workers as represented by their association. These stated needs include: formalization of the industry; private management of sludge treatment stations; access to new capital equipment; and effective training of operators. Manual desludging operators, organized into Economic Interest Groups (GIE) are also involved in this project through retraining and improvements in services to neighborhoods which are difficult to access as technology is identified through CREPA’s research into the adaption of existing desludging technologies for the sanitation market in Senegal.

OXFAM America

They provide humanitarian programs to reduce the risk of contamination during floods in Pikine. Their services will be coupled with the priority sanitation services targeted toward inhabitants of the areas of Pikine most vulnerable to flooding.

Location of research: Dakar, Senegal
Start and end date: This project has received 3 grants so far. In total the funding period is November 2011; to January 2017

Grant Scheme: "Other"

Short description of the project (and goals):
The National Office for Sanitation in Senegal (ONAS) has received a $17,070,000 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to support the creation of a large scale, sustainable sanitation value chain in Dakar, Senegal including mechanized fecal sludge management. Manual desludging is predominant in Dakar. This project aims to make hygienic fecal sludge emptying services accessible and affordable to the peri-urban poor of Dakar (Pikine and Guédiawaye) through interventions that lead to increased coverage, lower prices, and higher quality fecal sludge management (FSM) services in Senegal.

Goal(s) / aim(s):
This project aims to make hygienic fecal sludge emptying services accessible and affordable to the urban poor through interventions that make the sanitation sector more sustainable, competitive and dynamic.

The objectives are:
1. Establishment of a more efficient division of labor between public and private partners through a transfer of responsibility for the operation and maintenance of sanitation infrastructure to the private sector.
2. Adjustment in ONAS’s focus towards sanitation project management and focus on developing an environment in which the private operators can flourish.
3. Program for the structuring of the fecal sludge market for the benefit of poor households in Dakar.
4. Reduction in the cost of desludging operations through increased competition and reduced operator expenses. The private sector depending on the profitability of the venture will invest more in sludge management and extend services to more households thus acquiring economies of scale. At the moment, mechanical desludging costs approx. $54 and at the end of the project the target will be at $46.
5. Training module and database equipment to increase knowledge and professionalism for the private sector and the municipalities. It will be organized for each of these stakeholders at least one training per year. The aim is to familiarize them with new tools developed by the program: certification, call center, subscription systems, auctions, etc.
6. Formalization of the private sector through accreditation.

This will include the following key steps:
• Identify, test, and evaluate key interventions (call in center implementation, mobile money platform, auction, etc.) to increase demand and competition in the fecal sludge emptying services market in Senegal.
• Construct one key piece of infrastructure, which will facilitate reduced operating costs for desludging operators. It will be built in Keur Massar (in the project area) a new fecal sludge treatment plant. The objective is to make closer the dumping site to the households (fecal sludge producer). This station will be a biogas production plant from fecal sludge. An additional funding from the Gates Foundation of nearly $3’000’000 was granted to ONAS for this purpose.
• Increase awareness of the importance of the use of mechanized desludging services to increase demand and willingness to pay for hygienic desludging services.
• Assure the sustainability of these interventions through training coordination to various stakeholders (emptiers, ONAS regional services and municipalities), management, and technical oversight.

To achieve these objectives, the program is divided into 4 components. These are detailed in the attached pdf file below with the full description.

1. Research (IPA and WSA)
This research is expected to take 36 months, and will be implemented in 4 phases.

Some investigated key questions are:
i. What is the impact of social pressure or coordination on the take up of mechanized desludging?
ii. How do payment mechanisms affect the willingness to pay for mechanized desludging services?
iii. How can we most efficiently match household demand for desludging services with suppliers?
iv. What is the willingness to pay to substitute from manual to mechanical desludging?

2. Public works (EDE)
• Construction of one new fecal sludge disposal and treatment station in the outskirts of Dakar. Its location will make it possible to reduce the volume handled by the existing stations so that they can treat all of the sludge they receive. It would have a total capacity of about 550 m3/day. Three fecal sludge treatment centers are currently functional in Dakar.
• Construction of transfer systems in inaccessible areas, which will make mechanical desludging possible in areas currently inaccessible to trucks. This could include temporary storage installations or other installation resulting from the Research findings.






