Road to Jholunge

Update from the Field

Namaste from Nepal! To say the least our first few months back, have been eye opening. We have spent some time connecting with local NGOs, district public officials and learning about the current WASH situation. While scoping out various districts, we connected with local NGO Educating Nepal and have had the opportunity to spend time in a small village located in the district of Sindhupalchowk, named Jholunge (jho-loon-ge).

Nestled in the valley of Maghi Gaon, the village is home to some of the best fishermen in Nepal. Through a somewhat treacherous road, the village can be reached within 5 hours by local bus. However, as the current border blockage with India continues to make headlines, traveling has been quite the task especially with a lack of fuel and transportation.

Starting this December, Manavta will be building urine diversion toilets for three families and working alongside the community, students of Suryoda Primary School and artists from Kathmandu, to spread the good word about stopping open defecation. As many of you may know, Sindhupalchowk is also the epicenter of the earthquake and has been the site of much of the destruction that was witnessed in the media. Jholunge in total lost 25 members of their community and are currently rebuilding their homes, schools and lives. Their story is something I will come to learn while I spend the next few months living with them. We are so grateful to be able to work with this community and are equally heartfelt by the support our fans have shown us during the past few years leading up to this project. 

We are set to depart next week and I encourage you to keep an eye on our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (links at the very bottom of the page) to learn more about the progress and the community we are working with. If you would like to get involved with our current operations you can connect with us on social media or at toilets@manavtaproject.org, we would love to hear from you!

This week's ThankBack is focused on the people who continue to help us spread the word about the global sanitation crisis and our approach to ending it!

 

OUR FUNDRAISING TEAM

A huge shout out to everyone who helped make our first annual #GiveAShit fundraiser in Calgary a success! Special props and thanks to Zarah Virani, Naznin Daya, Gurjot Bhullar,  Varshu Karumuri, Varnit Karumuri, Saima Kassam, Maggie Dawson, Sophia Jaffer, Adam Getchaw, Charlotte Loeppky, Shez Rajan, Malika Karim, Faizal Somji, Alyssa Hasham, Spyder and the whole team at Blind Monk Pub. We had an amazing turnout and raised just over $1200, all of which will go towards our next projects in Nepal (gearing up in two short months!). Thanks to everyone who came out, were looking forward to seeing you again. 

ADVISORY BOARD

From building our first toilets to our very first Facebook post, we have learned a great deal about the non profit industry over the past three years. We would like to acknowledge individuals and organizations who are helping Manavta reach new heights. From working on our Canadian charitable registration to connecting us to professionals around the world, we feel deeply grateful towards our advisors. Huge thanks to Sterling Lawrence from Lawrence Law, Justin Dharamdial from Osler Law and Hafiz Mitha of Vivametrica. 

Did you just say Pee Fertilizer?

A typical toilet flusher wastes up to 22 liters of drinkable water every day and three- to six-liter flushes at a time. What follows is a long and costly process of sanitizing the water that was clean before you answered nature’s call. Using so much water per flush unnecessarily increases the volume of our waste and the cost of its transportation and treatment –a process that leaves a huge carbon footprint.

 

Why Pee?

It’s the method of treating your pee and poo as two separate entities. Urine Diversion (UD) is a process that splits the two at the source, no longer leaving you with waste, but with two very valuable resources. Urine and feces are partitioned into two compartments. Urine will go through one compartment and feces will go through another. Both are then stored in separate holding tanks.   

Valuable plant nutrients are found in human excreta. A higher proportion of these nutrients – nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium –reside in your urine compared to your feces. The exact breakdown of urine varies depending on the diet of the pee-maker. The more protein a person consumes, the more nitrogen will be excreted into the urine. Urine also contains salt – sometimes quite a lot of it if you are hopped up on a diet of canned soup and French fries.

 

Try it at home

To use urine as a fertilizer safely, it should be stored for 1 to 6 months in a sealed container. When urine is stored the pH value, which is usually 6 – 7, will increase to around 9 as urea decomposes into ammonia/ammonium. This process sanitizes the urine overtime killing off pathogens. The longer the urine is stored the more sanitized the urine will become, thus increasing the variability of crops that can be fertilized. For instance, urine that is stored for 6 months can be safely used on all types of crops for consumption.

 

Grossness factor

A disadvantage of maintaining a pit latrine is the cleanup process. Not only is discarding the waste laborious and messy, but quite smelly as well. UD would make this step much easier by keeping the feces dry. The foul smelling fecal sludge that we all associate “shit” as is the result of feces and urine mixing. The more time dedicated to “drying out” the feces will ultimately transform the substance into an easily handled ashy and odourless type of material. The dried feces can be used for composting but must be stored much longer than urine in order to efficiently kill off the large variety of pathogens that live within feces.

 If designed and operated properly a UD toilet can be built indoors, improving the users security and enhance privacy. This can be an essential feature for women and girls who may not utilize the toilet at night for safety reasons. In addition, building the UD system indoors allows it to be paired or in close proximity to a hand washing station. This is important as it could increase hand-washing rates, which would alternatively improve hygiene.

 

Its got potential

At Manavta, we are currently working on putting together a pilot project that will showcase our UD toilet designs and provide us further research on its uses and disadvantages. Since WASH in schools is about engaging the greater community, we see these toilets as a tool to please nearby farmers (like our friend Krishna) who spend far too much money on commercial fertilizers, help conserve water in the long run and end open defecation. If you want to learn more refer to our concept design or check out this WaterAid report on UD in Nepal. 

                   Krishna at his farm in Lauke, Nepal - the site of our Pilot Project in March 2013