Engineers Without Borders-USA and Composting Toilets Overview and Nicaragua Project by Pat Coyle, Livermore Rotary, EWB-SFP ATDT lead, for Rotary Club of Castro Valley, December 2,

Engineers Without Borders-‐USA and

Compos8ng Toilets Overview and Nicaragua Project Pat Coyle

Livermore Rotary EWB-‐SFP ATDT lead

for Rotary Club of Castro Valley December 2, 2014

Agenda •  Overview: Remember EWB and Rotary partner on many levels •  Engineers Without Borders-‐USA (EWB-‐USA) •  Engineers Without Borders — San Francisco Professional Chapter (EWB-‐SFP) •  Service Corps and Appropriate Technology Design Team (ATDT)

•  Compos8ng toilets, background – the need •  Benefits/Advantages/Safety considera8ons •  Some organiza8ons involved, overview – types, examples: •  Household or school: with in-‐vault or on-‐site compos8ng •  Urban: sanita8on-‐as-‐service, with off-‐site compos8ng

•  SFP-‐ATDT project: Compos8ng Latrines in Nicaragua

Agenda •  Updates and status: Belize Open Source -‐ Sustainable Development •  Engineers Without Borders-‐USA (EWB-‐USA) •  Engineers Without Borders — San Francisco Professional Chapter (EWB-‐SFP) •  Updates and status: Three EWB chapter projects in northern Belize •  Belize photos •  Road past Belize Open Source

40-‐acre site toward August Pine Ridge village

EWB-‐USA vision and mission A world in which all communi8es have the capacity to meet their basic human needs

Supports community-‐driven development programs worldwide through the design and implementa8on of sustainable engineering projects, while fostering responsible leadership

EWB-‐USA Growth

2000 8 Members 1 Chapter 1 Project

2014 14,700 Members ~ 300 Chapters 684+ Programs 39 countries

•  Established in 2004 •  ~ 200 ac8ve members •  7 infrastructure programs •  2 Appropriate Technology Design Team (ATDT) projects •  Execu8ve Commicee and support commicees provide chapter management, fundraising, and publicity

EWB-‐SFP Na8on’s 1st Professional Chapter

EWB-‐SFP Programs and Loca8ons Kenya Water Supply

El Salvador Water & SanitaIon

Fiji Water System

Kenya Water System

HaiI Community Health Clinic and Solar Power

Honduras Bridge ConstrucIon & Water DistribuIon

Nicaragua ATDT ComposIng Toilets Water distribuIon – solar pump

Tanzania Well rebuilding, water DistribuIon & solar pumping

EWB Program Process and Commitment •  Programs have a non-‐governmental organiza8on (NGO) or

community based organiza8on (CBO) partner ac8ng as a liaison to the community

•  Three project phases: 1.  Assessment 2.  Design and Implementa8on 3.  Monitoring and Evalua8on

•  Infrastructure projects have a minimum 5-‐year commitment to the community

•  Service Corps and Appropriate Technology projects vary in length depending on the needs of the NGO and community

•  EWB-‐USA's Engineering Service Corps offers the exper8se of our most seasoned volunteers to organiza8ons in the interna8onal development sector

•  Collaborates with NGOs and governments who use a community-‐driven approach and who lack access to the resources needed to design sustainable and appropriate solu8ons to engineering challenges

•  Performs a variety of services, including engineering studies, owner's representa8on, planning, design, monitoring and evalua8on

11/21/14 email blast: Current Volunteer Opportunity: System Analysis for Oxygen Generator | Nejo Hospital, Ethiopia •  Need: The East Africa Medical Relief Founda8on is working with

Nejo Hospital to apply for a Rotary Global Grant for the installa8on of an oxygen generator. This is an urgent need because pa8ents rou8nely suffer from unnecessary medical complica8ons due to a lack of access to oxygen for therapy…

•  Time frame: Support for the grant applica8on will occur over the next several weeks. Grant 8ming and scope will determine the schedule for subsequent project work

•  Qualifica8ons: The ideal candidate(s) would have a background in medical equipment support in the developing world

•  Yes, I'm interested in this opportunity >>

Appropriate Technology Design Team (ATDT) •  EWB-‐SFP’s ATDT is a group of MEs, EEs and other

product development professionals who provide engineering design and research assistance for projects in developing communi8es throughout the world •  The team works with in-‐country partners to design

for local condi8ons so that solu8ons are appropriate and sustainable

•  The implemented solu8ons empower communi8es by providing tools that facilitate local economic development and provide basic needs, local educa8on, and entrepreneurial opportuni8es

