Why wet sanitation is washed up, while dry is high and dry

The Shitty State of Human Sanitation
(Part 1: The Problem, originally published in 2013 in http://www.chekhovskalashnikov.com/water-sanitation/ Estoy traduciéndolo al español.)

For Chekhovs Kalashnikovs very first interview on Change Makers, we will be talking with Chris Canaday, a biologist from California, about the broken and dangerous state of human and water sanitation systems and the solution to this problem that is damaging our environment and health.
 

I think that, before we talk about this revolutionary sanitation system, it is important to touch on why the current system is broken. Can you elaborate on how the contemporary western toilet came into being and the devastating effect that it has had on the environment and our health?

People in Europe used to live in total filth in their cities, throwing their excrement out the window. Porcelain flush toilets had been worked on for some time, but only in 1861, after her husband had died of fecally transmitted typhoid, Queen Victoria ordered flush toilets to be refined and installed in much of Britain.

It is also reported that she was so obese that she had trouble squatting and someone decided that it was not dignified for the queen to squat. They gave her a new porcelain throne and then, via mass psychology, all the Western World has wanted the same thing as the queen of England, even if it is not good for them or their environment.

The modern flush toilet has contributed greatly to the cleanliness of cities, but has not really solved the problem, just moved it farther away. Water always gets recycled and there are always more people living downstream. Developed countries spend millions and probably billions of dollars trying to clean up their wastewater, but never really succeed.

The modern flush toilet is largely based on the concept of “out of sight, out of mind”. It is also a prime example of selfishness: cleaning up the environment close to the user, while contaminating everyone’s general environment. 
It is interesting to note that at the same time that Water Closets were being developed, Earth Closets were, too. There was even one reportedly used in Buckingham Palace for a while. Over time, Water Closets won out as the standard for Modern Western Society, likely due to their ease of use and maintenance, as long as piped water comes to the house and sewage goes away.

Another key way in which the current, water-based sanitation system is “broken” is that it is based on the illogical, unsustainable and linear concept that natural resources should be used once and then thrown away. Flush toilets not only throw away huge amounts of water, but also all the nutrients found in the excrement.

With a simple push of a lever, we effectively deplete our agricultural soils and contribute to the eutrophication of rivers, lakes and oceans and, in them, the formation of hypoxic dead zones.

 If these nutrients were instead given back properly to the soil (and if the population were stable), we could forget about the non-renewable, unsustainable chemical fertilizers that are currently the basis of Modern Western Society’s food production. Those who learn to recycle these nutrients in an orderly way now will have every advantage in the future when these chemicals run out, and when there are possibly 9 billion people on Planet Earth, all wanting to eat.

Water is so essential and vital that we simply cannot live without it. Nonetheless, modern homes in developed countries dump between 25 and 40% of their water down the toilet, and the number engineers use in Ecuador is closer to 75%, given the high incidence of unmaintained toilets through which water flows constantly. We need to promote a culture of respect for water, as a source of life, which should never be treated as a garbage dump.

If these are not enough reasons to consider the current water-based toilet to be broken, obsolete and illogical, please consider the following unreliable, unhygienic and not-so-easy aspects of flush toilets:

• They often need to be scrubbed after each use, if they are going to be presentable.
• They frequently need to be flushed more than once for everything to go away.
• They occasionally get plugged and need to be cleared with a plunger, with sewage splashing or overflowing out.
• They make so much noise that everyone in the building can hear when they get flushed.
• The great turbulence of flushing creates a plume of microscopic, fecally contaminated water droplets that then land on everything in the bathroom, including the toothbrushes.

In the interest of full disclosure, flush toilets can be somewhat ecologically and socially sustainable in places where water is abundant, human settlement is dispersed, and the soil is absorbent, such that septic tanks (for settling out the solids) and leach lines (= drain fields; for allowing the contaminated water to absorb into the soil) can work properly, at more than 16 meters from wells or streams, and if the septic tank sludge is treated in reedbeds. 

Constructed wetlands are also important tools for treating wastewater, but they require a fair amount of land. On top of this, who knows how far all the different modern synthetic chemicals can travel in the water and the soil? So, in summary, it is most prudent to not mix our excrement in water from the beginning, especially if we have large numbers of people grouped together in a city.

So the reason Colon Cancer is skyrocketing in the Western World today is because we aren’t completely clearing our bowels, thanks to a custom-made invention for a morbidly obese queen?

Yes, and not just colon cancer, but also constipation and hemorrhoids. The natural position human beings have used when defecating, over millions of years, since before we were people, has always been squatting. In this position, the outlet is straight and the body can eliminate its waste more easily, efficiently and completely. When sitting, the outlet is not straight, certain muscles contradict each other, one needs to push more, and not all of the feces come out, so there is more constipation, hemorrhoids, and the colon never gets a rest from being in contact with festering feces, causing a greater incidence of colon cancer).

Squatting has the added advantage that it is more hygienic, especially with respect to women, since the user’s private parts do not touch anything. (Most women apparently never actually sit on a public toilet, but actually sort of hover above, which is much more uncomfortable than squatting all the way down.) Also, the squatting position is more accessible and intuitive for little children, since the floor is the same height for everyone, while a toilet bowl made for adults is much too big, uncomfortable and unsafe for them. Furthermore, in Urine-diverting Dry Toilets (UDDTs), the squatting position allows for a more certain separation of the urine and the feces, plus it is easier and cheaper to build.

In Ecuador, where does all the sanitation waste go? How much water is used and what effect does this have on the environment?





Almost all of Ecuadorian cities’ wastewater goes straight into rivers or bays, except for Cuenca, Shushufindi, and a few other cases where wastewater treatment is done.

The amount of water is huge and the excrement’s nutrients fertilize algae that end up dying and thus consuming the available oxygen in the water, creating the eutrophication and hypoxic zones mentioned above. But the biggest threat is that of pathogens in the water, which are responsible for the majority of disease in the world.

Many people have daily contact with rivers, for bathing, washing clothes or drinking, even only minutes after others have defecated in it, so it is obvious how disease can proliferate. Need more proof? Check out this:

Human Sanitation in Bumbay, India

I can just imagine the collective shit and piss from the hundreds of thousands of people living in Ecuadorian cities like Coca, Tena, and Puyo flowing into these Amazonian Rivers. What I find scary however is that this problem is not confined to Ecuador or even the South American Amazon but is worldwide.
What happens to communities that live on river banks, lakes, and areas prone to flooding with respect to worms, bacteria, and water-bourne diseases, like cholera that can be prevented with this system?

