A pilot program is being tested in one of the poorest slums of Port-au-Prince, the capital city of the poorest nation in the Americas, Haiti. In a place where the availability of basic resources is limited and sanitary conditions are appalling, the Brazilian NGO Viva Rio is widening access to what is considered in Haiti to be a luxury--toilets. Not only will the most impoverished have a sanitary alternative in terms of waste disposal, the project will allow them to benefit from the biogas that it produces.
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Up until now, the sanitation options for the city's poorest were rather limited. While the city does operate public toilets, the 10 cent charge to use them puts them out of reach for many residents in Port-au-Prince, and without alternative much of the waste is not properly disposed of. The toilets being built by "Viva Rio" will come with a 1 cent charge, but the real benefit will come from what happens next.
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According to TVCiencia, the waste will be collected in a large pool, called a bio-digester--an infrastructure where bacteria transforms human waste into methane which can then be used as an energy source. This reaction can produce 50 cubic meters of biogas per day and can generate three thousand watts of electricity for 24 hours straight.
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Project Coordinator Valmir Fachini:
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The operation is very simple. The droppings come from toilets, the bathrooms, and enter the bottom of the reactor and woe starts a fermentation process that produces biogas and biogas through the water column and is accumulated in the dome, which is where we are. And this serves as biogas for cooking and to produce electricity.
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The benefits of increased access to toilets for the slums of Port-au-Prince will do wonders for improving sanitation in the poorest neighborhoods. But perhaps more importantly, the methane the system will produce can be used as an alternative to coal, easing the serious problems of deforestation in a nation already plagued with daunting internal challenges.

I share your sentiment Ellen. I am currently working on a research project attempting to identify technologies that may decrease the sanitation problem in the developing world and most specifically in Haiti. The composting toilet seems like a very compatible option.

If there is any info you can share with me that may help in my research, I would be grateful. I am hoping this research can be put to good use in practice not just in theory.

I understand that the advantage of this Bio-Latrine is that it produces usable energy. But what about a composting toilet as a waste management solution? Granted, you won't get any energy production from them, but it's a safe and sanitary solution for waste management, and costs only a couple thousand dollars, at most.

I THINK THE SYSTEM YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT IS AT PWOJE LESPWA IN LES CAYES. THEY ALSO HAVE A LARGE URINE SEPARATEING TOILET. I SAW IT IN CONSTRUCTION, BUT NOT SINCE IT IS WORKING. IT SOUNDS LIKE THERE ARE MANY PROJECTS NOW STARTING IN ECO-SAN (ECOLOGICAL SANITATION). I AM PART OF A PROJECT WITH YOUTHAITI AND OJPDH IN DUCHITY, GRANDE ANSE, BUILDING PUBLIC URINE SEPARATING TOILETS.

Here is a link to a piece on Urine Diversion Toilets, which allow urine to be used as cheap, effective fertilizer.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/opinion/27george.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

February 26, 2009 (Washington, D.C.)- Human excrement is serious business. Three African social entrepreneurs, David Kuria, Joseph Adelegan and Trevor Mulaudzi, spoke at the National Press Club last week to share this revolutionary approach to solving the global sanitation crisis.

The entrepreneurs speak from experience; each has established lucrative and groundbreaking businesses related to people "doing their business." Their business models, once considered distractions in the traditional policy or charity realm, are proving to be successful ventures. Their innovations are successfully shifting social behavior and improving public health, the environment and the economy. Trevor Mulaudzi, a South African entrepreneur, stressed that "no one wants to use a dirty toilet no matter how poor they are."

Entrepreneur David Kuria is making the toilet a hot commodity in Kibera, one of the largest slums in Kenya. To increase demand for and maintenance of toilets in the slums, he founded a venture called Ecotact. "Why just do two quick things in the toilet?" Kuria asks. Ecotact builds "toilet malls" that provide bathroom facilities along with shoe shines, food, phone booths and other commercial services.

Each toilet complex is equipped with 8 toilets, a water kiosk, a baby changing station and gender separate showers. 30,000 customers use Ecotact's facilities every day. Corporations now vie for advertising, while the nearby vendors strive to keep the toilets clean. And it is the business model, not charity or education alone, that drives this success.

