Dear SuSanA Member -
Fanbin and others

Many thanks for providing apt solutions/ practices to progress with.
At best, if the flush water is remedied, and re used for agri farms and next,
the solid sludges , dealt with safely and used as compost- manure in agri-farms, then the implmntrs feel fully confident and communities can have a good QoL and sustained aptly.
SDGs are also achieved, and many variations and both tangible and intangible benefits are sought.
If the total region is kept clean, clear and green with florals, then a lot feels achieved.

Well wishes for Communities ,

Dear Prof. Ajid Seshadri,
I also started a thread of 'Low-cost decentralized sanitation system based on vacuum collection and reuse of excreta and kitchen waste (Chinese Academy of Sciences, China)' in Category: Resource recovery from excreta, faecal sludge or wastewater. There is more on the 'the modern home-farm cycle - a resource oriented sanitation system based on vacuum source separation'. Please find more technical details there.
My goal in restarting a topic thread here is to talk about the toilet revolution at a broader level. I know this website is not easy to set up and maintain. I applaud the Gates foundation for put its attention and money on this once forgotten corner of Sanitation. The "toilet revolution" in India and China over the years is more or less tied to the Gates foundation's efforts. I hope to have more peers to communicate, and I hope this website will have more influence. I also hope to learn more about the Indian experience through you.
Thanks.

Dear FanBin and others.

We in India, a developing country keeps looking for sustainable, safe, economical mode of use of produces evolved from the human Sanitation practices ranging from OD in field to sewered systems, therfore it is welcome for us.

Pl feel free to post pictures on practices evolved by you in field.

Well wishes

Thank you very much for sharing your story and your insights. I think I should cooperate with you, because I don't know how to grow crops.
Please permit me to correct your little bias and pessimism. Water saving is only a small problem, the most critical is to solve the problem of sanitary discharge and pollution control. Vacuum collection is just a tool, and it's been invented for over 100 years. The key breakthrough is the idea on human living wastes.The use of the basic human living wastes ( e.g. toilet waste and kitchen waste) as a resource and vegetative nutrient is a breakthrough in the west, but in the east it is really just an inheritance and revival. Neither the technology nor the idea is my innovation. What I'm doing is simply trying to revive the ancient home-farm-cycle culture of the eastern countryside with technology from the west and then to pursue a more sustainable path to modernize the human being's sanitation.
I believe this is a good road. The simplest reason is that China now has a real market of 500 million people, which can make this path as technically perfect as the flush-toilet-end-pipe-treatment path with imcomparable economy and sustainability. If you like, I can help you with the unbuilt vacuum source separation sanitation system. Recently, we developed a single-family system that can drive six vacuum toilets and two vacuum kitchen waste disposers.
On the other hand, I don't think vacuum systems are just for the developed western world. The pursuit of modernization is the common dream of all underdeveloped people. But on how to modernize environmental sanitation, we must find a different path from that of the western world. Such a road must be 'to clean with a small quantity water and then to reclaim the basic human living wastesas fertilizer'. Only nutient reclamation is narrowmind. I consider the organics in the human living wastes are also beneficial to organic farm.
I know a lot of people in the developing world can't afford a vacuum sanitation system right now, but we have to show them a different technological path from the developed world. This technical route is based on the vacuum source-separation and resource reclamation and reuse, we now call it the modern home-farm-cycle mode or 3.0 system. For the underdeveloped, we designed a so-called 1.0+ system that tried to achieve 4/5 modernization with 1/5 money. It is a quasi-modern system with enough hygiene and ethetics but not as convenient as flush toilet. The quasi-modern system uses pipeless toilets and manual sorting of kitchen waste, which wastes are cleared and transported by manpower and cart and then reclaimed and reused as fertilizer. Crucially, the 1.0+ system is fully compatible with the modern home-farm-cycle mode on the reclamation and reuse side. As a result, a 1.0+ system can easily make a smooth transition to a 3.0 system as economic conditions improve in the future.
The developed populations of the west can afford to install the vacuum system, but are they willing to do so? I'm not optimistic about that. Therefore, I think the modern home-farm-cycle mode can only be first applied on a large scale in transitional areas like China. The vast majority of rural Chinese families do not yet have access to a fully modern sanitation system. It is easier to draw the most beautiful picture on a blank paper. The technological revolution offers China's toilet revolution the opportunity to reduce costs, and China's toilet revolution in turn will provide a Chinese opportunity for global sustainability.
I look forward to working with you.