Yes, it is a discomforting thought, but the volume of shit is actually much greater if we remember that the millions of people who live in certain Andean cities in Ecuador, including Latacunga, Ambato, Riobamba, Cuenca, and Loja, also dump their waste into Amazonian rivers. Unfortunately, as you say, this situation is all too common in the world, where 90% of wastewater goes into the environment without proper treatment.

Even in countries like the United States, where things are presumably all under control, there are thousands of “sanitary accidents” every year, in which untreated sewage goes straight into the environment.

There are also numerous pharmaceuticals that cannot be removed from the water via conventional methods, such as antibiotics, antidepressives, and artificial hormones from birth control pills.

In addition, the current system of trying to kill the germs in the water with chemicals in one city, and the next downstream, and the next downstream, is a recipe for these germs to get resistant to these chemicals, especially if at the same time people are drinking and bathing in other peoples antibiotics. This has generated multiresistant strains of microbes that we cannot kill with chemicals to heal the people who get sick with them , nor can we be sure to disinfect a swimming pool even by adding chlorine.

In terms of health, the worst thing about flooding is that everyone is in everyone else’s shit.
This is an even bigger problem on the coast of Ecuador, where huge areas get flooded, with millions of people being affected, and it is getting worse with Global Climate Disruption. Urine-diverting Dry Toilets (UDDTs), on the other hand, can simply be built above the highest level of the flood waters.




One of the scariest results of all this fecal contamination, aside from diarrhea, typhoid, cholera, poliomyelitis, hepatitis, and other microbial diseases, is the high incidence of roundworms of the genus Ascaris, which infect about one-seventh of the world human population . There is a reason that the word for disgust in Spanish, “asco”, is so similar:

• These can be almost as thick as a pencil and up to 40 cm long.
• When babies are deparasitized, their diapers sometimes look like plates of noodles.
• Adult female roundworms produce 200,000 eggs per day and these can be viable in shaded, moist soil for years.
• The eggs do not just get swallowed and develop into adults in the intestines. Instead, they have intermediate stages that navigate in the host’s bloodstream, throughout the body. Eventually, they come out into the alveoli of the lungs, get coughed up and swallowed, and only then become adults.
• Roundworm infection is a big factor in many children doing poorly in school, since the worms consume so much of their food that little is left for the kids’ brains.

In Part 2 of this article Chris Canaday will tell us about the solution to human waste disposal and how it will solve much of the planets sustainability problems.
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The Shitty State of Human Sanitation
(Part 2: The Solution, originally published in 2013 at www.chekhovskalashnikov.com/human-waste-disposal/)

In Part 2 of this interview about human waste disposal and water sanitation Chris tells us the solution to all of the problems mentioned in Part 1: The Problem.

How did the new design for a sustainable human waste disposal system come into being?

In the 1950s, before the regrettable Vietnam War, a team of Vietnamese doctors analyzed why so many people were sick and how to control this. They found a great number of people were collecting “night soil” in buckets that were emptied in the morning directly in agricultural fields, where people worked largely barefoot.

The doctors realized that 90% of the fertilizer is in the urine that transmits no disease when dispersed in the soil, while essentially all the health risk is packaged with only 10% of the fertilizer in the feces. The answer was to keep the urine separate and set it free on the soil immediately, while jailing up the shit, until it is not shit any more.

In their case, they applied a detention time of three months, plus they added wood ash. This team that invented Urine-diverting Dry Toilets (UDDTs) was apparently anonymous, although it would be good for credit to go where credit is due, and to know more about the process.

UDDTs were later picked up by the Stockholm Environment Institute in Sweden, as a solution for the abundant cabins out in the Swedish woods, where running water is not feasible in the winter due to freezing, but they would never accept that their many beautiful lakes get contaminated.
They also actively promote these as a means to improve the health and sanitation of billions of people in the world.

I also suspect that certain ancient cultures had UDDTs, in particular the densely populated Amazonian peoples that made Terra Preta do Indio (Indian’s Black Soil, in Portuguese), until they were apparently decimated by Old World diseases soon after the arrival of Europeans.

No one knows yet exactly how they made these deep, dark, rich, long-lasting, productive soils, in the midst of extremely poor, highly weathered, clayey Amazonian lands, but I highly doubt that they were wasting the nutrients in their feces while they were doing so.

 ”Documentary: The Secret of El Dorado”

 
Can you explain how the design for this human waste disposal system works?

It is very simple and seeks to follow the natural order of things. The urine and feces that the body excretes separately are kept separate, to be dealt with separately, since they are totally different things.

The urine is caught in a funnel toward the front, since both men and women pee forward, and it goes back to the soil and the plants, where it transmits no diseases. (A bit of the urine from women may drip farther back, but this small amount is not a problem.)

Urine is normally sterile and there are only a handful of weird diseases that it ever transmits, plus for that to happen it has to go into rivers or contact the next person directly. The various microbes of urinary tract infections and vaginal infections either get destroyed rapidly in the soil or are natural inhabitants of the soil anyway. Many of these come from the gut, but here they are in much smaller numbers and are highly diluted, as compared to in the feces.

In addition, sexually transmitted diseases cannot live outside of the body any significant amount of time.


Feces drop farther back, directly into alternately used chambers or exchangeable receptacles and are covered immediately with dry cover material, such as soil, wood ash, sawdust, rice hulls, or a mix of these. They are then stored, protected from the rain, for at least six months in tropical countries or a year in temperate countries, so that all the disease organisms die and it all just becomes soil.

In fact, all the worst diseases, like cholera, diarrhea and typhoid, are wiped out in a much shorter time and the guideline of six months or a year is so that intestinal worm eggs, which are the most resistant pathogens but are much less life-threatening, are also eliminated. Most victims of these worms do not even know that they have them.

Shit is a temporary condition. After its jail sentence, it’s no longer shit: we open the chambers or receptacles and find dark, humus-rich soil, with no smell or health risk.
This stands to reason, since our pathogens are adapted to living in water without oxygen inside our guts, not in a pile of dry material, especially if there is soil in the pile, with all of its bacteria, fungus, protozoans and invertebrates.

These soil organisms are entirely at home in such a pile, where they eat and rip up anything that is over-abundant or out of place.

After this jail sentence, we can also apply secondary treatments involving heat, sun, earthworms or composting together with food scraps (especially thermophilic composting), for extra peace of mind or to speed things up.

We can build UDDTs for sitting or for squatting. In addition to all the health benefits mentioned above for squatting, this also allows for better separation of the urine and easier, less expensive construction.

