Australian Doctor Australian Doctor 17th November 2017 | Page 11

News Review
A household in Antananarivo,
Madagascar, with their new Loowatt,
which disposes of waste without water.
No-flush
REVOLOOTION
E
ELEONORE
Rartjaras-
oaniony — a 47-year-old
mother, daughter and small-
shop owner in Madagascar’s
capital Antananarivo —
stands in the middle of her
yard, watching two young
men in colourful overalls
and rubber boots service her
new waterless ‘Loowatt’ toi-
let, which replaced her pit
latrine a few months ago.
At her feet, long-legged
chickens flocked by a bunch
of fluffy chicks peck at any-
thing remotely resembling
food, including my shoes.
“My family of four uses
it, and so do my three
Traditional flush toilets aren’t an option in many parts of the
world, but neither is leaving millions at risk of life-threatening
disease. LINA ZELDOVICH travels to Madagascar to witness
the start of a lavatorial revolution.
tenants who rent the
next house over — it’s
included in the rent,” she
says. “Even my son can
use it,” she adds.
There are reasons for
this expression of grati-
tude. Like all Malagasy
mothers, she is terrified
that her young children
may one day fall into
one of the many latrines
across Antananarivo and
literally drown in shit.
Latrines
aren’t
a
hygienic solution to
the human waste prob-
lem and not only because
they smell and are hard to
keep clean. Madagascar
has so much groundwater
that many Antananarivo
residents grow rice in their
yards. When torrential rains
hit, everything floods. The
waste from latrines rises and
floats into the yards, houses,
shops and streets bringing
with it all the dark menace
of disease.
A waterless toilet
Lack of toilets is not a prob-
lem unique to Madagas-
car. The WHO estimates
that 2.4 billion people lack
access to basic toilet facili-
ties, and nearly one billion
can’t even do their busi-
ness in private, practising
so-called ‘open defecation’,
resorting to fields, street
gutters or creeks.
Many countries, primar-
ily in sub-Saharan Africa
and South Asia, face simi-
lar sanitation challenges,
says Professor Francis de
los Reyes at North Caro-
lina State University, who
designs sanitation manage-
ment solutions for develop-
ing counties.
That’s why Loowatt, a
London-based startup, came
up with a radically different
flushing solution — one that
doesn’t use water at all.
In their basic appear-
ance, Loowatt toilets don’t
look much different from
our Western dunnies, with
their plastic seats and flush-
ing handles, which come
in the form of a pedal or a
rope you pull. But instead
of releasing a swirl of water
into the basin, this move
activates the white biode-
gradable film that envelopes
ONCE FULL, THE BAG IS REPLACED BY A SERVICE TEAM,
AND THE WASTE IS BROUGHT (