EWB-‐USA is rolling out Appropriate Technology Design na8onally •  EWB-‐HQ’s new Service Corps mode, includes ATDT •  Sam Burd, EWB-‐SFP, leads the EWB-‐HQ ATDT ini8a8ve,

and put out a call to bring forward AT projects for inclusion in the na8onal program •  We have submiced the two EWB-‐SFP ATDT projects •  We don't know yet exactly what that will mean for

our projects, perhaps more visibility, opportuni8es for collabora8on, or fundraising support

EWB-‐SFP ATDT ac8ve projects

For addi8onal informa8on on the ATDT projects see: hcp://www.ewb-‐sfp.org/atdt

ATDT completed or closed projects

Compos8ng toilets – the need Over 2.6 billion people don’t have access to toilets with huge health consequences: •  Open defeca8on and improperly maintained, overflowing latrines contaminate drinking water and food supplies •  The resultant cholera, hepa88s, parasites and other microscopic nas8es claim lives, sicken people and cripple economies by keeping people home from school and work. 1.8 million people die every year from diarrheal diseases, and 90% of these are children under the age of 5

•  Safety -‐ Lack of toilets puts women at risk. In India in May 2014, two young girls were acacked, raped and ler hanging from a tree. The deaths could have been prevented if the girls had access to a safe toilet. Lacking one, as millions do, they went to an open field to relieve themselves

Benefits of compos8ng toilets Compos8ng toilets have clear ecological and economical advantages over flush toilets. In addi8on to addressing the sanita8on issue, they: •  turn waste into compost. The compost can fer8lize crops, comple8ng a circle of nutrients that saves and rebuilds soils and saves money •  save money in the costs of sewage disposal and in fer8lizer •  require much less water and energy

Cell phone analogy -‐ some developing countries have skipped land lines, moved directly to cell phone networks Similarly, they could skip the water and energy intensive sewer treatment approach -‐ and instead, rely on dry sanita8on, compos8ng solu8ons

Managing Poop Safely When is the compost containing poop safe to use? (from A Sewer Catastrophe Companion with references) •  Op8on 1: Reten8on -‐ Retaining compost can kill many pathogens by keeping pathogens away from their host (our gut), however, Ascaris eggs (roundworm) can last up to 130 days and s8ll be viable. Retaining compost for two years (730 days) is considered extremely safe •  Op8on 2: High Temps -‐ Most pathogens are adapted for a narrow temperature range around their host’s body temperature, and very few survive outside of that range. Two consecu8ve days at 57°C (135°F) kills roundworm eggs. Federal guidelines for sewage sludge treatment require three days at 55°C (131°F) for pathogen reduc8on

Managing Pee Safely •  Urine Disease Risks: In healthy people urine is sterile, although it may pick up bacteria or feces while leaving the urethra •  Addressing Urine Disease Risks: When retained outside the body, the urea and water in urine quickly change to ammonia and then ammonium during reten8on, raising the pH from around 7 to around 9. The pH change and presence of ammonia (which is toxic to all living cells at high concentra8ons) is enough to inac8vate most bacteria within 2 hours •  In Sweden, urine is used as a fer8lizer for any crop arer a one month reten8on at 20° C (must be applied one month before plan8ng for crops that are to be eaten raw)

Killing the Tough Bugs

Some major organiza8ons involved




Overview – types, examples

SOIL, Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods, developed EcoSan latrines that store human waste in removable 15-‐gallon drums for compos8ng. SOIL and its partners build and manage latrines, compost centers and vegetable gardens and hold sanita8on workshops in Port au Prince

Resource blogged; cartridge-‐based sanita8on services…have tremendous poten8al, but to reach that poten8al we need to make them much, much bigger…more than 748 million people live in ci8es today without access to decent sanita8on, and that number grows every day. We need to move from serving thousands of people…to hundreds of millions…We’ve been hard at work on several fronts -‐ hardware development, sorware development, and impact evalua8on – all cri8cal for urban sanita8on services to scale

Concept: ultra-‐low-‐cost toilet using removable containers

•  Easy to collect and transport wastes safely from the community •  A good toilet is a symbol of cleanliness and modernity •  Beyond being odorless, hygienic, and vector-‐free, toilet needs to be elegant, modern, and pleasant to use •  It needs to be cheap. Toilet combines a 20-‐L bucket, a liquid container, and a western-‐style toilet seat into a sealed, portable, urine-‐diver8ng toilet

Resource: full cycle •  Collect and deliver the wastes to SOIL’s exis8ng compost sites •  Remove full containers, replace with clean ones •  Transport containers, carts to trucks •  Compost waste, clean containers at the compost site •  Sell the compost to help finance the service, restore Hai8’s devastated soil


