Three talks.

1. About irrigation systems and their efficiency

2. About nurseries
The leachates from nurseries have to be treated, otherwise underground
water will be affected.
Nitrate content in water is an important issue, due that it contaminates
the water.
Cleanleach is a company that tries to increase the sustainability of
nurseries that cultivate plants in containers.
(1) Horizontal sand filter (allows collecting all leachates produced by
irrigation and rainfall via filtration; the leachates can then be reused, e.g.
as fertilizers to re-irrigate plants; theres a plastic film and a protection
film that prevents leachates from flowing out of the system) and (2)
constructed wetlands (the leachates are collected and either removed and
washed, or reused) are two complementary ways of decontaminating
leachates.
Rafaela.caceres@irta.cat
Video

3. About improving irrigation management

More water does not necessarily mean more yield.
They monitor the amount of water in soil to determine the optimal
irrigation time (e.g. Lebanon, 48h-irrigation man

Someone
Farmers
Wanted
To optimize/minimize water usage, make sure water quality meets certain
standards, and increase yield.
But
They dont have the technology, resources, and/or capacity (i.e. their
production is too small to make it profitable).
So,
They need experts to help them with the technological aspects in order to
understand the possible solutions (e.g. irrigation techniques/water
management fertirrigation , collecting water and purifying it). These
experts studied and suggested alternative ways to deal with the problems.

Anne-Sophie went to Basel to Prorino and they need to deal with the
industrial water differently.
Gregory went to the hydroponic salad company. Theres no growth of
weed, which improves yield and consumption of water drops by fifty
percent.
Maria went to a hydropower plant. It is not profitable, but the government
subsidizes it
Mario went to Winterthur, where they take water from the aquifer to
generate electricity, although it is not profitable. He also went to a second
place where the fish cannot cross the river due to a hydropower plant and
they built a fish staircase or tunnel, so that the fish can travel all
along the river network.
Irina went to Birsfelden, where after WWII water needs increased
dramatically. To meet the needs, they take water from the Rhein by
filtering water using gravel in the soil. This, in turn, eliminates
contaminants and microbes. Then, the water can be pumped out. They
also use active carbon to remove chlor-butadiene.
Michele went to a water-free toilet start-up, where they want to use urine
as fertilizer. They have to keep the urine at pH=5 in order to use it. A
limitation is that the production of fertilizer is limited to 2L per day,
which is insufficient.
Lluc stayed at ETHZ and attended two videoconferences: one from Spain
and another from Peru. They talked about water quality and usage
optimization (Spain), and about yield improvement and irrigation
techniques (Peru).
Non-conventional topic for comic strip
Include the following topics:
Bridges for fish
Water-less toilet
Hydropower plant

DAY 3 TUESDAY
Solar and aeolic energy
High-head hydropower plants are located in mountains. Theres an
existing river course, but the water is diverted to a powerhouse where
energy is created and then the leftover water is re-introduced into the
river.
In CH, 10% of the hydropower plants produce 90% of the hydropower.
30% of the plants produce 99% of the power, meaning that the remaining
70% of power plants produce a negligible amount of energy.
For example, Freshwater HPP is a non-profitable hydropower plant, since
the hydropower is more expensive than conventionally-produced
electricity.
The capacity progressively increases, but the sedimentation increases
faster. This means that the net reservoir capacity has a net decrease
worldwide.

Are people open to the initiative? Are they willing to change their
lifestyle and use the MoSan toilet? Are the benefits obvious to the
users?
People who suffer from the problems and are educated are very
open to it and excited to change for the better. It also depends on
income of people.

Do you think the locals would be open to the possibility of

community toilets, instead of household (individual) toilets?
This is what is normally in place, since community toilets are the
easiest to install. However, this is not ideal, since they have to walk
a lot (~20min) to get to these central, public toilets. Maintenance is
also an issue. As a consequence, NGOs and government tend to
prefer household toilets, its also a status symbol and something
that makes people proud to have toilets for them.

Are there problems with the collection of waste? (E.g. the truck
cannot reach the houses.) What is the frequency of collection?
On a small scale, collection is possible. On a larger scale, its more
difficult to provide the pickup service. The logistics are simply
different. Providing the right logistics for each household is difficult.
Finding the optimal collection frequency is difficult.
People can receive a new container once they think its appropriate.
This works with many families, although not always (e.g. stay-athome mom with many children and husband working; an alternative
could be the use of storage boxes in different regions of the slum
and at night the collector goes to pick up the waste).

Is this waste generally treated locally or brought to a centralized

plant? Have you thought of alternative treatment systems? We have
seen that an NGO in Peru collects human waste via a Separett and
treats it for a monthly subscription.
Waste treatment depends on the geographical area: in a slum they
use the citys existing infrastructure, in remote areas they set up
treatment.
They have a similar business model as the Peru NGO.

What is your biggest obstacle? (E.g. to get people to use it, to

produce it, etc.)

How are the units financed? How is the transportation

arranged/financed?
They work with local/international NGOs in refugee camps and they
set up the units in the camps. The costumers and the users are
different.

How do you bring the units to the location where they will be used?

How many prototypes did you have until you came up with the
current design? What do you think about alternative designs (e.g.
biodegradable bags)? Is there anything you would improve from the
current model?
They tested ~50 prototypes, doing 3 design iterations. They
recently did all the improvements they wanted, except that when
the toilet is closed you cannot see how full it is, so you need to open
it in order to determine how full it is (inconvenient).

What are positive side-effects of using these toilet units?

By using the toilet in households, the rate of rapes decreased.
Women generally wait until its dark to go out to the street to
defecate, which is the time of day when its most dangerous in
slums.