Modern Western People tend to suffer from a psychological disease called fecophobia, which is an irrational fear of feces. Shit is a normal part of life and there is no disease in it that the user did not have from before, so, if the person is healthy, there is no health risk in his or her shit, only an unpleasant smell to be controlled and nutrients to be taken advantage of. If the user is sick, their pathogens get destroyed in the UDDT, as long as it is being managed properly.
There can be a health risk if, in a multi-family system, some of the users are sick and they are not using their UDDTs properly, such that some of their feces get mixed into the urine, but this can be controlled by storing the urine for a number of months (depending on the climate) or distributing it below the surface of the soil, where no one will have contact with it. The greatest health risk occurs when we do not think rationally about this and do the irrational act of throwing it in the river, where others can have contact immediately.

UDDTs are literally a matter of loving and trusting Mother Earth, in which we respectfully give back that which we no longer need, to let her deal with it. If we turn back the clock on shit, we find delicious food on the table. If we turn back the clock again (twice in the case of meat), we find beautiful plants growing in the sunlight. One more click and we see rich soil, so what is to keep it from becoming soil again, if we turn the dial forward again?

(Some commercial models do not use cover material, but rather have electric fans to make sure the air is always going away from the user. One of these is the Ecodomeo, which has a pedal-operated conveyor belt that carries the shit away)

The design has changed very little since the 1950’s. Have you made any modifications to make it better suit the Ecuadorian Andes and Amazon?

My line of work has been aimed at making UDDTs as easy and inexpensive to build as possible, while keeping user acceptance high.

In other words, my goal is for the building of a good dry toilet to be more a matter of a paradigm shift than a big capital investment. For this reason, I have found ways to build with readily available materials, especially since factory-made units are mostly not available in Ecuador.

One of the biggest changes I made from the start was to distribute the urine immediately via perforated hoses in the soil, instead of storing the urine in jugs, to later dilute and apply it as fertilizer among crop plants.

Organic farmers looking for every bit of natural fertilizer for their plants might be willing to do the latter, but the average user will not want to deal with smelly, fermenting urine every few days. In most of my designs, these hoses are buried 10 cm below the surface of the soil, among productive plants, like fruit trees, that can put the nutrients to good use.

In the interest of making UDDTs accessible to everyone, I published a paper in the Austrian online magazine, Sustainable Sanitation Practice, on Simple UDDTs that may be built with recycled and other readily available materials, such as disposable plastic bottles and wood: Some of the models shown here cost close to nothing.

Another surprising innovation is the storage of feces in the ubiquitous, woven, polypropylene plastic sacks used to sell rice, flour and many other products. These make excellent receptacles for this use, since humidity can evaporate out and oxygen can filter in, but flies, smells and pathogens cannot get in or out.

At first glance, people would imagine liquids oozing out, but they never do, thanks to the dry and absorbent cover material. Also, these sacks last for years and years, if they are not exposed to the sun’s UV rays. One of the biggest advantages of using interchangeable containers, like sacks, is that, at the first sign of  any problems with smell or flies, you can simply change the container and the problem is resolved immediately. Another is that the feces get covered better in a small container, as compared to a big chamber.

One of the most practical ways to use these sacks is to place them as liners of plastic bins, so the sacks are held open nicely and it is easy to change them. It is also good to make holes in the bottom of the bin, and have it propped up off the ground, to allow humidity to evaporate out and for oxygen to get in, since all the worst smells associated with latrines and sewer lines are generated by bacteria that live in the absence of oxygen.

Even more surprising for many, I have found that the finished compost from this system is the best material to cover new shit. Many of the right soil microbes are still there, likely in an inactive state (like fungal spores and bacterial endospores), ready to jump back into action when there is more shit (with its moisture) to have a party in.

In this way, natural selection and the rapid evolution of microbes are working in our favor, helping them get more efficient at breaking down exactly our shit, in exactly the conditions we keep them in. In contrast, the system of water-based toilets and trying to kill the germs in a short time with chemicals is a recipe for evolution to produce microbes that are more and more resistant to the chemicals used and that are potentially more and more virulent in disease

This recycling of cover material makes the operation of UDDTs much more practical and inexpensive, especially in cities and isolated locations, since new cover material does not need to be acquired and transported constantly, nor does much of the finished compost need to trucked away. That which does have to go would not have to go very far, if neighbors, nearby neighborhoods or nearby cities sign up for UDDTs or if urban agriculture is being done.

Another good reason to use the finished compost as cover material is that it filters odors much more efficiently than most other materials, removing and breaking down up to 99% of volatile organic compounds.

It has also been shown to eliminate 75% of the reduced sulfur compound emissions that most contribute to the characteristic aroma of shit in a laboratory study of conditions similar to those of commercial composting operations (Büyüksönmez et al. 2012, ), and up to 97% of the stench from landfills (Hurst et al. 2005)

There have been a couple of isolated cases of dogs or rats being attracted by the odor and messing with the sack that is receiving the feces, but only when sawdust was being used a cover material, not when finished compost was being used (and this is another reason for the plastic bin mentioned above).

Hygiene Hypothesis of Disease

Furthermore, there is research showing that children who grow up in overly clean and disinfected homes, without contact with soil, have a much higher incidence of asthma and allergies, since their immune systems do not have anything to train on.





 
So, having soil-like decomposed feces in the bathroom as cover material may well be a health benefit, instead of a health risk like one might suspect, as long as we are certain that the actual pathogens have died during its storage or treatment.

Humans evolved in complete ecosystems, including all the normal microbes, not in sterilized boxes, so it would make sense that bringing more parts of the ecosystem into the city would make it healthier for people.

This is all the more reason to build green, living roofs and vertical gardens on urban apartment buildings (and I have figured out how to do this with disposable Coke bottles).

At the moment, you are working with Achuar communities to implement this system. Has it been difficult to explain the environmental and health benefits of this system? What are some of the problems and breakthroughs you have had?

Changing anyone’s toilet habits is an imminently cultural endeavor and it is usually an uphill battle. People need to understand the concept, but, almost more importantly, they need to see and smell that UDDTs work.

I have built UDDTs with a variety of ethnic groups here in Ecuador, including mestizos, Kichwa, Shuar, Achuar, Waorani, and a little bit among the Secoyas. Of these, the Achuar have, so far, shown the greatest degree of acceptance. They are culturally very hygienic and traditionally live in houses scattered widely out in the forest, so they always had lots of forest to hygienically deposit their feces into. They covered them with soil and leaves, where the ecosystem absorbs them, without anyone else having contact with them.

The Achuar have only had permanent contact with white people starting in about 1970, when schools and landing strips began to be built and they started settling fairly densely around these.
It is also worth remembering that all the worst diseases were brought by the Europeans and it is estimated that 90% of the indigenous people in America died of those diseases when Europeans first came to America.

