Waterless Urinals: A Resource Book

This is a Wonderful 39 page  Technical document  on covering  all aspect  of Waterless Urinals and some variants that incorporates
the core ideas.

written by

• Dr V M Chariar
• S Ramesh Sakthivel

from forward

This Resource Book is a guide that seeks to assist individuals, builders, engineers, architects, and policy makers in promoting waterless urinals and the benefits of harvesting urine for reuse through waterless urinals and urine diverting toilets.

Chapters cover a wide set of Waterless Urinals details

1. Waterless Urinals
   1. 1.1  Advantages of Waterless Urinals and Reuse of Urine
   2. 1.2  Demerits of Conventional Urinals
2. Functioning of Waterless Urinals
   1. 2.1  Sealant Liquid Traps
   2. 2.2  Membrane Traps
   3. 2.3  Biological Blocks
   4. 2.4  Comparative Analysis of Popular Odour Traps
   5. 2.5  Other Types of odour Traps
   6. 2.6  Installation and Maintenance of Waterless Urinals
3. Innovative Urinal Designs
   1. 3.1  Public Urinal Kiosk 21
   2. 3.2  Green Waterless Urinal
   3. 3.3  Self Constructed Urinals
4. Urine Diverting Toilets
5. Urine Harvesting for Agriculture
   1. 5.1  Safe Application of Urine 3
   2. 5.2  Methods of Urine Application
6. Other Applications of Urine
7. Challenges and the Way Forward
8. References and Further Reading

The book has a solid collection of tables and diagrams that support the text

• Comparative analysis of popular odour traps
• Average chemical composition of fresh urine
• Recommended dose of urine for various crops
• Waterless urinals for men
• Schematic diagram showing functioning of urinals
• Sealant liquid based odour trap
• Urinals with sealant liquid based odour traps
• Flat rubber tube by Keramag and silicon membranes by Addicom
• LDPE membrane by Shital Ceramics
• Biological blocks
• Formwork used for fabrication of public urinal kiosk
• Reinforced concrete public urinal kiosk
• Drawing of public urinal kiosk established at IIT Delhi
• Green urinal established at IIT Delhi
• Plant bed of green urinal with perforated pipe
• Drawing of public urinal kiosk established at IIT Delhi
• Self constructed urinal Eco‐lily
• Squatting type urine diverting dry toilet with two chambers
• Urine diverting no mix toilet 27 Sectional view of a urine diverting dry toilet
• Deep injection of urine using soil injector
• Deep injection of urine using perforated pet bottles
• Use of fertilisation tank for applying urine through drip irrigation
• Manually operated reactor for recovery of struvite
• Schematic drawing of ammonia stripping from urine

Among many topics the Doc  weighs pros and cons of of traps to prevent odor and gases for escaping .Most of the solutions  have cost / maintenance barriers that limit feasibility to particular set of cases. India is a large county and need a variety of solutions as does the rest of the world.

We will  will  be interested to learn more about Zerodor
“An odourless trap Zerodor which does not require replaceable parts or consumables resulting in low maintenance costs has been developed at IIT Delhi. This model is in final test stage yet to be made commercially available.”    more on Zerodor…

further notes from forward

Waterless Urinals do not require water for flushing and can be promoted at homes, institutions and public places to save water, energy and to harvest urine as a resource. Reduction in infrastructure required for water supply and waste water treatment is also a spinoff arising from installing waterless urinals. The concept, founded on the principles of ecological sanitation helps in preventing environmental damage caused by conventional flush sanitation systems.

In recent years, Human Urine has been identified as a potential resource that can be beneficially used for agriculture and industrial purposes. Human urine contains significant portion of essential plant nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphate and potassium excreted by human beings. Urine and faeces can also be separated employing systems such as urine diverting toilets. In the light of diminishing world’s phosphate and oil reserves which determine availability as well as pricing of mineral fertilisers, harvesting urine for reuse in agriculture assumes significant importance. Akin to the movement for harvesting rain water, urine harvesting is a concept which could have huge implications for resource conservation.

