Using Urine from UDDT as fertilizer

A farmer in the picture has been using urine from last year February as fertilizer on his farm. This was after a training I conducted in this area in Bungoma on Ecosan Toilets. He claims that urine has changed his way of life for better for ever. Urine has had positive results with Bananas, Onions, Nappier grass, Coffee and Mangoes. The quality of Nappier grass has improved and the rate of growth increased. During the time of drought, he only needs some little amount of water to dilute the urine and then pours the mixture to the cut nappier stems. He says that this is best done in the morning or late evening to minimise on smell of urine. Once the urine is applied, it only takes 4-5 weeks for Nappier to be ready again for cutting. They are very green with broad leaves. Urine is only used after 14days storage in the toilet. His farm has become a learning centre for many other people who are very interested in the UDDT. Some have already started constructing the toilet at their own cost.

Read more...

Chief Mutsembi Ecosan Primary School Project

By Moses Wakala, ecosan expert and entrepreneur (wakala.gtz@gmail.com)

Construction of new UDDT facilities was stopped due to lack of funds.
A continuation is envisaged with new funding from Western Water Company.

Chief Mutsembi Primary school located in Kakamega town experiences very poor sanitation with only six pit latrines serving a population of 700 pupils and 15 teachers. The situation is bad that female teachers share the latrine with the pupils (Girls). The school with most pupils from the neighbouring slums overpopulated area is squized with small land and this has caused serious health hazard to the water spring down the school. This protected spring serves the whole community. However, due to lack of space and planning, it is being polluted by the latrines in the school. The only option is now to have better facilities which cant pollute the water body. The school is threatened with clossure if they can't do better sanitation facilities. I visited the school and gave them this ecosan option. Funds were to be got from Constituent development fund. However from last year, the funds have delayed. We begun the construction but stopped due to lack of money. Now, i have gotten in touch with Western Water Company which also deals with Sanitation in the area. They have an on-going project with sanitation option in school and they have agreed to finance the project to completion with four units UDDT and urinal. This is great news for the school.

An earlier post had already described the school situation. Please read here:
http://ecosankenya.blogspot.com/2011/01/chief-mutsembi-primary-school-project.html

Read more...

Sotik: Ecosan Public Toilet finished and running

By Moses Wakala in Feb.2011, ecosan expert and entrepreneur (wakala.gtz@gmail.com), edited by K. Kurianowski (GIZ)

The public toilet in Sotik is fitted with a water kiosk, bathrooms and toilets. The waste water is treated for reuse in a biogas settler and anaerobic baffled reactor.

This ecosan public toilet, funded through the Water Services Trust Fund (WSTF) with financial resources provided by the EU-SIDA-GTZ EcoSan Promotion Project (EPP) was completed in June last year and has been running since July. See the pictures and description on the construction of the toilet in a prior post (http://ecosankenya.blogspot.com/2010/12/sotik-public-toilet-with-water-kiosk.html).

I supported the construction and training of the construction company and stakeholders on behalf of the GIZ sustainable sanitation program. All the stakeholders agreed that it should be run and managed by a private entrepreneur on behalf of the local Water and Sanitation Company. Mrs Muge takes care of the facilities, cleans and serves the costumers daily, most of them being men with a daily collection of about KSH 1000. The charge per go is currently 5 Ksh. The demand for public bathrooms is already high, but since the building is located close to a buspark, which is currently under construction, the number of clients is expected to rise even more. Therefore the management is planning to extend the facility to include one additional bathroom to the two existing ones.
The biogas generation from the waste water treatment system has already started. It will be used in a food kiosk that will be constructed next to the existing building. The treated effluent of the toilet will be used in a tree nursery for the fertilization and the irrigation of the plants.

There was a very good coordination with the Lake Victoria South Water Services Board, which is the actual asset owner of the facility as well as with the local Water and Sanitation Company being the manager of the toilet. The operator has been contracted by the company. The contract conditions and ways of payment will be clarified in a later post.

Sotik is located in Nyanza Province. See the below map for further details.



Location of Sotik in Nyanza Province



Read more...