I think that potentially the Achuar have been quite concerned about fecal contamination for the last several decades, since they started living together in villages. Each family could be fairly certain of its own health and not so certain of that of the others, but all the children come together daily at the school and do their business behind the same trees. Also, it is a matter of privacy, since some of the villages are pretty large, with the houses fairly close to one another.

When I explain UDDTs to them, I emphasize the fact that, with open defecation in the woods, all these microbial enemies are set free, ready to attack us at any moment, whereas, with a dry toilet, these enemies are jailed up until they all die. They usually get the idea very quickly, but it is still a process to get them to build and use them, since old habits die slowly in any group of people.
In the last year and a half, we have built 31 UDDTs in 15 Achuar villages with the ACRA Foundation (of Italy) and the Chankuap Foundation (of Macas, Ecuador), with support from the European Union and the Municipality of Taisha 

Over several years, the Pachamama Foundation and I have built over 21 UDDTs in the Achuar villages of Pumpuentsa and Kurintsa, with a high degree of acceptance
More are being built all the time and volunteers are welcome to help with this. As I write this, the Achuar village of Juyukamentsa is organizing to build UDDTs for each of 16 families and I would like to find a volunteer to help them, especially to contribute to good replication of the design, wood preservation, and education about their proper use and maintenance.

So if the Amazonian Achuar tribe can be convinced, could your average Australian, European, or North American can be convinced as well? Can you envision a time when the whole of humanity uses this system or are our heads too far stuck up our collective asses to change our behavior for the better?

At first glance, this may seem like a system that is only applicable for hippies, organic farmers, and Indians out in the woods, but, in reality, it is a prime alternative for everyone who wants to be civilized with their neighbors, future generations, and Nature. It is also fully feasible in cities, especially if the relatively small amount of shit is stored on-site during its jail sentence and is then recycled as cover material, while the urine and excess soil is used locally in urban agriculture. (Remember the vertical gardens I mentioned?)

We can also greatly shorten the jail sentence by storing the shit in solar ovens, potentially down to less than a day of good sun, since all we need to kill fecal pathogens is 7 minutes at 70°C, 30 minutes at 65°C, 2 hours at 60°C, 15 hours at 55°C, or 3 days at 50°C. (Feacham et al. 1983 and Strauch 1991, 1998, cited by Richard Higgins)

This is also more practical than cooking lunch in a solar oven, since untimely clouds do not make us put up with hunger.

The trick is to make these toilets as easy-to-use and presentable as possible. We currently ask users to add a cup of cover material after each use, but they do not always remember to do so and they often do not aim very well, spilling it into the urine funnel and around the toilet. For this reason, mechanisms are being worked out to add the cover material mechanically, such as in one project (that I was marginally involved in) that works via a pedal:


I even have a design in mind in which the user will not have to remember to step on a pedal, nor would it involve electronic sensors.
Another factor is that many users will not want to deal with the shit and the piss. This can be resolved by setting up service-provider companies that come to homes and offices to change the containers, hygienically process the contents, and (optimally) put the resulting fertilizers back to work in their own agriculture.

With these companies applying the final products in agriculture themselves, this would increase the reliability that everything gets its proper treatment, while converting it back to delicious fruits and vegetables, which will be infinitely easier to market than the pee and the poop.

This nutrient recycling is logical and necessary if we want to have sustainable agriculture and food security. An adult eats a lot of food, but is not growing, so all the nutrients eventually come back out and, if we give them back to our crop plants, they have exactly what they need to make our food again (together with solar energy).

In this way, we can forget about chemical fertilizers, if we also have a stable population size. Of course, we have to eventually forget about chemical fertilizers, because they come from non-renewable sources.

Commercial ammonia and urea, for nitrogenous fertilizer, are produced with natural gas from oil wells (as a hydrogen source to combine with nitrogen from the air), and natural gas is already starting to run out, with the peak of production estimated to occur in 2020

It is even estimated that half of the protein found in present-day human beings was made with nitrogen originally fixed by this artificial process, thus being one more case of fossil fuels subsidizing economic and population growth.

Phosphorus is also a finite, non-renewable, unreplaceable resource and phosphoric rock extraction is estimated to peak around 2035, with reserves remaining mainly in Morocco after that. Peak Phosphorous is the scariest thing you’ve never heard of.

UDDTs are an important tool for combating Global Climate Disruption more CO2 absorbed by fertilizing plants and trees,more carbon sequestered into the soil by integrating organic matter,less methane emitted by avoiding anaerobic fermentation of feces in water,less need for chemical fertilizers (another big source of GHGs),less use of petroleum for pumping and treating water,less need for cement for building big sewers (since cement production is a big source of CO2.

Improved water-holding capacity of soils, in the face of droughts, easy construction above the high water line (or on a floating structure), in the face of floods,less demand for precious clean water.

Many rule out the mainstreaming of these dry toilets, as they cannot imagine the masses changing their toilet habits. This sort of toilet is not for everyone, but it is for everyone who wants to build a sustainable future for their children and those who do not learn to recycle nutrients will eventually go the way of the dinosaurs.

The Chinese have been recycling nutrients into the soil for thousands of years and this is one of the reasons they have had a continuous, advanced culture for such a long time. Recycling animal and human dung is the key to sustainable farming

Of course, they have not always done so in such an organized way, but there are now more than a million modern UDDTs functioning in China

I am convinced that more people can learn to do what cats do by instinct: cover their shit with soil. Let’s keep water clean by keeping shit dirty.

Thank you so much for sharing your time and knowledge! To follow Chris Canaday and his team’s work, check out these websites: http://inodoroseco.blogspot.com/ http://omaere.wordpress.com/

Saneamiento Ecológico durante la emergencia del terremoto en la Costa del Ecuador / Earthquake relief and reconstruction

(Brief summary in English below)

Este es un diseño de ArborLoo (casita liviana para luego sembrar árboles sobre los huecos llenos de caca) está adaptado para armarse rápidamente y económicamente en los albergues de damnificados de una emergencia, aprovechando los palets de transporte. Véase, por favor, la otra entrada
http://inodoroseco.blogspot.com/2012/08/scroll-down-for-english-en-abril.html
sobre los ArborLoo y sus ventajas.

Este diseño de Inodoro Ecológico Seco con Separación de la Orina podrá armarse mayormente con tablas, tablones y escombros, más cosas baratas y de fácil acceso y transporte, como lonas publicitarias, baldes y saquillos de polipropileno tejido. No se asusten de la posición de cuclillas: es la posición natural y todo sale más fácilmente, con menos estreñimiento y hemorroides; es más higiénico, como no se topa ningún asiento; y es más accesible para niños pequeños. Además, hay un agarradero para el equilibrio.