Link to download  book & A deeper overview:

with excerpts can be found on the the India Water Portal site  more….

Prepared By

• Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
• Vigyan Vijay Foundation

Funded by 

• UNICEF
• SEI Stockholm Environment Institute

Related articles

• UNICEF Report Highlights India’s Water Management Woes (circleofblue.org)
• SANITATION: Urban water woes (irinnews.org)
• From Water Problems to Water Solutions (slideshare.net)
• Lack of toilets, clean water costs world $260 bln a year – Liberian president (trust.org)

SuSanA Releases Compilation of 13 factsheets on key sustainable sanitation topics

From SuSanA web page:

FACTSHEETS

1. Capacity development for sustainable sanitation
2. Financial and economic analysis
3. Links between sanitation, climate change and renewable energies
4. Sanitation systems and technology options
5. Productive sanitation and the link to food security
6. Planning of sustainable sanitation for cities
7. Sustainable sanitation for schools
8. Integrating a gender perspective in sustainable sanitation
9. Sustainable sanitation for emergencies and reconstruction situations
10. Sanitation as a business
11. Public awareness raising and sanitation marketing
12. Operation and maintenance of sustainable sanitation systems
13. Sustainable sanitation and groundwater protection

The  document is available as a single 116 page  pdf   or  two pdfs breaking the dock in half.  

It is filled with hot links to a wealth of reference material. This alone will make the document invaluable. All urls are written out so links retain their value in a paper copy.

The list of contributors is is huge. A nice thing is the main authors  provide hot email links  at the end of each of the 13 sections so you can easily contact them. 

The  only problem with such a beautiful document is there is no traditional table of contents or index.  

Executive summary from  the pdf

“The target audience for this document includes a wide range of readers who are interested in aspects of sustainable sanitation and their links with other environmental and development topics. Possible readers include practitioners, programme managers, engineers, students, researchers, lecturers, journalists, local government staff members, policy makers and their advisers or entrepreneurs. The emphasis of this document is on developing countries and countries in transition.

The Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA) is a loose, informal network of organisations such as NGOs, private companies, governmental and research institutions as well as multilateral organisations that aim to contribute towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by promoting sustainable sanitation.

Sanitation generally refers to the provision of facilities and services for the safe disposal of human excreta and domestic wastewater. Personal hygiene practices like hand washing with soap are also part of sanitation. Sanitation also includes solid waste management and drainage but these two aspects are not the focus of this publication. In order for a sanitation system to be sustainable, it has to be economically viable, socially acceptable, technically and institutionally appropriate, and protect the environment and natural resources.

SuSanA contributes to the policy dialogue towards sustainable sanitation through its resource materials and a lively debate amongst the members during meetings, in the working groups, bilaterally, through joint publications and via various communication tools like the open online discussion forum. This publication showcases the broad knowledge base and state of discussions on relevant topics of sustainable
sanitation. All of the working groups have published one or two factsheets providing a broad guidance relating to their specific thematic area.

The 11 working groups of SuSanA have the following titles:
WG 1 Capacity development
WG 2 Finance and economics
WG 3 Renewable energies and climate change
WG 4 Sanitation systems, technology, hygiene and health
WG 5 Food security and productive sanitation systems
WG 6 Sustainable sanitation for cities and planning
WG 7 Community, rural and schools (with gender and social aspects)
WG 8 Emergency and reconstruction situations
WG 9 Sanitation as a business and public awareness
WG 10 Operation and maintenance
WG 11 Groundwater protection

Due to the inter-relationships between the working groups, the factsheets are inter-related and where appropriate, are cross-referenced. The factsheets relate to different parts of the “sanitation chain”, which consists of user interface, conveyance, collection/storage, treatment, reuse or disposal. We have attempted to visualise the linkages between the different working groups and the sanitation chain in the following schematic. There are some working groups which are dealing with overarching themes and these have been placed inthe centre of the schematic.”