Dear Bin,

just as a little feedback after reading all your postings. Your "toilet revolution made in China" might suit very well to the so called developed western world. The idea of vacu toilets ist not new as already mentioned in this forum. But once all the constructors and politicians were on the "flush" track it never became very common. The wasted water is still too cheap and the nutrients and energy available elsewhere (mining). And as mentioned in a couple postings, the change of a our mindset takes time (wasted time...)

When I built my private home in 1999 I got in contact with a little two men company who tried to promote vacu toilets. They still didn't care about the nutrients, they just wanted to reduce the water consumption. So I put all the necessary pipes in the floor and they were going to connect after the house construction would be finished.
What happened: they were bankrupt then since nobody else was interested. Mindset......

So I wish you success in your huge market (and perhaps one day in western europe) and as a farmer I add: always keep an eye on the nutrients. We need them to close the loop on our arable land and we are responsible for our aquatic systems.

Heiner

Dear Bin,
Thank you for your detailed posts about the situation in China with the "toilet revolution" in rural China. I wonder why the political leaders called it a toilet revolution even though they put their bets on tried and tested / old-fashioned septic tanks and flush toilets. What's revolutionary about that? Or is it already a revolution to provide sanitation (a basic human right) to millions of people in rural areas?

I think most people here on the forum would agree with you when you say "the selection of septic tank in the current rural Toilet Revolution is basically wrong". What we however grapple with is changing mindsets of those in charge...

So I am wondering if your writings and presentations are falling on fertile ground or on deaf ears? Are you seeing a shift? Do you have many light-minded colleagues? Are you being invited by local governments to explain to them how it could be done?

And as an aside: how could we get more Chinese people to post here on the discussion forum? You wrote to me:

First of all, I want to say why Chinese colleague don't like to come here. The main reason is that Chinese people are not good at speaking and writing English. However, I found it easy to do this with the help of the translation APP. Sincere thanks to those who developed the translation App!

How could we help more people to find this translation App and what is its name? I only know Google Translate but since Google is banned in China it wouldn't work for you.

Regards,
Elisabeth

I think the current China's Toilet Revolution is a opportunity of the world sanitation technology development. I hope more colleages, either from China or from other countries, will pay attention to the toilet revolution in China and make suggestions for it.

This forum is a bit strange. I found that I didn't know which topic to put my post under. If not choosing a secondary sub-topic, I can't upload posts. The choice under this sub-topic was a last resort. In fact, I want to talk to my colleagues about what kind of toilet revolution we should take. I don't want to talk about how to deal with sewage and garbage, or whether to use urine divert toilet. I want to talk about some of the top technology issues.

Thank you very much for your attention. The ultimate goal of the toilet revolution is to make modern sanitation accessible to all, which uses materials, water and energy in a sustainable manner and produces as llittle as possible waste that need be terminally treated or disposed of. By the above definition, all the world needs a toilet revolution.

What developed countries need is to replace existing systems for flush-toilet with modern sustainable sanitation systems. The problems of developing countries are a little more complex and comprise three stages or levels of development question. The first is to give the least developed populations access to systems that meet modern standards of hygiene. I believe this has not been achieved universally in many countries or regions.

The second level is to make the population with basic hygienic toilet access to the system which esthetics meets modern standard. I personally believe that the first level work and the second work had better be merged into one. The third level is a system that convenience meets modern standards. There is also the premise that sanitary systems used by all at all levels should meet the requirements of global sustainability.

China's current situation is slightly different from that of other developing countries, such as India. China as a whole is now on the third level of its rural toilet revolution. The ultimate route we proposed is actually very easy, which is also the principle advocated by many colleagues and practiced by Chinese people since ancient times, namely "resource oriented". This route is called "modern pastoral cycle", which is different from the traditional Chinese pastoral cycle.

In my last post I mainly criticized the current local governments in China for mistakenly using the flush-toilet + septic tank method as the path to the toilet revolution. I advocate a complete toilet revolution in China in three ways, which I have just described in the latest post (forum.susana.org/technologies-for-treatm...rnization-and-globAl - sustainability).

Flush toilets is the root of all evil, which inevitably leads to expensive sewage treatment that many developing countries cannot afford, and the comsumption of water, resources and energy that the planet cannot afford. From this point of view, I do not agree with the recycling of grey water for flushing toilet. The consumption of clean water is only one aspect of the problem. What is more important is that the human excrement is diluted with a large amount of water, thus losing the possibility to reclaim and reuse human excrement resource through the greenest, most economical and simplest route. Without going to the flush-toilet, we can achieve modern sanitation, more sustainable and less cost.

Thanks again.

