I'm feeling the need to raise some issues given Jeevan Rekha Parishad's silence.

This looks to me like a very poor design. The toilet block construction is beautiful, pink and functional, ten stars. This is a system using water for conveyance, I assume low flush toilets, which is fine. The video is professionally produced and visually appealing. Great sales pitch, but what concerns me is that it explains nothing.

What I see next is a pit that the wastewater is flushed into with some worms added in hope of something miraculous. A bit like adding magic dust and a splash of water ...and everything is solved. A wondrous show for the viewer. But how well researched was this idea? Could the designer step forward please?

What is obvious is that the pit is quite deep. So I'm wondering how high the groundwater table gets through the seasons? How would the water be expected to soak away in this pit? What is different about this pit to any other pit? Crack a few stones with a hammer for drainage and all is solved?

Who cleans it out after ten years, the fresh poo will always be on top of the rest of the sludge. Is this really a step forward? Is there evidence that the worms thrive and this system actually works, or is this just someones good idea?

Zamazumder, BOD is irrelevant because this pit just soaks into the adjacent soil...or not. Or perhaps there is a soakaway... or not. I would suggest that good soakage nearly 2 m below the soil surface where they added the worms seems highly unlikely to me. This is just a pit with concrete rings... so how is soakage going to keep up with the influent? I ask this question because I can state categorically that worms need drainage. Too wet and they die. This is why they don't already work wonders in pits... and adding some powdered cow manure and a splash of water is not the magical solution, even if it is being sold as that by this video. The water needs to soak away, otherwise all you get is sludge.

Perhaps this video might shed some more light...



But no... carefully sealed concrete rings with no soakage field. Effectively a very large bucket. How can this drain?

I wanted to add a couple more questions to the two just posed:

3. Were the ground and tiger worms harvested locally, or purchased? Tell us more about the accessibility & affordability of worms?
4. Has a maximum number of daily users been established for each toilet? How is the number of users monitored or controlled?

Thanks for the video.......I'm passing it on to colleagues.

Diane

Thanks for the update. Would like to congratulate on the initiatives taken up by ensuring safe technology in the rural communities.

I would request you to kindly throw some light on the following aspects:

1. How the affluent of the bio digestor is managed?

2. Whether the affluents were tested in any lab to understand the BOD level.

JRP (www.jrpsai.org) a voluntary organisation has completed a Bio Toilet Project for 150 households in tribal areas of Daspalla and has declared 3 tribal villages as open defecation free villages. Thanks to CSR fund support of Care Today TV Fund.Visit following link-contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.