Publisher:

Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA) and GIZ, Germany

Related articles

• SuSanA – Compilation of 13 factsheets on key sustainable sanitation topics (sanitationupdates.wordpress.com)
• Humanitarian crises and sustainable sanitation: lessons from Eastern Chad (washafrica.wordpress.com)
• Time to Get Our Sh*t Together (sanitationupdates.wordpress.com)
• Sanitation at the 4th Africa Water Week, 14-18 May 2012, Cairo, Egypt (sanitationupdates.wordpress.com)

TEDxBerlin Noa Lerner:X-runner. Sanitation Social Business

They are reinventing the toilet -

For someone who makes 1 dollar a day, with little water to be used for sanitation, in challenging locations,  having a lack of space, and no existing sewage system.

. . . . . . . . .

  X-Runner is designed with the  following principles / features:

- It must be desirable
- It is private / respects privacy and dignity – it is  in the home
- The waste is  easily transported from the home by the resident (not surprisingly the job falling to the women-typically)
- The toilet base is  also the transportation system in the form of a wheel
- There is a central place for collecting the waste from multiple homes

- This central place is desirable to visit based on the ability to socialize with friends and the access to amenities
- This central collection point has it has a biodigester
- The waste is turned into a useful resources -  energy  and fertilize

- The energy  is returned home from this same place making a complete circle

For more information:

 blog

brochure

 www.xrunner-venture.com

new reprort Financing On-Site Sanitation for the Poor

Financing On-Site  Sanitation for the Poor A Six Country Comparative Review and Analysis

is Available From WSP Water and Sanitation Program is 174 page pdf doc dated January 2010

On-Site Sanitation for the Poor

“The study was written by Sophie Trémolet (independent consultant) under the leadership and guidance of Eddy Perez (Water and Sanitation Program – WSP) and Pete Kolsky (World Bank)…”

It starts with a quick overview of current conditions quoting from a variety of existing publications:

“…sanitation costs the economies of four Southeast Asian countries the equivalent of approximately 2 percent of their GDP…”

“In the six countries described in this study, the capital cost of household sanitation varied between US$17 and US$568, costs which often exceeded half the annual household income of the poor in the respective project areas.”

They go on to say ” The challenges of fnance – the practical decisions about who pays how much for what, when, and how – thus lie at the heart of the world’s eforts to promote health, dignity, and a cleaner environment through sanitation. Yet despite the importance of the topic, past eforts to gather meaningful data on sanitation fnance have largely failed.”   Thus, the study.

The 6 cases studies are:

• Bangladesh DISHARI – based on Community Led Total Sanitation CTLS
  • rural areas
  • Basic latrines
  • 1,630,733 people
  • 2004 to 2008
• Ecuador  – PRAGUAS
  • rural areas
  • Sanitation units (toilet, septic tank, sink, shower)
  • 143,320 people
  • 2001 to 2006
• Maharashtra (India) – Total Sanitation Campaign   (TSC) using CLTS approaches
  • rural areas
  • Improved latrines
  • 21,200,417 people
  • July 2000 to November 2008
• Mozambique – Improved Latrines Program (PLM) -
  • urban areas
  • Improved latrines
  • 1,887,891 people
  • 1980 to 2007
• Sénégal- PAQPUD -
  • urban areas
  • improved latrines to septic tanks
  • 410,507 people
  • 2002 to 2005
• Vietnam – Sanitation Revolving Fund SRF
  • urban areas
  • Mostly bathrooms and septic tanks
  • 193,670 people
  • 2001 to 2008

According to the study they address:

•  How much does provision of access to on-site sanitation cost, that is, once all costs (hardware and soft-
ware) are taken into account?
•  Do the type and scale of sanitation subsidy afect provision and uptake? How?
•  How can the public sector most efectively support household investment in on-site sanitation?
•  Should it be via investment in demand stimulation, subsidies to households or suppliers, by support to
credit schemes, or by other means?
•  Should hardware subsidies be provided or should public spending be focused on promoting demand or supporting the supply side of the market? Where hardware subsidies are adopted, what is the best way
to ensure that they reach their intended recipients and are sustainable and scalable?

