In Madagascar, A Waterless Toilet May Provide a Global Solution
If there is one technology that symbolizes the global water sector’s future struggles, it would be the toilet. While there have been plenty of advances in farming irrigation and water purification, toilets are still stuck in a Victorian-era time warp. Granted, sanitation is improving across the world. In 1990, only 54 percent of the world’s citizens had access to flush toilets or covered latrines; the World Health Organization says that as of 2015, that metric has improved to 68 percent.
But the fact that toilet technology has not changed much in over 150 years poses several challenges as more countries cope with scarcity of clean water for drinking — never mind flushing. “The business opportunity of the decade,” is how one TriplePundit contributing writer described the need for scalable and sustainable toilet technology two years ago. That opportunity may very well be alive and well in Madagascar right now.
Loowatt is a startup based in the United Kingdom that has been selling its waterless toilets in Madagascar since 2012. At first glance, Loowatt’s contraption looks like the familiar western toilet. But upon flushing, instead of water, the toilet emits a biodegradable film that envelopes the human waste and then stores it within a large cartridge underneath the unit.
SuSanA Secretariat