Otras reflexiones:

• Actualmente, los damnificados están atendidos mayormente con Retretes Químicos que, según el internet, contienen probablemente formol (un veneno muy tóxico). Son aprestosos, se ve todo el excremento de los usuarios anteriores y nadie sabe dónde las compañías de servicio botan los lodos fecales generados. Es casi seguro que no existe un tratamiento adecuado. Estos podrían ser convertidos en Inodoros Ecológicos Secos con Separación de la Orina
• No hay mal de que bien no venga. Desde antes, las cuestiones de escasez, calidad y tratamiento de las aguas eran alarmantes en la zona. La emergencia puede servir para que las personas aprendan técnicas más sostenibles para aplicar durante la reconstrucción y para largo:
• Inodoros Ecológicos Secos
• Urinarios Sin Agua
• Filtros de Arena con Plantas para tratar aguas servidas
• Reciclaje en Ciclo Cerrado de Aguas Negras (una nueva idea para todo el mundo, pero sumamente racional, práctico y ecológico para las personas que no podrán vivir sin sus inodoros de agua, aprovechando digestión anaeróbica y filtros de arena con plantas)
• Compañías de plástico reciclado podrían hacer versiones prefabricadas y portátiles de estos modelos para distribuirse entre los damnificados que los desean.
• Los Urinarios Sin Agua (véase otras entradas en este blog) son sumamente útiles en los albergues, ya que cada familia puede tener uno en su carpa y no tener que salir en la noche solo para orinar.

Sería un gusto apoyar en todos estos temas y poner un granito de arena para un futuro más sostenible en esta zona.

EcoSan for the Emergency after the
April 2016 Earthquake in Ecuador

These designs of UDDT and ArborLoo are adapted to the condiciones of the emergency following the 2016 earthquake on the Coast of Ecuador. They are made from readily available materials and can be done quickly.

All the wood is covered in linoleum, billboard cloth or plastic to keep all the surfaces easy to clean.

Let's try to insert these ideas into the reconstruction and make a more sustainable future for the area.

Vocab:
Tabla = plank (2 cm)
Tablón = thick plank (4 cm)
Escombros = rubble 
Embudo = funnel
Balde = 20 - 40 liter plastic bucket, bin or cut-off jug (in which the sack fits easily)
Saquillo = woven, plastic, polypropylene gunny sack
Palet = wooden shipping pallet
Vinil = linoleum
Caneca = 20-liter, plastic jug
Tierra = soil (without which we are nobody)

terremoto sismo 7,8 Pedernales Jama Matal Caráquez Portoviejo Tamarindos Chamanga Manabí Esmeraldas terremoto sismo Ecuador emergencia reconstrucción 16 abril 2016 taladro tierra fioravanti terremoto sismo Ecuador reconstrucción reconstruction earthquake terremoto

terremoto sismo 7,8 Pedernales Jama Matal Caráquez Portoviejo Tamarindos Chamanga Manabí Esmeraldas terremoto sismo Ecuador emergencia reconstrucción 16 abril 2016 taladro tierra fioravanti terremoto sismo Ecuador reconstrucción reconstruction earthquake terremototerremoto sismo 7,8 Pedernales Jama Matal Caráquez Portoviejo Tamarindos Chamanga Manabí Esmeraldas terremoto sismo Ecuador emergencia reconstrucción 16 abril 2016 taladro tierra fioravanti terremoto sismo Ecuador reconstrucción reconstruction earthquake terremototerremoto sismo 7,8 Pedernales Jama Matal Caráquez Portoviejo Tamarindos Chamanga Manabí Esmeraldas terremoto sismo Ecuador emergencia reconstrucción 16 abril 2016 taladro tierra fioravanti terremoto sismo Ecuador reconstrucción reconstruction earthquake terremototerremoto sismo 7,8 Pedernales Jama Matal Caráquez Portoviejo Tamarindos Chamanga Manabí Esmeraldas terremoto sismo Ecuador emergencia reconstrucción 16 abril 2016 taladro tierra fioravanti terremoto sismo Ecuador reconstrucción reconstruction earthquake terremoto terremoto sismo 7,8 Pedernales Jama Matal Caráquez Portoviejo Tamarindos Chamanga Manabí Esmeraldas terremoto sismo Ecuador emergencia reconstrucción 16 abril 2016 taladro tierra fioravanti terremoto sismo Ecuador reconstrucción reconstruction earthquake terremoto

Un Inodoro Seco Sin Costo que Cualquier Puede Hacer

Un Inodoro Ecológico Seco con Separación de la Orina (UDDT) que los Desamparados, Pobres o Damnificados de Desastres Pueden Hacer Ellos Mismos.

por Chris Canaday

(Esto fue publicado amablemente en inglés por una organización en Estados Unidos, cuyo nombre se traduce como “La Higiene Pública Nos Permite Seguir Siendo Humanos”, en este nexo:

http://www.phlush.org/2013/10/14/a-minimalist-costless-urine-diverting-dry-toilet-uddt-for-the-unhoused-poor-or-disaster-stricken/

luego que me preguntaron sobre opciones sencillas para la gente desamparada que vive en las calles.) 

(For the latest version in English, please click on this link:
http://inodoroseco.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-free-minimalist-uddt-part-1.html.)

Cambiar de los inodoros caros y contaminantes en base a agua a los inodoros secos descentralizados y amigables con el ambiente debería ser más cuestión de otra manera de pensar que una gran inversión económica. Esto en especial es el caso para los que tienen poco dinero, tal vez viven en la calle o están lidiando con algún desastre.

Las funciones claves que un UDDT (por las siglas en inglés de Urine-diverting Dry Toilet) debería cumplir son: (1) encarcelar a las heces el tiempo necesario para que mueran todas las enfermedades que puedan contener (como diarrea, cólera, tifoidea y huevos de lombrices intestinales) y (2) liberar a la orina en el suelo, donde es un excelente fertilizante para las plantas y no transmite ninguna enfermedad. Esta separación también reduce muchísimo la emisión de malos olores y mantiene el volumen de material peligroso pequeño y manejable.

El siguiente inodoro minimalista es totalmente funcional y se le hace con unos pocos materiales rescatados de la basura:

• Dos botellas plásticas de 4 litros, como las de la venta de cloro.
• 50 centímetros de cinta adhesiva.
• 2 metros de piola o algo similar.
• Cuatro palos de 25 centímetros (o una caja del tamaño correcto).
• Unos sacos normales, tejidos de polipropileno, como los que se usan para vender 100 libras de harina, arroz o lo que sea. Los sacos biodegradables de yute (como usan para la exportación de café) también valen y tienen una ventaja (vea #7, a continuación).
• Una pequeña lamina de plástico.