•  What innovative mechanisms (such as credit or revolving funds) can be used to promote household sanitation fnancing?

Evaluation criteria:

1. “Impact on sustainable access  to services: Did the project contribute to increasing access to sanitation? “
2. “Costs: Are the costs of the resulting sanitation facilities reasonable and affordable to the beneficiaries?”
3. “Effectiveness in the use of public funds: Were public funds used in a way that maximized impact? “
4. “Poverty targeting: Did the program seek to target the poor and was the program effective at doing so?”
5. “Financial sustainability:    Could the financial approach be sustained over time without external support?”
6. “Scalability:    Could the fnancial approach be scaled up to cover those who are not yet covered in the
   country at a reasonable cost?”

The Key finding explored in detail in the study are

1. “Taken together, the case studies make a compelling case that partial public funding can trigger signifcantly increased access to household sanitation. “
2. “The studies show that the most relevant question is not “Are subsidies good or bad?” but rather “How best can we invest public funds?” “
3. “The diferent fnancing strategies adopted had a profound infuence, for better or for worse, on equity, scale, sustainability, levels of service, and costs.”
4. “Households are key investors in on-site sanitation, and careful project design and implementation can maximize their involvement, satisfaction, and fnancial investment…”
5. “Hardware subsidies of some form played a critical role in all six case studies. “
6. “Subsidy targeting methods need to be tailored to country circumstances.  “
7. “The provision of hardware subsidies on an output basis rather than an input basis can be efective at stimulating demand and leveraging private investment.”
8. All of the case studies included a signifcant publicly funded software component (promotion and community mobilization).

Related:

Gates Foundation steps up water efforts with grant to improve sanitation

The challenges of financing sanitation

Ethiopia – Effective financing of local governments to provide water and sanitation services

Innovations in Financing Urban Water & Sanitation

DRY TOILET 2009 Conference proceedings and presentations

The proceedings from the DRY TOILET 2009 conference held by Global Dry Toilet Association of Finland are  available   They are  a great resource and available at  http://huussi.net/tapahtumat/DT2009/full.html

