Dear All,

I have gone through the PPT of Dr Ligy Philips available on Susana forum. The evaluation was done in by IIT Madras team in two phases:

In first phase, the effluent samples from DRDO biodigester installed at 15 different sites from south India by DRDO Licensee vendors namely Banka BioLoo Pvt Ltd., MAK India Ltd., Eram Scientific Solutions and Shubra Biotech Pvt Ltd were evaluated.
The size of Bio-Digester is not mentioned in the report, the numbers of users were in the range of 1 to 150
A few sites had reed bed or sand filters installed.
The results for COD, BOD, TSS and fecal coliform are mentioned as percentage which is not a correct way of presenting the data. They should have compared their findings with the DRDO norms. Analysing the study with data indicated in %age is not feasible.
They have concluded that none of the samples meet CPCB discharge limits but no data is presented for the same.
They concluded that there was no significant difference observed between performance of anaerobic Bio-Digester’s installed by the various DRDO licensee vendors in South India.
They also concluded that performance of DRDO Bio-Digester varied upon number of users, regular usage and treatment units installed after biodigester.

Although proper sampling done by IIT team in their in house study, the Bio-Digesters evaluated no where confirm to the DRDO Designs.
The Biodigester do not have any kind of internal piping systems y.Small patch of polygrass mat instead of covering the entire partitions with polygrass mat and no gasket to ensure anaerobic conditions. also no vent pipe for escape of biogas.


Regards

Girish

Dear Seshadri and All
It was also mentioned in my last post that proper samplings were carried out from 6 biotoilets installed in the campus of IIT Chennai and other 16 such toilets in the field. Monitoring was done by a team comprising senior officers from the concerned ministry and well known experts in the field led by IIT Chennai.
Regards
pawan

Dear Readers. It was correctly brought out by Prof Pawan Jha that proper representative samples were not used in testing samples to be taken from moving trains etc.. Repeat apt sampling and testing need to be done.pl. well wishes. Prof.Ajit Seshadri. Vels University.Chennai.INDIA .

As per the report, it is true that ITT Chennai Team did not analyse samples from DRDO toilet fitted in trains. They took samples from 6 such toilets installed in IIT campus and other 16 such toilets in field. The team comprising well known experts evaluated the performance for two years. Toilets in IIT campus were in operation under control. Based on the observation it was concluded that the treatment of human wastes was not better than the septic tank. The report was submitted to the CPHEEO, Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India.
It needs to be checked the difference in design / operation of present set of toilets with that of earlier set of toilets studied by IIT.
Pawan

Dear Elisabeth,

IIT team never ever took samples from biotoilets mounted on Indian railways. The study conducted on the samples taken from different locations in South India shows that the performance of biotoilet is good with average 80% BOD reduction.

Dear Pawan,
You asked:

What is snake oil? I don't know its function with respect to human waste/ waste water treatment. Kindly elaborate.

Snake oil is jargon for something that people sell but it's pointless to buy it. It's a waste of your money. Wikipedia has a whole page on this concept:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_oil
"Currently, it has come to refer to any product with questionable or unverifiable quality or benefit. By extension, a snake oil salesman is someone who knowingly sells fraudulent goods or who is a fraud, quack, or charlatan."

I reckon we have quite a few "snake oil salesmen" in sanitation; most of the so called pit additives and EM-based formulas are pretty much snake oil which only serve to make the salesman wealthier!

Regards,
Elisabeth

Dear Vijay

Bleaching powder is a well known anti bacterial compound. Since it kills bacteria, there is odour control also emitting from bacterial growth. However, its handling needs some precaution and daily spray on railway track is a bit expensive.
regards
Pawan

Dear Pawan

I have seen some white powder( Bleaching powder? )being sprayed on to human discharge on railway tracks , where they are openly discharged from trains. what does this spraying do , does it sterilize or reduce pathogens? any way

Regards
Vijayan

Dear Dean

What is snake oil? I don't know its function with respect to human waste/ waste water treatment. Kindly elaborate.

regards
pawan

I'm wondering if someone should check the viability of putting septic tanks into trains. They must weigh quite a bit when full, the solids would get quite stirred up (they're supposed to settle) and anaerobic digestion is inherently slow. Oh, thats right, add some snake oil and its all good...

Dear All
The report on DRDE bio-toilet by Indian Institute of Technology is an eye opener. Government spent a lot of money and time to know the actual functioning of the toilet and quality of effluent discharge. The report says such quality is like that of sewage i.e., treatment is nil.
DRDE claims that some pschycrophilic bacteria collected from Antarctica are used for degradation of human wastes to produce methane. However, it never disclosed the names of such bacteria. Moreover, such bacteria are being “grown” and used for toilets even at theromophilic condition – ambient temperature above 40 degree Celsius. I have not seen any report on methanogen growing at such low temperature- like Antarctica. There is no such publication from DRDE either.
Produced methane is too low and can’t be used for any useful purpose like cooking etc. Such amount of methane is also produced from septic tank. Moreover, there is no system for collection and storage of produced methane inside tank.
DRDE should check the viability and functioning of bacteria collected from Antarctica.
Best

Pawan

I just saw this article with the title "New Toilets In Indian Trains No Better Than Septic Tanks: IIT Study".
See here: www.indiaspend.com/cover-story/new-toile...anks-iit-study-64093

I was alerted to it via the following tweet:

Quicksand (WaSH)‏ @ProjectSammaan

"#Sanitation experts & various studies–including commissioned by the railways–have pointed out that most of the new 'bio-toilets' on Indian trains are ineffective or ill-maintained and the #water discharged no better than raw sewage."

I copy from the start of the article:

A new kind of toilet using bacteria to break down human excreta has been deployed in Indian trains over four years to 2017, at a cost of Rs 1,305 crore, but this toilet is no better than a septic tank, the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, has concluded after a two-year long study.

As many as 93,537 “bio-digesters”–as the toilets are called–have been installed in mainline express and mail trains by the Indian Railways. These are small-scale sewage-treatment systems beneath the toilet seat: Bacteria in a compost chamber digest human excreta, leaving behind water and methane. Only the water, disinfected later, is let out on the tracks.

That is how it is supposed to work.

However, sanitation experts and various studies–including commissioned by the railways–have pointed out that most of the new “bio-toilets” on Indian trains are ineffective or ill maintained and the water discharged no better than raw sewage.

The rest of the article goes into detail about these technical issues. Very interesting!

Maybe the people who have posted in this thread before would like to react.
I think some of the questions asked in this thread and in the related thread by Banka Bioloo (see forum.susana.org/forum/categories/anaero...as-banka-bioloo#5824) had already pointed to some issues with this technology.

Regards,
Elisabeth