Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology lecturer Paul Njogu explains how a pylolytic reactor works at the central ASK show in Nyeri on September 11. Photo/Joseph Kanyi
By FRANCIS MUREITHI
IN SUMMARY
Researchers from the University have designed toilets that have a special urinal for girls and a latrine with a special chamber for long calls. The two wastes are collected separately and do not mix. The boys' toilets have also been designed in a similar fashion.
The Urine Diverting Dry Ecological Toilets (UDDTs) is the first one in the continent.
The system is focusing on the waste which is now viewed as a resource that could be processed and made into fertiliser and be used to increase food production.
Researchers at Egerton University have designed a simplified sanitation system to address health and environmental issues among school-going children in peri-urban areas.
Hundreds of thousands of pupils in town outskirts have been relying on pit latrines, which have been an environmental hazard and a threat to their health.
The researchers from the University have designed toilets that have a special urinal for girls and a latrine with a special chamber for long calls. The two wastes are collected separately and do not mix.
The boys' toilets have also been designed in a similar fashion.
The Urine Diverting Dry Ecological Toilets (UDDTs) is the first one in the continent.
“We came up with a design that does not exist anywhere in the world for the urinals for girls and now it has become a household talk even in international forums,” said Prof Benedict Mwavu Mutua, a researcher and consultant in water resources and environmental engineering.
“We have designed our toilets in a way that we have two chambers for collecting urine and another for storing the hard human waste,” said Prof Mutua.
Waste as resource
He added that the system is focusing on the waste which is now viewed as a resource that could be processed and made into fertiliser and be used to increase food production.
The new toilets have improved pupils’ hygiene standards as they now have a hand washing basin to use after visiting the toilet.
The innovation comes at a time when most peri-urban areas are facing serious sanitation challenges due to an acute shortage of clean water coupled with an increasing population that is largely not connected to the sewer system.
Even in urban areas such as Nakuru town with a population of nearly 500,000 people, only 11 per cent of the population is connected to the sewer.
The pit latrines in Nakuru town are a health risk as water tables are high, contaminating ground water.
For the UDDTs, faecal matter that is separated from urine is collected after it has been stored for a while and then taken to a drying shade for proper sanitising from where it can be reused as fertiliser.
“We have found that a large quantity of urine from the large population of pupils can be processed and turned into powder form and at the moment we are still conducting chemical and biological analysis so that when we commercialise it once we are sure it is safe,” said Prof Mutua, the leader of the researchers at the Engineering Department of the Njoro-based university.
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