Lately the toilet malls have been attracting unlikely champions - a popular comedian who does a stand-up sketch about toilets, the country's beauty queen, Miss Kenya, and the nation's Vice President himself, who recently stopped in to use the facilities and pose for photos. In a continent where more than six out of every ten people do not have a sanitary toilet, this new service is removing the taboo around human waste, creating jobs, improving self esteem and making communities enthusiastic about hygiene.

Kuria has recently won several international awards for his work. He is collaborating with Ashoka, Rotary, the Global Water Challenge, the Acumen Fund and other social entrepreneurs internationally to scale up his model and combine it with similar innovations. There is promise for it to extend throughout Kenya and the rest of Africa.

For Nigerian entrepreneur Dr. Joseph Adelegan, a civil engineer by training, human and animal waste was not waste but an opportunity that should not be wasted. A nearby slaughterhouse had been disposing daily the waste of 1,000 slaughtered cows directly into a local river. Joseph designed a bioreactor that digests the waste into biogas that generates electricity and is used for cooking fuel. Local women's organizations sell the fuel at affordable prices for urban poor. The solid waste left over is a cheap and effective fertilizer. His models, named "Cows to Kilowatts" and "Power to the Poor," also reduce emission of methane gas, a potent greenhouse gas. His initiative has also improved the quality of the water that the local community uses for cleaning and bathing.

Adelegan's successful business model not only tackles the technological aspects of this problem, but - even more powerfully - it has mobilized the community. It has even stirred the Nigerian government, which used to block such initiatives, into action. In 2008, his model was accepted into national policy and will be replicated within other slaughterhouses in Nigeria. Meanwhile, Dr. Adelegan, has also been featured on CNN, awarded prizes from the World Economic Forum and covered recently in Fortune magazine. He is now working with other social entrepreneurs to extend the approach to other African countries.

Trevor Mulaudzi, a South African entrepreneur, applies many of these same principles in his business, The Clean Shop. A clean toilet is good business for The Clean Shop. It offers schools and large organizations sanitation services, such as cleaning toilets and repairing plumbing in schools, teaching students hygiene lessons.

A mining geologist by training, Mulaudzi recalled how he set out on this career path the very day he found children skipping class and defecating in the open because their school's toilet was piled with feces. Now, The Clean Shop employees three hundred people who move in and clean up unusable toilet facilities. They turn them into attractive and dignified places, sometimes with no initial payment or contract.

Mulaudzi approaches the sanitation problem from the perspective of an educator rather than a cleaning contractor. He has used such motivational techniques as requiring that each student bring his or her own roll of toilet paper as the "admission ticket" to the shiny new restroom. In doing so, he builds a sense of pride, dignity and responsibility. It usually evolves into toilet-user demand for clean toilets, which ripples up to change administrative and even government policy. Students in one location even held a protest when Mulaudzi's contract was not renewed; it prompted the administration to reverse their decision.

Trevor Mulaudzi is a finalist in the Ashoka Changemaker's recent global competition for innovative solutions to water and sanitation problems. In addition, Trevor has recently been hosted by the government of Malaysia to discuss transferring the lessons of this model.

These three leading entrepreneurs have been working with other entrepreneurs in Africa to establish a new vision of water and waste management where clean water and facilities inspire public pride which translates to political influence, and where waste management and sanitation deliver public health and environmental benefits through an economically profitable business model.

"It can't be business as usual-real impact needs a new approach that integrates together different approaches to resolving the water and sanitation crisis," concludes Joseph Adelegan.

Photos available to the press of the three entrepreneurs' work and the press conference are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wateradvocates/sets/72157614159680504/

I worked at a center in Les Cayes that had a bio-Latrine and I must say these babies can be difficult... and dirty. The biggest flame produced was equal to a candle. We learned the latrine is like one big chemistry experiment... and if you don't have a committed chemist who isn't afraid of getting dirty, the experiment will fail. I think this technology has great potential but isn't to a point where it is appropriate for the masses. Does anyone have success stories in which people are cooking from the latrines on a daily basis?

Let me find the exact name for you. More info shortly.

Hey, do you still know where this school was? I would like to go there and visit it!