3. A marketing strategy: open the market to the desludging operators by increasing demand for mechanized desludging services. This includes:
a. A media campaign implemented by EDE with a communication agency (PHENIX).
b. Visual and promotional supports/tools for operators and households.
The media plan is scheduled to be held from the second year and the strategy document is currently being developed.

4. Project management will be carried out by ONAS with the assistance of EDE.

5. A sanitation component for flood prone areas led by Oxfam America. Oxfam will do this by focusing on five specific objectives that will be achieved by the end of the project (see pdf file below)





Current state of affairs:

First research results:

• Increased adoption of mechanized desludging can be achieved by improving neighborhood coordination.
• Harnessing social pressure to maintain improved levels of take-up of sanitation practices.
• Using local social network connections for improved targeting of messages to those most likely to diffuse ideas to the community.
• Measuring spillover effects of government sanitation projects.
• Access to mechanized desludging can be achieved through improved payment systems: Subscription service (monthly payments) and Micropayments service

Next steps:
• Piloting of call in center system begins in February 2013 to improve linkages between suppliers and customers. Customers call the center when they need a desludging service. Calls for bids go out over cell phone text messages. Affiliated and independent desludging operators are invited to submit an offer. Lowest bidder among the operators is awarded the job.
• Various demand treatments about possible collusion; effects of social pressure, leadership and reciprocity; spillover effects; and impacts of payment timing begin in March 2013. 18 months research data collection is planned. Final results are expected by end of 2014 or in 2015.

These steps are part of the research component and are piloted by IPA.

Biggest successes so far:
The great success achieved so far is the involvement of the private sector in the management of fecal sludge treatment plants. Indeed, the program has worked to the delegation of the three existing fecal sludge treatment plants of Dakar.

Main challenges / frustration:
The biggest challenge we are currently facing is the timeliness. The diversity of partners and activities explains the difficulty of compliance with contractual deadlines.

Links and further readings:
www.solutionsforwater.org/solutions/prog...-dakar-slums-senegal

Presentation:
www.povertyactionlab.org/sites/default/f...ye%20and%20Molly.pdf

I am happy to answer any questions you may have.

Regards,
Mbaye

Dear Mbaye
Thanks for your information. Biogas production from septage does not appear economically feasible. Septage from septic tanks are mostly degraded at the bottom and middle layers and semi degraded part at the upper layer of the septic tank. Therefore, there is very low chance of production of biogas from such septage. Further due to high content of water in septage, digester with larger volume for a particular retention time would require. In case of fresh septage, biogas production is always a profitable business- like septage from community toilet linked biogas plants.
Treatment of septage through waste stabilisation pond technology is perhaps the simplest technology for a business model. Such treated water as well well as stabilised and dried sludge can be sold for agriculture purpose to make the business sustainable.

Dr. P.K.Jha

Dear Dr. Jha,

Thank you for your email and for your relevant reflection. Indeed, the septage has a fairly low methanogenic potential. In our approach, we want to mix the sludge with co-substrates with high methanogenic potential. BMP tests are conducted to see the best mixing ratio for good gas production.

Regards,

Mbaye

Dear Mbaye,
Thanks for the detailed information on the project. What caught my eye is the multiple actors, considerable size of funding/grant, comprehensive approach (demand creation, emptying/transport options), treatment and reuse. I cannot think of a better approach to address FSM challenges in African cities.

In Uganda, the sanitation sub-sector is not as evolved as Senegal's. We still have unclear distribution of institutional responsibilities, which renders prospects of a large-scale approach like the one described quite challenging.

What the project seems to demonstrate is that support to sanitation services should be needs-based. Public sector support towards formalizing sanitation businesses, social marketing, performance monitoring, etc realizes more returns than urban/city authorities offering parallel services like we see in many developing countries.

At GIZ, we are keen on supporting public actors in creating an enabling environment for the private sector to thrive, and we shall explore the option of a benchmarking visit to Dakar. Hopefully, non-French speakers can still pick valuable lessons for adoption back home. (Obama just did on a different mission altogether.)

Best,
Fredrick

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

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 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,

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

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 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 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 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