X-‐runner is opera8ng sanita8on as a service to low-‐income, urban households that cannot have regular toilets in Lima, Peru; where 3 million people don’t have a toilet at home and use latrines


Clean team, in Ghana, offers an innova8ve, affordable sanita8on solu8on for low-‐income communi8es in the developing world


Sanergy builds healthy, prosperous communi8es by making hygienic sanita8on affordable and accessible throughout Africa's informal seclements. Recently honored by Silicon Valley’s Tech Award


EWB Portland Maine Professionals, (Portland State University) For Ethiopia, Debre Birhan School Sanita8on project


EWB UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, LAS VEGAS PROFESSIONALS, NICARAGUA, SAN FRANCISCO LIBRE, LOMAS DEL SOL SANITARY IMPROVEMENT PROJECT


(Cont.) EWB UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, LAS VEGAS PROFESSIONALS, NICARAGUA, SAN FRANCISCO LIBRE, LOMAS DEL SOL SANITARY IMPROVEMENT PROJECT

Specific case: SFP-‐ATDT Compos8ng Latrines in Nicaragua

•  In 2010, EWB-‐SFP ATDT, Alvarez Co-‐op, Alcance Nicaragua (AN) and Outreach Interna8onal (OI), built ten compos8ng toilets with the community of Los Alvarez, Nicaragua (134 families, ~ 938 people) •  95% of its latrines were in poor condi8on. These latrines flood with water during the winter and fail structurally, resul8ng in illnesses due to exposure to fecal macer and water contamina8on •  The environment is polluted and inhabitants are exposed to physical harm due to latrine collapse

Completed compos8ng toilet from 2010 pilot implementa8on trip

Compos8ng Latrine Status •  The first compos8ng toilets are working great •  User acceptance has been high •  Genera8on and use of compost for agricultural applica8ons has been successful •  The community wants more units

Phase 2 Planning •  A member of the Alcance Nicaragua team designed and built a less expensive compos8ng toilet which cut the cost by half

Prototype reduced cost redesigned toilet

Phase 2 Planning (cont.) •  Goal: build fourteen compos8ng toilets in El Llanito community using the new design ($336/toilet) •  Alcance Nicaragua responsibili8es: materials procurement and transporta8on, iden8fying new beneficiaries, managing the construc8on, and collec8ng beneficiaries’ contribu8on (40% of cost)

Phase 2 Planning (cont.) •  July 2014: AN selects par8cipants •  August 2014: Material Procurement prior to construc8on start •  August 19-‐August 31: Construc8on •  Post Construc8on: Documenta8on

Phase 2 ConstrucIon

Preparing founda8on

Phase 2 ConstrucIon (cont.)

Concrete in founda8on form


Building the vaults


Sealing the vaults with plaster coat


Building the upper structure


Families with completed toilets

Families arer workshop

Next steps •  The EWB team is con8nuing to raise funds to do more compos8ng toilets for the families that need them • We raised almost $3k through an IndieGoGo campaign • We’ve applied for $7.5k grant from EWB-‐SFP chapter •  IBM has matching program up to $5k – we’ll pursue it

•  Our Livermore Rotary club and NGO partner are in contact with Managua and Masaya Nicaragua Rotary clubs to explore partnering on a Global Grant. I’ve started draring the applica8on and am talking with our District 5170 Grants Team •  Our NGO partner met with the president of Masaya Rotary •  Fayeceville Arkansas Rotary also wants to support our NGO's work in Nicaragua and we are exploring opportuni8es for collabora8on • We may be back to seek your help on the Global Grant

Hands-‐on workshop: EWB WCR Symposium: UC Davis 10/25/14 Based on A Sewer Catastrophe Companion: Dry Toilets for Wet Disasters, the field-‐proven 5-‐gallon pail based composAng approach for seismic or other emergency response situaAons

Hands-‐on workshop (cont.)



Wrap-‐up, Q&A •  Remember EWB can partner with Rotary in a variety of ways •  Compos8ng toilets/Dry Sanita8on: The simple way to think about

this is “Don't poop in the water.” Ques8ons? Email me, [email protected], with follow up ques8ons and for a copy of the Sewer Catastrophe Companion: Dry Toilets for Wet Disasters, the field-‐proven 5-‐gallon pail based composAng approach for seismic or other emergency response situaAons … or you can find it online at: hcp://www.portlandoregon.gov/pbem/ar8cle/447707

Environment

Engineers Without Borders-USA and Composting Toilets Overview and Nicaragua Project by Pat Coyle, Livermore Rotary, EWB-SFP ATDT lead, for Rotary Club of Castro Valley, December 2,