The ultimate goal of the toilet revolution is to make modern sanitation systems accessible to all, which use materials, water and energy in a sustainable manner and its wastes do not pollute the environment. By the above definition, all the world needs a toilet revolution. What developed people need is to replace the existing flush-toilet-end-pipe-treatment system with a modern sustainable sanitation system.

The problems of developing countries (or people) are a little more complex, divided into at least three stages or levels of development. The first is to give the least developed populations access to systems that meet modern standards of hygiene. I believe this has not been achieved universally in many countries or regions.

The second level is to make the population already being guaranteed the basic hygiene access to the system which esthetics meets modern standards. I personally believe that the first level work and the second level work had better be merged into one. The third level is to allow people to use systems which convenience (as well as hygiene and esthetics) meets modern standard.

There is also the premise that toilet systems at all levels should meet the principle of Global Sustainable. According to the premise, the developed people that use flush -toilet-end-pipe treatment systems also need a toilet revolution. China's current situation is slightly different from that of other developing countries, such as India.

China as a whole is now on the third level of its rural toilet revolution. The ultimate route we proposed is actually very easy, which is also the principle advocated by many colleagues and practiced by Chinese people since ancient times, namely "source-separation-classification-end resource recovery". This route is called "modern pastoral cycle", which is different from the traditional Chinese pastoral cycle.

Because China is so vast, the development level in rural areas is very uneven. Some areas have reached the stage of building modern sanitation and pollution control systems, while quite a few people still need to achieve quasi-modernization first and then will fully modernize them in future when conditions are sufficient, and the others have installed flush-toilets or insist on using flush-toilet. In view of these three situations, we put forward three paths, so that people at different stages of development can move towards modernization and sustainable development.

A common feature of the all three paths is to speperate domestic waste (including wastewater) into three categories. The first category is washes, including bath wastewater, laundry wastewater, kitchen washes and other low-concentration domestic wastewater. The second category is toilet waste and kitchen waste (including liquids). The third category is other wastes. Toilet waste and kitchen waste are coped with through the following three paths for treatment.

The first path is what we call the 1.0+ pattern. This model uses improved pipeless-toilet, in which the toilet can be cleaned with no water or only a small amount of water (<=1.5L/ time), with a storage processor underneath the toilet. When the processor is full, it is cleaned and the toilet waste is used as raw material for fertilizer, which is eventually used to fertilize the fields. Kitchen waste has the same biochemical properties as toilet waste and is recommended to be collected and reused together with toilet waste.

The second path is what we call the 2.0+ pattern. This pattern still uses water to flush toilets, but the toilet wastewater is collected separately or with crushed kitchen waste (including liquid kitchen waste) and then treated and discharged.

The third path is what we call the 3.0 pattern, which is based on source separation and vacuum pipe collection. Human excreta and kitchen waste are discharged into the vacuum pipeline through the vacuum toilet and the vacuum kitchen-waste processor, respectively. A vacuum pump station is set at the end of the pipelines, and a resource-reclamation tank is set after the vacuum pump station. The resource-reclamation tank can be located next to the farmland, and after anaerobic fermentation, liquid fertilizer and solid fertilizer are produced. The liquid fertilizer is fertilized through the pipeline, and the solid fertilizer may be fertilized along with land ploughing.

The 1.0+ and 3.0 patterns can share facilities for resource reclamation and utilization. Thus the 1.0+ pattern can be smoothly transitioned to the 3.0 pattern in the future.

The drainage of washing wastewater is very simple, as far as possible, drained on site or treated by ecological method before drained on site, or reused after treatment.

Other wastes are sorted. With the removal of kitchen waste, the sorting of other waste is easy. Recyclable wastes can be sorted and stored for recycling on a regular basis. Waste that cannot be recycled is disposed of at the end. By this way, the amount of waste that needs to be disposed of at the end may be reduced by 90%.

If we set the construction cost of the current flush-toilet-end-pipe-treatment as 1, the construction cost of the 1.0+ mode is approximately 0.2-0.3, and that of the 3.0 mode is 0.5. The 3.0 mode can reduce operating costs by 60% compared to the current flush-toilet-end-pipe-treatment mode. After the life cycle assessment, the sustainability index of the 3.0 mode improved by 70% compared with the existing flush toilet-end-pipe-treatment mode.

Thanks for posting about this! We hear a lot about rural sanitation efforts in India, but I am somewhat more optimistic in those Chinese efforts leading to some innovative approaches in mass manufacturing a sustainable solution.

Yes, you rightly point out the problems of a septic tank only approach, but a mass manufactured and properly sized plastic septic tank is often a lot better (if emptied properly) than those pour-flush double pit latrines we see in many other places...