Instrucciones

(1)   Haga un urinario ecológico portátil de las dos botellas, cortando una en forma diagonal (como se ve en la foto) y uniéndolas boca a boca con la cinta y luego la piola. Esto es muy útil, aún si se tiene un inodoro más elegante, pero no exactamente donde uno duerme, ya que sirve para orinar en el mismo dormitorio, sin tener que salir entre las culebras, insectos, violadores y otras criaturas. También puede usarse en el día donde sea que haya la privacidad del caso.

Estando parado, este urinario emite muy poco olor, ya que las bocas de las botellas son pequeñas y la botella superior impide el movimiento de aire por encima de estas bocas. Cada día, se le enjuaga con agua para prevenir el olor de la fermentación de la orina.

Este urinario es muy práctico para colectar la orina, diluirla con por lo menos tres veces más agua (puede ser agua gris del lavado de platos, etc.), y regar este excelente fertilizante en el suelo entre los cultivos de uno… o entre las plantas ornamentales de un parque urbano para ayudarlas a florecer más hermosamente. También se podría botar la orina por un desagüe, pero eso sería un desperdicio de los nutrientes, aumentaría el gasto público en el tratamiento de las aguas servidas (si es que hay tal tratamiento), y contribuiría a la formación de zonas muertas, sin oxígeno, en los ríos y mares.

(2)   Meta a los cuatro palos en la tierra, a la altura de unos 12 centímetros. Si se prefiere (o en especial si el piso es duro y no se podría meter los palos), se puede usar una caja de cartón, madera o plástico, del tamaño correcto, en lugar de los palos.

 

(3)   Enrolle el filo del saco y colóquelo encima de los palos. Ponga una taza de tierra donde el primer depósito caerá. Si se quiere, se puede poner una capa de hojas secas primero.

 

(4)   Ponga los talones contra el saco, haga cuclillas, sostenga el urinario delante de uno y suelte su carga de nutrientes. Las heces caerán ordenadamente en el saco, mientras la orina fluirá ordenadamente al urinario. Pare el urinario hasta la siguiente oportunidad de vaciarlo en el suelo. Ponga el papel, las hojas, las tuzas de maíz, o lo que sea que haya usado para limpiarse, junto con las heces. (Se puede organizar para la privacidad como guste y como pueda, posiblemente con hojas de palmera metidas en el suelo o con una cortina en un rincón del cuarto.)

 

(5)   Ponga una taza de tierra seca encima de las heces para cubrirlas, controlar el olor, evitar la puesta de huevos por parte de las moscas, e inocularlas con los microbios benéficos que descomponen estos tipos de cosas. Mantenga un palo en el saco para acomodar las heces y el papel, facilitar su cubertura con la tierra, y para ir llenando el espacio ordenadamente (siempre agarrando el extremo limpio del palo). Una de las mejores tierras para esto consiste en las heces descompuestas de un ciclo anterior, como se ve en la foto, con una mezcla de aserrín o cáscara de arroz en caso que esté demasiado compacto.

 

(6)   Cuando no esté en uso, cúbralo todo con un plástico (o un tacho) para mantener afuera la lluvia, las moscas y los ojos curiosos.

 

(7)   Cuando esté lleno (a una altura de casi los 12 cm), o cuando los usuarios se van, amárrele el saco con una etiqueta que dice algo como, “HUMANAZA. Abra este paquete de rico abono orgánico únicamente después de XX/X/20XX, cuando no representará ningún peligro y se le puede usar en la agricultura” y escóndalo en un lugar protegido contra la lluvia y el sol, como debajo de un puente. Otra opción es enterrarlo, preferiblemente en un suelo seco (tal vez debajo de ese mismo puente). También se podría amontonar los sacos sobre una capa de piedras o palos y cubrirlo con un plástico para que no se mojen en la lluvia (posiblemente debajo de un árbol para proteger el plástico del sol).

Las heces deben secarse y descomponerse durante por lo menos 6 meses en países tropicales o un año en países templados (más tiempo en caso de enterrarlo en el suelo), para que mueran los microbios de las enfermedades humanas y que ya no estén peligrosas (y que ya no sean heces, sino tierra).

Si los usuarios están allí suficiente tiempo, o regresan, ellos mismos podrán usar esta nueva tierra en la agricultura, o reciclarla como material secante en el inodoro de nuevo. Las personas más quisquillosas preferirán meterla en el fondo de unos huecos para sembrar árboles, lo cual también es un excelente uso para esta tierra.

La ventaja de usar sacos biodegradables de yute es que podemos botarlos frescos en huecos en la tierra, sembrar árboles encima, y olvidarlos (hasta preguntarnos por qué los árboles crecen tan rápidamente y con frutos tan ricos).

Preguntas y Respuestas

Pueden surgir las siguientes preguntas, mayormente debido a la fecofobia (el miedo irracional a las heces):

¿No podrían salir los gérmenes por la tela tejida del saco?

Aparte de las larvas de Uncinarias y Strongyloides, los patógenos fecales no se trasladan a ninguna parte, sino simplemente esperan pasivamente a ser lavados hasta el agua que otra persona va tomar, arrastrados hasta las manos de alguien que no las lavan antes de comer, o llevados por moscas hasta la comida de alguien. Estos son los riesgos de la defecación al aire libre, con los patógenos fecales liberados en el ambiente. Los líquidos no fluyen hacia fuera de los sacos de este sistema, debido al material secante que agregamos con cada uso, la separación de la orina y la protección contra la lluvia. De hecho, la permeabilidad de estos sacos tejidos es una ventaja, ya que esto permite la evaporación de la humedad y el ingreso del oxígeno (sin que entren o salgan olores o moscas), entonces las heces pueden descomponerse normalmente, con los patógenos muriéndose en una tasa exponencial. Vea un ejemplo de la descomposición de las heces en estos sacos en este video.

Como muestra este gráfico del libro Manual del Humabono por Joseph Jenkins, las bacterias coliformes fecales mueren en el suelo en una tasa exponencial. El Eje X es el número de días y el Eje Y es el porcentaje de supervivencia de los patógenos. “99% de las bacterias coliformes fecales en los suelos mueren en aproximadamente 15 días en el verano y en aproximadamente 21 días en el invierno.” 

