Role in Team: Field Study, User Research, Design Strategy & Business Model Canvas

Introduction

2.5 billion people, roughly 37% of world population are lack of affordable and safe sanitation system. Open defecation results in numbers of children’s death in the early age by intaking polluted drinking water from rivers. In 2011, Bill & Melinda Gate Foundation launched ‘Reinvent the Toilet Challenge’, seeking a bottom-of-pyramid concept to fight hygienic problem in developing countries.

TU Delft tackle this challenge in collaboration with the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering and the department of Process and Energy. The response to Reinvent the Toilet project is a combination of advanced technology and user-centred design. I am very lucky to being part of team, to deliver a human-centred approach based on plasma gasification, a technology upgrades human waste into energy.

Challenge

How might we design a self-sustainable and community-based sanitation that are accessible and economical to slum dwellers.

Solution

Running a sustainable sanitation business model by constructing a membership facility equipped by water diverting toilet, and transporting human waste to plasma gasification plant, to convert organic matter into synthesis gas for environmental-friendly.

Process

1. Ethnographic Research

In 2013 spring, we flew to Ahmedabad City in India for two-month field study. Together with local nonprofit Sulabh International, we took culture lens to study of slum dwellers' and rural residents' lives.

We initiated our research by surveying the situations of private house-hold toilets and shared community sanitation, which allowed us to realise the ground realities of sanitation in slums and rural areas. Furthermore, we had conversation with former environmental officials, rural inhabitants and slum dwellers in Ramapir/Gulbai Tekra to understand the their attitude to hygiene from diverse perspectives.

Our investigation found the presence of public sanitation in urban slums doesn’t ensure the usage to all while it is hundred meters distant from the most household and requested paying to enter. As for rural area, partly household lacked access to toilets and had to practise open defecation. Slum dwellers expected easy-to-use sanitation with holistic management to ensure the safety, accessibility and cleanliness.

2. Design Strategy:

To make our new design sustainable and fit into local using behaviours, we framed 4 key rules to innovate sanitation system:

• Following traditional cleaning methods by using bucket of water to flush squatting pan after use.
• Taking advantage of ubiquitous tempo trucks as vehicle to transport human waste containers to plasma gasification plant.
• To leverage economical and hygienic concerns, one sanitation facility is suggested to be shared by 5 to 7 families.
• Offering water-diverting squatting pans with ergonomic stepping areas for a safe toilet usage and water management.

3. Water-Diverting Toilet

To collect human waste for plasma gasification process, we redesigned squatting pan into a water diverting toilet that avoid solids from trespassing to water pipe. Through experimental prototype phase, a critical angle of the slope is finally confirmed to make sure the diverting effectiveness.

4. Business Model Canvas

Our sanitation system are accessible for slum families who join the membership. The business design is partnered by nonprofit Sulabh International fundraising, investment from Reckitt Benckiser,the largest hygienic consumer goods company in India, and Tata Motor for running the transportation business and hiring local man-power. Plasma gasification plant will be built by Bill & Melinda Foundation.

This project is partnered with Bill & Melinda Gate Foudation & TU Delft.