A fully off the shelf and mass manufactured dry toilet would be a really cool thing to have available, but I believe this is (and probably will stay) a niche product for remote locations and self-supply in countries with an insufficient regulatory and economic framework to support more advanced communal systems.

But with some progressive regulatory oversight, a septic tank can be a good first step on the community wide sanitation ladder in all but the most water constraint locations.

Maybe I have a slightly different viewpoint as someone more often involved in water supply projects, but it is for many hygiene related reasons really good to have plenty of water available inside of a household. This is of course a technical challenge in some places, but once this water is in the household it needs to be dealt with after use.

A septic tank can be integrated well into a system that deals with grey-water, and when recycling excess grey-water for flushing a toilet, the percieved benefits of a dry toilet as a stand alone processing technology are much less apparent.

Thus I hope this Chinese toilet revolution will result in cheap off the shelf mass produced integrated waste water treatment solutions that are scaleable to a small community level (solids free sewers etc.).

Background：China has launched a great movement of rural Toilet Revolution, which will cover more than 500,000,000 people. Currently, this work is fully invested and executed by the government. This post is based on the author's speech at the symposium on improving the quality of rural toilet products and construction held by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

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Since the general secretary put forward the toilet revolution, septic tank has become the most popular product in the field of environmental health and pollution control in the world. The Toilet Revolution is almost taken for "installation of flush toilet + septic tank". Conservatively speaking, in the past more than a year, at least 10 million waste plastic products by the name of "septic tanks" have been buried underground in China. This wind blows from Shandong, rapidly sweeping Anhui, Henan, Shanxi, Hebei and other provinces in the second or third development echelon. Many merchants who used to do waste plastic recycling and injection molding became technical experts in the toilet revolution, but the quality problem has become the most worrying thing for the leaders of duty at all level governments.

The common three-chamber septic tank is the most simple and primary toilet wastewater treatment facility. It has a history of more than 100 years of large-scale use. It is simple and easy to operate, and the price is low. It should not have any technical problems, but there are many problems in actual use. Many people pay attention to the quality problems of manufacture and construction, which problems can and must be solved by establishing and improving the industry management system. But there are deeper reasons behind. I will elaborate from three aspects in the theme of "reform toilet scientifically, refuse to act recklessly".

1. Scientific selection of toilet technology

The toilet revolution is not merely to build or re-build toilets, but to meet the needs of modernization in the new era, to comprehensively promote the rural environmental sanitation and pollution control, and promote the progress of life civilization and ecological civilization. Considering the imbalance of rural developments in China, we should distinguish two types of villages to promote the rural toilet revolution.

One is the villages that have reached or are about to reach the level of modernization at the present stage. Such villages should realize the goal of modern sanitation by one step. The second is the villages that are still far away from modernization at this stage. Such villages should realize the ultimate goal of toilet revolution in two steps. The first step is quasi modernization, which can achieve the goal of 80% modernization with about 1/5 of the invest. When the conditions are met, we will implement the second step of full modernization. Toilets, strictly speaking, are indoor sanitary facilities including toilets, which are the most front technical unit of the whole environmental sanitation and pollution control system. Therefore, the technical choice and quality of toilet reform determine the technical trend and quality of toilet revolution. In the current toilet revolution in China, no matter the first type of villages or the second type of villages, septic tanks should not be the first choice for toilet reform.

Septic tank is a primary sewage treatment facility which is used together with flush toilet. The technical route of end-pipe-treatment treatment marked by flush toilet is the first environmental sanitation system in the world to meet the needs of modern life and civilization, which is currently followed by urbans.

In this route, the septic tank can only be used in two occasions. The first situation is as a measure of domestic sewage pretreatment, which cannot be used independently, and must be connected with drainage pipe network or sewage treatment plant. The second occasion is used as a temporary drainage measure when there is no pipe network or sewage treatment measure but flush toilet is installed. The purpose is to let the fecal sewage settle and decompose slightly and then discharge to the environment barely tolerable. The second kind of application is not practical. It is strictly prohibited by law in western countries. Returning to the origin of the septic tank, we can find that the selection of septic tank in the current rural Toilet Revolution is basically wrong. Do we take it as a measure of sewage pretreatment or as a temporary drainage measure? Embarrassedly, we are nothing.

For the first type of villages, the modern route marked by flush toilets has long been sentenced to death with a reprieve, because it does not meet the requirements of sustainable development. It is expensive and particularly unsuitable for use in dry and cold areas. The reason for the suspension is that there are so many flush toilets installed in the urbans that there is no way to replace them immediately.