 

Regresando al tema de las larvas de Uncinarias y Strongyloides, ellas viajan únicamente a través de suelos húmedos arenosos o francos (no arcillosos), entonces se puede colocar unos palos o piedras debajo de los sacos cuando se los guarda y se puede botar un poco de ceniza de leña (que es alcalino) sobre, alrededor y debajo de los sacos. Además, las Uncinarias casi nunca matan a las personas y no son tan comunes, con “solo” hasta unos 740 millones de personas infectadas en el mundo, principalmente en África y el sudeste de Asia. Es relativamente fácil averiguar si las personas están infectadas y para eliminarlas con químicos o con alternativas naturales, como las semillas de papaya. Debemos siempre recordar que las larvas de Uncinarias solo pueden estar en las heces si los usuarios están infectados. Los patógenos no pueden salir de la nada y, en el caso de las Uncinarias, el mayor factor es la defecación al aire por parte de los perros y el ingreso de las larvas en los pies de las personas. (Si no conocen cómo son las Uncinarias, les invito a ver este video en el AnimalPlanet. No se alimentan de la comida de sus víctimas, sino de su sangre y fueron la inspiración para la creatura en la película Alien.) Asimismo, las larvas de Stongyloides solo viajan en suelo húmedo y más afectan a las personas con bajas defensas, como los pacientes de SIDA.

¿Podemos estar absolutamente seguros que todos los patógenos morirán y ninguna enfermedad se transmitirá a nadie?

No. Alguien podría venir y abrir el saco antes de hora, sin leer la etiqueta, pero cualquier sistema puede fallar cuando no esté aplicado bien. Lo que sí podemos asegurar es que todos los patógenos fecales están vivitos y coleando en las heces frescas que irían de otra manera directamente al ambiente. También sabemos que estos patógenos mueren en una rápida tasa exponencial al descomponerse las heces en presencia de oxígeno. Lo importante es encarcelar a estos asquerosos mientras esto ocurre y cada día de cárcel es una victoria en la guerra contra las enfermedades. Efectivamente todos estos patógenos son anaeróbicos, es decir están adaptados para vivir en la ausencia de oxígeno, lo que hacen en el hábitat acuático dentro de nuestras tripas, y solo pueden aguantar un cierto tiempo en un lugar seco y oxigenado antes de infectar a otra persona. Por eso, los patógenos fecales más persistentes han evolucionado envolturas resistentes a la deshidratación, como el quiste de las amebas y el cascarón del huevo de la lombriz de Ascaris, pero aún éstos les pueden proteger solamente un cierto tiempo.

Un importante factor es la naturaleza implacable e incansable de los microbios de los suelos orgánicos, comiendo todo lo que no les come primero. La mayoría de los microbios patógenos serían presa fácil para los organismos del suelo y se ha demostrado que las bacterias fecales mueren más rápidamente en suelos con mayor diversidad de especies, como recomiendo usar aquí, óptimamente reciclando el material secante, después de un tiempo prudencial o un procesamiento adecuado, con algunos de exactamente los mismos microbios que descompusieron las heces, las enfermedades y los parásitos en el ciclo anterior, y que no son patógenos humanos.

Schönning and Stenström (2004) recomiendan guardar las heces, con bastante ceniza de leña o cal, durante más de dos años en los países templados (es decir, El Norte, Argentina y otros) o un año en el Trópico. Personalmente, pienso que esto es más precaución que lo necesario, especialmente en el calor y la biodiversidad de gran parte del Trópico, pero estos tiempos de detención pueden aplicarse fácilmente, si hay suficiente espacio y si esto le hace sentir mejor a la gente. Estos tiempos se refieren al patógeno fecal más persistente: el huevo de la lombriz intestinal nematodo Ascaris lumbricoides, y todos los microbios realmente peligrosos (cólera, diarrea, etc.) son eliminados en menos de tres meses. Hemos buscado los huevos de Ascaris en nuestras heces descompuestas, aquí en la Amazonía Ecuatoriana, y hasta ahora no los hemos encontrado más allá de los cuatro meses de descomposición. Hace falta realizar más pruebas y determinar un protocolo más sencillo y definitivo, y básicamente solo requiere un microscopio. (Y, hasta ahora, yo mismo guardo las heces durante más que un año, para mayor tranquilidad de los usuarios.)

Nadie quiere recomendar un tiempo de detención que podría tal vez llegar a enfermar a alguien, y esto es especialmente el caso con organizaciones gubernamentales e internacionales. Sin embargo, estoy dispuesto a arriesgarme, ya que la peor alternativa es continuar con los masivos casos de defecación al aire libre, aguas servidas que van directamente a los ríos y bahías, y los 2,6 mil millones de personas en el mundo que no cuentan con ningún tipo de inodoro decente. Además, con el tiempo, si nos damos cuenta que se debería modificar estos tiempos de detención (aumentando o reduciéndolos), lo podemos hacer. 

¿No se supone que debemos guardar la orina durante algunos meses para sanearla antes de aplicarla en el suelo?

Esta preocupación se fundamenta en la posibilidad que haya contaminación fecal en la orina, debido a mal uso de los inodoros… y esto es muy poco probable con este modelo tan sencillo de UDDT, en el cual el usuario sostiene el urinario exactamente donde tiene que estar. En caso de algún accidente, el usuario podría vaciar el urinario en un hueco en la tierra, en lugar de regarlo en la superficie del suelo. (En lugares donde hay el parásito de Esquistosomiasis, Schistosoma haematobium, en especial en el África subsahariana, la orina debe dispersarse en el suelo lejos de los ríos y lagunas, para que el parásito no pueda encontrar los caracoles de agua dulce que necesita infectar para completar su ciclo de vida.)

¿No vendría algún animal, como perro o rata, a romper el saco y regar este material tan peligroso?

La experiencia ha demostrado que esto no ocurre, en especial si usamos tierra como material secante y, en particular, la mencionada tierra reciclada. Ha habido un par de casos de perros traviesos, pero únicamente cuando se usaba aserrín pura para cubrir las heces. La tierra y el compost ya terminado son entre los mejores filtros para los olores. 

Fuera de la fecofobia, otras inquietudes pueden surgir:

¿Por qué debemos proteger a los sacos contra el sol?   
¿Los rayos del sol no ayudarían a matar a los patógenos?

Sí, sería de gran ayuda en esto, pero la luz ultravioleta también destruye las fibras plásticas de polipropileno de los sacos. Unos hornos solares que toman en cuenta esto serían muy convenientes (y podemos tener mucho más paciencia al hornear las heces por saneamiento que cuando tratamos de hornear a nuestro almuerzo frente a un hambre imperativo). Según el siguiente gráfico, solo necesitamos lograr una temperatura arriba de 65° C durante una hora para matar todos los patógenos fecales, lo cual es mucho más fácil que los 100° C requeridos para hervir el agua. Una vez, una estudiante y yo hicimos un simple horno solar de materiales reciclados y aparentemente logramos los 80° C, ya que una botella de plástico PET se deformó… y los huevos de Ascaris contenidos adentro estuvieron deformados y probablemente muertos cuando los observamos debajo del microscopio.

