New toilets franchise throws slum dwellers an economic lifeline

Alex Wekesa outside one of the Fresh Life toilets located in Nairobi’s Mukuru slums. Courtesy 

By David Herbling, hdavid@ke.nationmedia.com

In Summary

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) graduates launch model where entrepreneurs earn cash from waste.

Alex Wekesa picks five one-shilling coins from his customer, scoops sawdust in a cup and hands it over to a middle aged woman with two sheets of toilet paper serviettes who proceeds into a tiny blue-coloured cube ‘Fresh Life.’

Mr Wekesa is a franchise holder and the operator of two toilets located deep in the heart of Nairobi’s Mukuru slums, under the brand Fresh Life.

His innovative latrines serve about 200 households in the densely populated slum and the waste is collected to make organic fertiliser.

“I pay all my bills from these toilets and even made savings to expand my other businesses,” said the 27-year-old entrepreneur in an interview with the Business Daily.

“Thanks to these facilities, the problem of flying toilets which used to be prevalent here is no longer there.”

The franchisee’s daily earnings from the sanitation facilities is Sh370 and he makes as much as Sh450 during weekends and public holidays when demand is higher. Adult users pay Sh5 while children Sh2 to use the eco-friendly toilets which have grown beyond the hygiene function into viable business ventures.

Users deposit the waste in different plastic containers and splash sawdust on it to reduce smell, eliminate flies and help breakdown the human waste.

Mr Wekesa says idealy the sawdust should be stored in a bucket inside the toilet but he prefers handing it out in a cup to each client to avoid wastage.

The waste is emptied every day and ferried to a central centre where it is processed into organic fertiliser.

The latrines are the brainchild of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) graduates—David Auerbach, Ani Vallabhaneni, Lindsay Stradley and Nathan Cooke – who came up with the idea of franchising toilets to meet the sanitation needs in urban informal settlements.

They teamed up to form Sanergy in 2011, a social venture that seeks to develop a network of small-scale sanitation centres across slums, create a waste collection network and convert human waste into fertiliser and other by-products.

“We saw a broken sanitation value chain. Even if hygienic sanitation facilities were provided to a community, there was no guarantee that the waste would be safely collected,” said Mr Auerbach.

“We conceived of a franchise model whereby local residents provided low-cost, high-quality sanitation services and we provided the necessary support to address the entire sanitation value chain,” said the co-founder who has an MBA from the prestigious MIT Sloan School of Management.

A unit of Fresh Life toilet costs Sh50,000 which includes installation, branding, training, demolition insurance, daily waste collection services, hand washing point and a starter pack.

Buyers of two units at a go are given a discount on the second toilet which retails at Sh30,000; translating to Sh80,000 for two sanitation blocks.