"One Size Slipper doesn't fit all". That was the message in a recent article by Prof. Jeffrey Hammer from Princeton University. He was writing on a village self-government (Gram Swaraj) scheme funded by the World Bank in Karnataka, India.
According to the article, a village in the Gulbarga district of north Karnataka decided to use discretionary funds from the World Bank to build better toilet facilities. Given the arid conditions, the only latrines feasible in this region are variations of covered pits.
However, the District representatives, following statewide rules, went ahead and built toilets with septic tanks - even though the village doesn't have enough water for a septic tank system to work. A significant amount of money was wasted - sorry for the pun on a septic tank that lies unused because someone felt that the rules had to be followed uniformly, no matter what.
While this incident is an example of a greater need for village autonomy, it set me researching on a different topic - sanitation technology. Some of the statistics were startling - more than 2 billion people across the globe have no access to proper toilets (600 million in India alone). Of a billion toilets connected to proper sewage systems throughout the world, only 300 million undergo proper end-of-pipe treatment before discharges and released into rivers, streams, ponds, lakes and seas.
The contamination of these bodies of water is as harmful, if not more, than the waste from open-air 'toilets' used by the 2 billion people without proper sewage facilities. Globally, more people die from poor sanitation and water-related illnesses than HIV/AIDS, malaria and measles combined.
The Western toilet, with its flushing system, was designed in the mid-18th century and has remained relatively unchanged over the last two and a half centuries. While the level of water consumption per flush has decreased over this period, the current system still wastes too much valuable water. Further, it requires expensive plumbing and public sewage systems to ensure proper waste disposal. Perhaps most importantly, it ignores nature's elegant design principle of zero waste: the waste generated by every individual is scientifically proven to be adequate, as fertilizer, to grow enough food for one person.
Buckminster Fuller, convinced that human beings had not even scratched the surface in applying modern technology to sanitation issues, designed the Dymaxion Bathroom in 1937. This could be installed as a stand-alone unit and did not require any further plumbing or connection to a public sewage system. In his system, human waste was deftly shrink-wrapped in bio-degradable plastic sheets for pickup and composting. Along with other technology for water conservation, he managed to reduce the water needs of a household to a few bottles a week. The typical household saved 2,000 gallons of water per year in flushes.
Over the last few years, EcoSan (ecological sanitation) toilets have been introduced in various parts of the world. These 'dry' toilets reduce the need for water and support composting of human waste for use as fertilizers. However, the world has been slow to adopt the dry toilet. User feedback suggests that people would prefer having a single pan rather than two - one for urine and another for faeces - and that sprinkling ash on the faeces after every use to eliminate smell and flies isn't very effective.
I strongly believe that a Buckminster-style design approach to EcoSan will go a long way in making this technology more user-friendly and affordable. Focused messaging and marketing on the benefits could then lead to wider adoption.
Sanitation is just one of the areas where fresh designs are needed for items of daily use. We need to redesign the houses we live in, the automobiles we use, the places we work, and our consumption patterns - various important facets of our lives - to create a more sustainable planet. New Constructs is your opportunity to shape this dialogue. What everyday items would you like to see redesigned?