The summary  is also avaliable in  – suomi (Finish) and Russian as a pdf

The Suomi version of the  home page is http://www.huussi.net/

Session	Presentations & Country Focus
1 PROMOTING ECOLOGICAL SANITATION IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE MDG’S
“Composting Toilet – The Bangalore, India experience” Sustainable sanitation in Namibia’s lowest income urban areas: “The potential of composting toilets” “To dry or not to dry?-People matter in scaling up dry sanitation” “Dry Toilets in Tajikistan” “Sustainable sanitation beyond Taps & Toilet” “Prevalence of Ecological sanitation uptake and associated factors in Kabale municipality, Uganda”		India, Namibia, Finland, Tajikistan, Nepal, Uganda
2 HEALTH AND SAFETY ASPECTS RELATED TO DRY SANITATION
“Toilets and health throughout history” “The public health safety of using human excreta from urine diverting toilets for agriculture: The Philippine experience” “Dry Toilet – A boon to rural community” “Ecological sanitation: inactivation of pathogens in faeces from dry toilet – grey water disposal” “From pit latrine to a safe and sustainable toilet.” “Possible public health implication of excreta re-use in poorly sanitated rural farming communities of Ebonyi state, South-East Nigeria”		Philippines, India, Argentina, Belarus, Nigeria
3 IMPLEMENTING ECOLOGICAL SANITATION IN EMERGENCIES
“Sanitation in the disaster cycle – immediate response, preparedness and risk reduction” “Provision of Dry Toilets in earthquake hit areas of Pakistan – learning from first hand experience” “Eco-toilet for disaster preparedness” “Introducing ecological sanitation in emergency: Some lessons learned from a pilot project Bangladesh” “Sanitation in IDP and refugee camps in Chad: the current and future challenges”		Pakistan, Bangladesh, Chad
4a PROSPECTS AND CHALLENGES IN RE-USE OF EXCRETA
“Pathogens of concern for developing countries and risk of reusing ecosan sludge in agriculture” “Urine from separating toilets for non-edible plants” “From pit latrine to nutrient conservation” “Re-use of human’s urine in market-gardening in South-Benin: financial returns analysis” “Biogas generation – a multi-dimensional development approach”		Mexico, Benin, Ethiopia
4b PROSPECTS AND CHALLENGES IN RE-USE OF EXCRETA continues
“Dry toilet compost and separated urine as fertilisers for cabbage and potato – a case study from Finland “ “Prospects and Challenges in the reuse of human excreta in Nakuru Municipality, Kenya” “Use of Faecal Sludge for Agriculture in Tamale Metropolis: perception of Farmers, Consumers and Relevant Agencies” “Positive spin offs using mobile urinals and UD toilets in Burkina Faso” “Study on the compost produced by compost bins and ecosan latrines and survey on knowledge attitudes and practices in usage of compost bins and ecosan latrines”		Finland, Kenya, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Sri Lanka
5 CHALLENGES IN IMPLEMENTING ECOLOGICAL SANITATION
“Evaluation of social and cultural acceptance of the biotoilet system” “Social representattions of hygiene and excretes disposal - The case of ecological dry toilets introduction in Quibdo and Tumaco-Columbia” “Towards a common goal. The challenges of the sanitation sector in Zambia” “Living with the marginalised: Addressing the socio-economic and cultural aspects in implementing Oka-Dry Toilets in Madimba; case of Lusaka” Sari Huuhtanen*, Finland; Michelo Katambo, Zambia: “The challenge of social change; experiences from Zambia dry-sanitation project (ZASP, 2006-2008)”		Mexico, Columbia, Zambia
6 GENDER ASPECTS RELATED TO DRY SANITATION
“Gender aspects of ecological sanitation with urine diverting dry toilets” “Female local latrine builders: Contributing towards objectives of International Year of Sanitation, 2008″ “Women and ecological sanitation” “Promotion of dry toilets for reducing vulnerability for the poor women having Islamic and cultural values in urban slums of Bangladesh”		Nepal, Uganda, Bangladesh
7a TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT OF DRY TOILETS
“Is the Agricultural utilisation of Treated Urine and Faces recommendable?” “Developing low cost composting toilet for developing countries” “Solar thermal sanitation of human faeces – an affordable solution for ensuring sustainability of EcoSan activities” “Feasibility assessment of application of onsite volume reduction system (OVRS) for source-separated urine” “Urban slum dwellers in Kenya and Bangladesh benefit from using Peepoo bags which are self-sanitising and biodegradable”		Kenya and Bangladesh and others
7b TECHICAL DEVELOPMENT OF DRY TOILETS continues
“From the outhouse to indoor dry toilets in Finland” “Estimation of water evaporation rate from composting toilet” “Implementation of urine-diverting dry toilets in multi-storey apartment buildings in Ethiopia” Dry sanitation in multi-story apartment buildings: “The case of Dongsheng, Inner Mongolia, China” “The humanure toilet”		Finland, Ethiopia, Inner Mongolia, China
8 CAPACITY BUILDING
“Going to scale with urine diversion in Sweden – From individual households to municipal systems in 15 years” “The processes of adaption during the introducing urine diverting toilets in Kyrgyzstan” “Influence of social, cultural, economic and gender aspects in dry toilet as eco-sanitation tool. Case study of Sukuma-nomadic community in Malinyi, Tanzania.” “Experiences with ecosan systems to provide sustainable sanitation for schools in Kenya and India” “Gold Factory – An experimental art project with dry toilets”		Sweden, Kyrgyzstan, Tanzania,Kenya, India
Side event SUSTAINABLE SANITATION FOR TOURISM AND RECREATION
“Toilet provision in the Cairngorms national park, Scotland, UK” “Experience of biotoilet installations on Kizhi island, Republic of Karelia, Russia” “Promotion of sustainable development of rural communities around especially protected natural areas in Kazakhstan” “Public toilets and care practices in nature parks in Finland, current situation and recommendations for improvement”		Scotland, Republic of Karelia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Finland