EcoSan project, Tamil Nadu

Last week I (and Tom Outlaw, of UNC Kenan-Flagler School of Business) visited this community sanitation "pay to pee" project in Musiri panchayat, Tamil Nadu, about 3 hours from Coimbatore, in the south of India. Read more about the project here. Very interesting example of entrepreneurial model for sanitation. The urine and feces are composted and sold as a high-value fertilizer, which is increasingly a good idea given the high cost of ammonium & potassium nitrate on the global markets. The composting toilet systems are so-called EcoSan systems (urine-diverting, low/no water, etc) which are used worldwide; this project is the best such scheme I've ever seen. And it's turning a profit.

We also visited urine-irrigated rice and banana fields, part of a local agriculture project in coordintion with the community system, to evaluate the fertilizer replacement value of the wastes.

It's very useful to convey this idea that waste has value and can be managed for economic reasons - the health benefits are something of a positive externality. Brilliant. My proposed project title: "Urine Business".

A few photos from our visit:

Interesting private sector solution, distributed technology

I recently started getting Water 21, I think because of the IWA Project Innovation Award that we recently received for our work in Cambodia. More on that soon.

There was a really interesting article in this past issue on a women's cooperative in Tamil Nadu that is using a really innovative private-sector approach to safe water: each of 150 women provided $150 in capital to start the business, which was also supported by a small grant from a government ministry and technical assistance from a local college.

Read another article about the project here.

Hippo Water Roller

While on field work in Venda, South Africa I stumbled upon this Hippo Water Roller, which is a fantastic innovation, as long as you are not dealing with steep terrain. There are even some add-on technologies that use the rolling action of the drum to generate a chemical disinfectant or work a filtration device - still in development. I was quite surprised to find this one in this remote village near the Zimbabwe border.

In general, we need to be paying more attention to water storage options, as water is at serious risk of recontamination at the household level. And in areas where transport is difficult, solutions like these are very much needed. Now if only we can get that price to come down....