The rural Toilet Revolution of China can no longer follow the same pattern as in urban. We should have a thorough technological revolution and adopt the modern home-farm cycle mode, which is to modernize and carry forward the tradition of returning manure fertilizer to the farm land. Now such technology is very mature. The installation of flush toilets will inevitably lead to sewage treatment. If we stick to installing flush toilets in the rural Toilet Revolution, we should set up a complete sewage treatment system. Just installing septic tanks is a half project and leaves the troubles to others and much higher expense to future. We should resolutely put an end to such actions.

For the second kind of villages, the first step of quasi-modernization is to change the traditional dirty and smelly Maokeng into a sanitary and esthetic non-sewer toilet that meets the standards of modern life civilization. Non-sewer toilets can be done well, and there are many mature products. The biggest disadvantage of the non-sewer toilets is that it is not as convenient as flush toilet. The human waste needs to be temporarily stored/composted under the toilet. Generally, it is not suitable to be installed in the living room. The toilet waste needs to be manually cleared and transported. As long as we are not too lazy and pay more attention, coupled with socialized cleaning and treatment services, the health and environmental problems can be solved perfectly.

For the second type of villages, what we need is not a septic tank, but a resource tank with storage and maturity functions. Although this kind of resource tank and septic tank are similar in scientific principles, their functional requirements and structural design are totally different. At present, the rural areas that vigorously promote septic tanks basically belong to the second type with the goal of quasi-modernization. At this stage, they do not have the conditions to lay complete sewers or carry out qualified sewage treatment. If common septic tanks are used as resource storage tanks, maintenance troubles will inevitably occur. Our ancestors have been using the resource-based storage tank, but it was too simple and poor sanitary conditions. We can do better and more efficiently today, but it is different from the septic tank designed for flush toilet.

Suggestions: carry out the top-level design of the rural toilet revolution in China as soon as possible, integrate the needs of Rural Revitalization and the R&Ds in the field of sanitation, scientifically plan the objectives, tasks and technical routes of the Toilet Revolution, and guide the rural Toilet Revolution to take the classified and staged road of Modern home-farm cycle.

2. Scientific use of toilet technology

I will focus on the second type of rural villages. As has been said before, the current goal of this type of rural villages is quasi-modernization, and the technical route should be improved non-sewer toilets plus manure fertilizer utilization. The first principle is to refuse flush toilet. At present, in many areas, to use ordinary septic tank as the storage tank for flush toilets leads to two troubles. The first, if strictly in accordance with the design requirements, the clearing and transportation, as well as the costs, is too frequent to bear.

The second is that the common septic tank products which are currently been using are designed to be filled with wastewater at one end and discharged at the other end, and the tank is always full of water. In this way, when buried under the ground, the water pressure inside can counteract the pressure of the external strata and groundwater, so the septic tank wall may not need special strength. However, once it is turned into a sewage storage tank, it must be emptied. At this time, the septic tank receives big force from the soil or groundwater and is easy to collapse or break. Therefore, for the second type of villages, the second principle is that ordinary septic tanks cannot be used as storage tanks, and special designed and manufactured resource-based tanks need to be used.

It should be noted that septic tanks are afraid of freezing, so the cost of using septic tanks in cold areas must be higher.

Suggestions:
(1) establish the industry management system of rural toilet revolution in China as soon as possible, formulate relevant technical standards, strengthen industry guidance and industry support, including the training of design, installation and operation and maintenance personnel, and only those who pass the examination can go to work.
(2) reform the government's way of doing things, explore the establishment of a system and mechanism with residents as the main body, financial subsidies as the guide, and industry supervision as the guarantee, and improve the implementation performance.
(3) explore the establishment of rural toilet revolution qualified supplier regime, let the powerful enterprises as the general contractor of toilet revolution, responsible for the whole process of design, selection, installation, operation and maintenance. Enterprises are responsible, and the government purchases services.

3. Ccientific view on the cost of toilet revolution

At present, the first culprit of poor quality of toilet products and construction is not willing to spend money on the toilet revolution. In the full market competition, in a large enough batch of products, it's really a penny for a penny. According to the calculation, the current construction cost to achieve the goal of quasi-modernization should be between 3000 CHN￥ and 5000 CHN￥（7 CHN$≈1 US$） per household. In many places, the cost of toilet revolution was restricted in 1000 CHN￥ or even 600 CHN￥, which is just a joke, completely ignoring the general laws of technology and engineering.

Suggestion: improve the input standard of toilet revolution, give priority to quality but not cheapness.

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