Rio de Janeiro. Did you know that there is a city within a city? The favela in
Rio hosts more than 6 million people, which is roughly 50 times larger
than the population of Zurich. In Brazil, more than 11 million people live in
highly crammed spaces where water is scarce and hygienic conditions are
degrading. These areas are very disorganized and resources for new
constructions are highly limited.
Up to the moment, efforts to aid people in densely populated areas in
developing countries have not been fruitful, primarily due to the difficult
access to these areas and restricted space.
Why not use the space that is left? The air.

Rio de Janerio
o 50 times larger
o Limited space
o Disorganized

Explain the gondola model

o Mechanical system
Stairs
Clicking system
Manual movement (pedals?) via pulleys, which reduces
the force needed
o Easy to use
o Easy to install
o Low-cost materials
o Sanitizer material introduced on the way back
o Letters: use symbols in case person is illiterate

Micro-communities
o Leader in charge
o Incentivize leader by offering him end-product/profit

Conclusion
o This is not a beautiful topic, but necessary
o Education programs
o Simpler system for long distance AND easier access

Storyline / introduction
o Team introduction
o Present the problem (e.g. 40% population has no toilet why)
Providing local communities with clean toilets / Inspired
by Mona
24M girls in sub-Saharan Africa dont have access to
toilets, so they dont go to school.
In Guinea, enrollment rate of girls increased by 17%
after improving school sanitation (1997-2002)

Technical specifications (product/idea)

o How it works?
Installation in schools
The system separates urine and feces
An expert should take care of the pipe (local/NGO)
What are the roles of the expert?
o Pushing the waste
o Once it is full, lowering the pipe (150kg?)
o Mixing the waste
o Making sure the gas is released
o Make sure hygienic conditions
o Production of fertilizer/food for fish/other

Explain the (basic) biological processes that take place.

Fermentation
Importance of rolling pipes
Pipe coated of black material (hygienic)

What happens with the waste during and after the

treatment?
Applications (e.g. fertilizer, others)
Filtered urine for agriculture

How is it different compared to other systems? Why are other

systems not working? How is our system better?
Collection is required in other systems vs. local
responsibility / NGO
Hygiene is encouraged by local expert / NGO
Swiss NGOs can provide hand sanitizer
o

Business model
o Final user / costumer
Schools in rural areas
o Cost structure

Fixed costs
Tube
Toilet house
In another project for materials and training: 400 CHF.

Installation

o Marketing (i.e. getting the locals on board)

o Key partners
Train a local (teacher/NGO?) to deal with the pipe
Important: rolling, mixing and gas/production
phases
Swiss NGO can provide financing for project
Helvetas, Swiss Water and Sanitation NGO consortium

Where is the production?

ETH/NGO* can help out with prototyping
Who produces it (locally)?

o Key resources
o Value propositions
Hygiene
Added value products (e.g. fertilizer / other products)
o Distribution channels
o Revenue streams
o

Conclusion
o Guinea project
More schoolgirls
More female teachers
Reducing gender equality gap
More people are educated and participate in the
workforce
o Assumptions
People will collaborate
Expertise can be transferred
o

Roles:

Speakers (2-3)
Cameraman (1)

Demonstration of model (1-2)

Showing graphs (1?)
Say problem statement (1)

*What happens to the urine?

BluAct filter?
Mention that its not a problem?
Fertilizer via NH4 NO3? The composition of nutrients in urine is
identical (approx.) to that of fertilizer.
*Do you close the lid after each use?
*Reducing the size of the pipe.
*How to clean the pipes.
*Find alternative added-value products.
*How to neutralize feces smell.
*Which NGOs and ETH departments to partner with?
Helvetas has a budget for water-related problems
Swiss Water and Sanitation NGO consortium

Swiss NGOs need to engage local communities in warm rural countries

(/regions of developing countries) to develop together convenient and
sustainable solutions for water sanitation because by joining forces they
have both the knowledge and the local expertise.
Swiss NGOs need to engage local communities in regions of
developing countries to develop convenient and sustainable
solutions for water sanitation together, because by joining forces
they have both the technological knowledge and the local
expertise.

/ Or because sanitation in schools is good for retention.

Indeed, we suggest implementing a waterless toilet model in schools

found in rural areas. To understand how the design works, we can take a
look at the prototype we have built.
First off, it is important to notice that the feces and urine that is, the
solid and liquid waste are physically separated into two different
containers. This is because the main problem with odor arises when liquid
and solid human waste are mixed together. The urine can be filtered to
obtain a liquid that can be readily used as fertilizer for agriculture.
On the other hand, handling of the feces requires the presence of a local
expert. This is a person who has been trained and has the appropriate
expertise. As you can see, the solid waste goes into a pipe, and due to the
slope of the pipe it slides to the bottom. After each day, the local expert
can add some dry soil to the pipe so that the humidity from the feces is
absorbed. Once the pipe is full, the local expert can lower it using a
system based on ropes. Given the cylindrical shape, the pipe can be easily
rolled over by one or two people, despite the full weight of around 120 kg.
Using the rope-based system, an empty pipe is placed.
The used pipe which is full is then exposed to the sun. If the pipe is
coated with a dark material, the temperature inside can rise so that a
fermentation process can take place quickly. From this process where
organic matter is degraded, the community can obtain fertilizers for
agriculture, food for fish, and other added-value products. The prospective
of profiting from the system should incentivize the community.
In this system, only two pipes are needed, which are reused continuously.
Other organizations have developed alternative strategies to tackle the
same problem. However, they generally alienate the local community,
instead of cooperating with them. Instead, here we suggest giving
responsibility to the community. Local experts who have personal
experience with the community can stress the relevance of using the
system and being hygienic. In addition to establishing local partnerships,
Swiss NGOs can also participate by providing further knowledge and hand
sanitizer.