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Project
Proposal: Human Waste Disposal
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Full description of problem/need |
| Since 1965 Indian
farmers have increasingly used high-yielding,
imported seed varieties. They have also
increasingly relied upon chemical fertilizers
and intensive irrigation; this phenomenon
is known as the 'Green Revolution'.
The Green Revolution has allowed the
Indian economy to develop and for India
to break free from the previous cycle
of regular famines. However in recent
years people have increasingly recognised
that this 'development' has come at
a tremendous cost to the environment
and that this system is ultimately unsustainable.
Since the Green Revolution farmers
have reduced the number of cows that
they keep. Cows have always been valued
for their milk and in the past were
also valued for their dung. Once fertilizers
were adopted less dung was necessary
, so fewer cows were needed. Since
the Green Revolution farmers have
noticed that dung 'strengthens' the
soil and plants (even making them
more resistant to pests), while chemical
fertilizers do not (soil quality diminishes
and pesticides must be used). Unfortunately
farmers no longer have enough cows
to produce enough dung to fertilize
their fields.
The Indian government very strongly
encourages the use of toilets with
plumbing. Villagers are given a relatively
large grant if they build an outhouse
on their land. Local government is
given extra funding in proportion
to the percentage of houses within
their area that have a plumbed-in
toilet. Teachers do not get paid unless
they have a plumbed-in toilet in their
house and encourage their students'
families to do the same.
Some villagers will build an outhouse,
receive the grant and then continue
to defecate in the open, while they
use the outhouse as a storeroom. The
reason for this is that in the past
the population level was low enough
for this practice to cause no noticeable
ill effects. Although defecation in
the open has become increasingly unacceptable
in Pabal, the shortage of water means
that people cannot afford to waste
water in flushing their toilet and
so some people consider it better
not to use their toilet at all.
Another factor that discourages people
from using a plumbed-in toilet is
the rockiness of the soil in and around
Pabal, which makes it difficult and
expensive to dig latrines or to put
in drains.
All of these issues may be solved
in one system.
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| How will the local community use the
proposed solution? |
Vigyan Ashram is
interested in experimenting with a system
that converts human waste into useable
compost and/or biogas. A system may
be designed to produce biogas year-round
and produce compost at the appropriate
time for farmers to use it in their
fields, reducing the need for NPK fertilizers.
Vigyan Ashram will use the compost toilet
as part of their guest accommodation
building. They may use an already existing
compost toilet design or may be persuaded
to use the solution that will be developed.
Their main interest is in performing
a trial of this "new" technology
so that they can identify any problems
that need to be solved before the system
is implemented throughout the region.
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| Estimate of the economic
benefit anticipated and plans for training
of the local community? What are the
major impacts on such a project? |
The economic benefit
of this project is almost impossible
to quantify; most of the benefit is
to the environment and is in terms of
sustainability. Fertilizer costs only
Rs. 52 for 50kg, so it will be difficult
for a solution to compete in terms of
cost of fertilizer. Organic fertilizer
production is an aim of the solution
from the western perspective, but it
may be seen as of secondary importance
by locals. Water must be shipped in
for 8 months of the year, costs Rs.
2 per 15 litres, and is sometimes difficult
to obtain. So people will probably value
the fact that a compost toilet conserves
water. Gas costs Rs. 320 per 14.5kg
and so access to a cheaper source of
biogas may be another product that will
make people value a composting toilet.
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| Full description of the local situation
(e.g. social, economic, geographical,
political) |
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There is a dam and water tank system
being completed in the next 3 years
to solve Pabal's water shortage problems,
but once water is more easily available,
people may increase their consumption
and so there may always be a moderate
shortage, even if water no longer must
be brought into Pabal by tanker.
A local farmer who grows tomatoes
and chilli peppers uses between 100kg
and 150kg of NPK (20:10:10, 95% pure)
fertilizer on his 1 acre of land each
harvest (he seems to only have one
harvest per year). He says that vegetables
and grains only need one treatment,
but if he were to grow beans he would
need to use twice as much fertilizer.
He starts his annual farming cycle
at the first sight of clouds or at
the first rain (June or July). First
he levels his field and then he goes
into Pabal (his farm is on the outskirts
of the village) to buy some high-yielding
seeds. He plants seed in rows that
are just over one ft apart and each
plant is just under a foot away from
those in its row. As soon as his plants
are around half a foot tall he digs
irrigation ditches and pumps water
into his field. Once the water has
soaked in he adds fertilizer and dung.
(He tries to avoid adding fertilizer
if it is likely to rain since he recognises
that it will wash the fertilizer away
into his well, wasting fertilizer
and contaminating the water.) He brings
in his harvest in August and claims
that each chilli plant will produce
5kg of chillis and that each tomato
plant will produce 100kg of tomatoes.
The Indian government launched the
"Gobergas" project in the
1980'S. This project provided every
rural farmer with a biogas generator
like the one below if they owned several
cowes and less than five acres of
land.
 A
local teacher's biogas generator -
this generator has been used for the
last 18 to 20 years. It requires 25kg
of dung per day and produces enough
biogas to cook for 3 hours.
At a village near Pabal human faeces
is used for biogas generation. The
village has a communal toilet and
the biogas is distributed to villagers
for cooking. A household biogas tank
is available in Pune for Rs. 3000.
Although some people are aware that
compost can be made from human faeces
(it is called "sownkhat")
the team did not see any evidence
of human faeces being composted. A
local doctor, who told the team about
"sownkhat" thought that
the concept of a compost toilet would
be a very good idea. Presumably composting
human faeces is a practice that has
been lost to the past.
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| Full description of relevant infrastructure
available locally and/or internationally |
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Poorer families often share a plumbed-in
toilet with three or four other families.
Some people have latrines that encourage
the faeces to rot away and be absorbed
into the soil, while others (including
Vigyan Ashram) use soak-away latrines.
A soak-away latrine (similar in principle
to slow-sand filtration) passes faeces
through a chamber filled with stones
and gravel which collect bacteria
allowing the organic material and
water to pass harmlessly into the
soil.
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