X-runner

We provide a non-conventional sanitation solution for slums in Lima which lack access to water and safely managed sanitation.

Peru has one of the poorest sanitation indexes in Latin-America: almost 30% of the population lack access to an adequate solution. In Lima, a city challenged by unplanned growth and water scarcity, almost 900,000 people lack access to a proper sanitation facility. They have to use pit latrines or even practice open defecation as alternatives.

X-runner is a social enterprise that provides non-conventional innovative sanitation solutions that adapt to the social and environmental challenges of every context with a sustainable and inclusive approach. Since 2012, the enterprise offers a reliable, affordable and accessible sanitation solution to low-income urban households which lack access to potable water and a safely managed toilet facility. Our system includes: awareness campaigns, the installation of a portable dry toilet, the recollection and responsible management of the generated waste, and a customer service support service.

We are leading the container based sanitation (CBS) approach in latam and have been recognized by local as well as international organizations for the social impact of our innovation. The high satisfaction rate, indicating that more than 90% of our users are satisfied with our service, is the result of our day-to-day work and strengthens our desire to do what is right every day. Over the past 6 years we could expand our operations and now impact families in over 150 different human settlements in three districts in the south of Lima.

The project’s innovative and waterless sanitation system currently improves the health, hygiene and general living conditions at home of more than 4,500 beneficiaries. In addition to the direct household impact, the whole community is indirectly benefited as the system reduces the exposure to fecal contamination and contributes to the conservation of soil and nearby water sources like coastal wetlands.

Nearby ecosystems, like the coastal wetland “Los Pantanos de Villa”, provide numerous ecosystem services. Wetlands play a critical role in maintaining many natural cycles and supporting a wide range of biodiversity. They also purify water, function as natural water reserves, regulate water quantity, groundwater recharge, and can help to regulate floods and the impacts of storms or tsunamis. By providing a safely managed sanitation system for the adjacent population, we avoid the filtration of human feces and hence the eutrophication of the lagoons, which is one of the most serious problems of this particular protected area, situated in the middle of several densely populated districts in the south of Lima.

Keeping in mind that Peru is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, and that in Lima this situation is already affecting the population of marginalized areas of the city, the country needs an innovative and sustainable approach to overcome pressing matters, such as the sanitation crisis. Socially inclusive and environmentally responsible sanitation solutions, like the system developed by x-runner, are indispensable for achieving sustainable development, and for mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change.

We’ve managed to develop an effective, affordable and accessible system that solves the urgent sanitation problem immediately. Moreover, our solution truly adapts to the social and environmental needs and challenges of marginalized areas in the city.

While most alternative sanitation solutions for low-income areas focus on a specific “product”, our approach is innovative as it focuses on an end-to-end service that takes care of the whole sanitation value chain for the emptying, transport, and safe management of waste. This approach complies with the updated Sustainable Development Goal for ‘safely managed’ household sanitation.

We not only install high-technology urine-diverting toilets, but also have incorporated technological tools that allow us to be more efficient in the field and have a an optimal back office system.

We monitor activities, generate performance reports and KPIs, and manage real time information through Salesforce. We register information in the field through Formyoula, geo-reference customer households with Google Maps, maintain official team communication through Slack, and manage payments through BCP Banking Agents. All the areas of the organization use and interact with these tools in different stages of the model to have an aligned operational performance.

We have 3 major goals. First, we will keep expanding to new coastal areas in Lima to impact a total of 6,000 beneficiaries. The second is to fully implement an Optimization Project that we’re already structuring with the support of Columbia Business School mentors (ECLA Program) with the aim of improving the efficiency of our processes to reduce the costs per household and scale more rapidly. Finally, we will develop a government relations strategy in order to promote and implement new pilot projects with our innovative approach to sanitation in other urban and rural areas around the country.

Both the sustainability as well as the inclusiveness of basic services are at the core of our vision.  Our main goal for the next years is to make our project more efficient in order to scale rapidly and improve the quality of life of more communities. Our plan is to achieve financial independence, strengthen the relationship with the Peruvian government and, finally, become regional leaders for non-conventional sanitation solutions with a sustainable approach. An efficient and scalable model combined with a powerful government collaboration strategy, will facilitate the long term objective of replicating the model in other latam countries.

When we enter a new impact area, we make sure that the community needs and wants our solution (community driven demand). We organize awareness campaigns about the importance of safely managed sanitation and hygiene.

Interested families can then order our portable dry toilet and have access to an end-to-end solution in less than a week. We have also developed a customer service center and support team to constantly improve the relationship dynamics with communities and assure the satisfaction of each beneficiary. Customers pay $12 a month for the whole service provision, an affordable amount for the area.

We serve 4,500 individuals in more than 150 low-income communities in the south of Lima. Our target beneficiaries are families without access to a proper sanitation solution. Women and children are most benefited by our system as they are the most vulnerable to health problems like infections and diseases caused by inadequate sanitation.

By providing a non-conventional waterless system, as part of a resilient infrastructure, we also avoid the weakening of houses’ stability and the contamination of nearby water sources like coastal wetlands. Likewise, we contribute to the mitigation and adaptation to climate change.

By expanding to new low-income communities that lack access to the sewage system in the south of Lima, and achieving more customer density in communities where we are already operating, we aim to benefit a total of 6,000 people in over 180 different communities.

We expect these results because we have already developed a strong engagement and awareness strategy in several communities with similar characteristics. We´ve structured a strong and efficient system that is aligned to the needs of families with a successful customer support service that guarantees satisfaction. We maintain an average annual satisfaction rate of 90%.

We are a diverse and highly motivated team of 24 professionals that focus on empowerment, participation and both the professional and personal growth of our members. We have 6 years of experience and technical expertise on co-creating solutions and consumer oriented approaches. We have also developed a profound understanding of urban poverty.

Our team is composed of economists, sociologists, environmental engineers, compost specialists and a professional sales team. Each and every one of us understands the importance of our project and is motivated to work towards a more inclusive society and a healthier environment.

We receive funds from external organizations and also generate our own income by charging a $12 household monthly fee for the system. The funds allow us to partly subsidize the service provision. Even though our own income only covers 22% of our total operational costs, we are working on a plan to reach financial sustainability in 5 years. We will focus on improving  the efficiency of various processes to reduce the cost per household and are currently structuring a business development area to develop new products/services within our areas of expertise that are aligned with our vision.

The acknowledgement of our solution as a contribution to the development of a resilient infrastructure of coastal communities, from such a well-known institution as the MIT, could help us to significantly increase the viability and scale of our project. We believe Solve could help us to improve the efficiency of our processes and overcome current challenges we are facing in order to provide a truly cost-effective sanitation solution while protecting the personal, public and environmental health. The wide network of MIT would also help us to present our innovation to potential partners/ funders.

One of our current key barriers is the financial sustainability of our operations in order to scale more rapidly. We will maintain the fee payment and focus on the efficiency of the operations, the development of new sources of income and diversifying our Fundraising strategy.

Because of the financial limitations and the lack of regulation, we are only composting a reduced percentage of the total waste we collect.

Solve´s prize will help us to further work on the efficiency while expanding, and also to access a network for potential collaboration for various components of our model.