Un gráfico indicando el tiempo necesario (en horas) para que varios patógenos fecales humanos mueran bajo diferentes temperaturas, tomado de Feachem, R.G., Bradley, D.J., Garelick, H. y Mara, D.D. 1983. Sanitation and Disease – Health aspects of excreta and waste water management. John Wiley and Sons, Chichester, UK (reproducido en Schönning and Stenström 2004). Por ejemplo, todos los patógenos mueren dentro de una hora a 65° C, o en un mes a 45° C.

¿Qué pasa si no somos tan pobres y queremos algo mejor?

Se lo pueden hacer. Si los suelos son relativamente secos y absorbentes y nunca se inundan, pongo en consideración el ArborLoo, que consiste en una casita liviana que se coloca sobre uno y otro hueco en la tierra (de un metro de profundidad) donde luego se siembran árboles, como éste que hicimos mayormente con materiales reciclados. Acuérdense de agregar una taza de tierra, hojas secas o cenizas después de cada uso. Si no tienen suficiente espacio para sembrar tantos árboles, pueden sembrar plantas como el zapallo o el banano y cavar de nuevo el mismo sitio después de por lo menos dos o tres años.

También, les invito a conocer los modelos de inodoros secos que publiqué (in inglés, pero con fotos) en la revista Sustainable Sanitation Practice y varios otros modelos en mi blog, algunos de los cuales tienen hermosos pisos de cerámicas puestas en ferrocemento delgado que solo requiere medio saco de cemento.  Además, les sugiero que armen Fuentes a Pedal (en inglés, TippyTap) para lavar las manos, optimizando la cantidad de agua y manteniéndola limpia para las siguientes personas.

¿Cómo podrían usar este inodoro los miles de millones de personas en el mundo que limpian el ano con agua?

Se podría hacer otro Urinario Ecológico (de botellas más anchas y que no se ruedan estando acostadas) y marcarlo “Agua de Lavado de Ano y de Mano”. Se le acostaría en el piso para captar estas aguas y el borde cortado sería lo más alto posible para evitar su salida o salpicada. Una Fuente a Pedal podría proveer esta agua al pisar un palo en el suelo, sin tocar este recipiente de agua y mucho menos contaminar su contenido. Al completar el lavado del ano, se pondría este Urinario Ecológico de pie (con la otra mano) y se procede a lavar las manos, preferiblemente con jabón o con ceniza de leña (lo cual es igual de efectivo pero no cuesta nada).

(Una Fuente a Pedal, o TippyTap, consiste en una botella plástica puesta en un palo horizontal que se vira al pisar otro palo amarrado cerca del suelo, de tal manera que sale un chorrito de agua de un huequito hecho con un clavo a rojo vivo. Sirve para el lavado de manos --y en este caso, de anos—sin desperdiciar el agua y manteniendo la reserva limpia. Hemos adaptado el modelo en la siguiente foto para llenarse automáticamente con la lluvia.)

Este poquito de aguas negras puede disponerse en un hueco en la tierra, similar a un hueco para sembrar un poste, lleno de piedras (en especial si la tierra tiende a derrumbarse). Se podría también colocar una tabla como tapa, para evitar la salida de olor y el ingreso de moscas. Si hay frecuentes inundaciones o el agua en la tierra está muy alta, habría que armar algún tipo de humedal de plantas para purificar estas aguas servidas.

¿Y si queremos sentarnos…?

También se puede organizar una banca para eso, como se puede ver en mi blog, pero recordémonos que la posición de cuclillas es la más natural para un ser humano que quiere defecar y, por lo tanto:

• hay menos estreñimiento,
• hay menos hemorroides,
• es más higiénico (como los genitales no se topan con nada),
• es más accesible para niños pequeños, y
• la evacuación es más completa.

Además, es más económico, fácil y portátil construir para cuclillas y logramos una mejor separación de la orina.

¿Hasta dónde podría llegar esto?

Al usar este inodoro minimalista, que uno mismo puede hacer, las personas pueden no solo resolver este problema sanitario inmediatamente ellas mismas, sino también mostrar a los gobiernos, fundaciones y otras entidades que entiendan y acepten el concepto y la práctica de los Inodoros Ecológicos Secos con Separación de la Orina. Muchos planificadores y tomadores de decisiones descartarían esta opción como un sueño utópico que nunca sería factible, pero en realidad los ciudadanos locales son frecuentemente más prácticos, proactivos y con los pies más firmemente en la tierra que sus líderes. Una vez demostrado que la gente pueda manejar a estos sencillos inodoros secos, los gobiernos y fundaciones tendrán más confianza en construir unidades elegantes y permanentes para estos mismos usuarios. Se han construido demasiados inodoros secos que, luego de entregarse a los usuarios con la esperanza que los utilicen bien, resultan ser abandonados o mal usados, ya que los usuarios no fueron preparados adecuadamente y no estaban convencidos de los beneficios del sistema.

De hecho, este sencillo sanitario podría ser utilizado como prueba para que los usuarios confirmen su cupo en la lista de elegantes inodoros secos a construirse. Luego de una semana de uso, se podría evaluar su uso y así tendrían un poco de presión para realmente entender y usar estos inodoros secos y realmente usarlos bien, ya que a nadie le gustaría ser tachado de la lista por ser desordenado o no poder seguir las instrucciones.

Este diseño puede considerarse un peldaño bajo pero sólido en la escalera de inodoros secos que son cada vez más fáciles y aceptables para los usuarios. Con esto, esos 2,6 mil millones de personas podrían rápidamente contar con un inodoro, tal vez por medio de un programa de redistribución creativa de estos “desechos” plásticos, en especial tomando en cuenta que estos sacos de polipropileno pasan en la sombra, protegidos contra los rayos dañinos del sol, y se los podemos usar una y otra vez, año tras año. Este inodoro es accesible para cualquier persona en el mundo que puede rescatar de la basura unas ciertas cositas y tiene la clara decisión de mantener el ambiente más limpio y productivo.

Si usted tiene preguntas o sugerencias respecto a este sencillo inodoro, favor escribirme a canaday2 ARROBA gmail PUNTO com. Si aplican este diseño, favor avisarme para saber hasta dónde llega y para ayudarles a afinar cualquier asunto. También les invito a leer estas entrevistas sobre problemas con saneamiento con agua e inodoros ecológicos secos. (próximamente traducidos al español en inodoroseco.blogspot.com.)

  Mantengamos el agua limpia 

  manteniendo la m***** sucia.