Inarah

Our project aims to solve the Open Defecation Crisis in Nigeria by creating toilets that generate money from urine/feces, which is then used to pay for the operation costs.

In order to solve the root causes of the problem, we had to take a unique and novel approach to the problem. Our solution has to be economically scalable in order to be something that can truly be implemented. That's why we convert feces into charcoal, urine into ammonium sulfate, and sell both of those by-products for money. The feces to charcoal conversion happens via a process called carbonization. This carbonization happens in a kiln. To convert urine to ammonium sulfate, we utilize calcium hydroxide, sulfuric acid, and a ceramic diffuser to create the ammonium sulfate byproduct. A specific overview of how we do that is here.

In terms of economics, our solution generates enough money to pay for every ongoing cost of our supply chain while still having enough money to give $32 USD/family/month as an extra incentive because as mentioned below, one of the main reasons this problem exists is a lack of incentive. In the world, there is virtually no greater incentive than money, especially in third-world countries. 

Sanitation is a basic human right. 47 million people in Nigeria are denied this right in the extreme context by open defecate on a daily basis. 100 million people (~50% of the population) lack access to basic sanitation services. ~45,000 children under age 5 die because of sanitation, access to water, and hygiene. This lack of sanitation not only leads to several lifestyle issues but also leads to the contamination of water (E.Coli is the biggest contaminant of water) as well as diseases like cholera, diarrhea, and dysentery which kill hundreds of thousands of people every year. Here are the following root causes that collectively exhaust the problem:

1. Lack Of Incentive From Open Defecators. The open defecators aren't educated on this problem and view this as the norm. As a result, they are fine with living with their current lifestyle.

2. Lack Of Quality of toilets. People essentially choose to open defecate because the toilet they could be using is of that poor quality.

3. Lack Of Governmental Support. The government could be working to solve this problem but corruption prevents this.

Our solution serves the citizens of Nigeria that either open defecate or generally have very limited access to Sanitation because of where they live, income status, or other reasons mentioned in the root cause analysis. While the target user suffers from the problem, they are also unaware that life should be any different. People die from diseases/illnesses that are caused by open defecation but because of their lack of exposure, they don't understand what open defecating is truly doing to them as well as their community.

By putting our waterproof toilets in their general residence and making them do essentially no work, it completely solves the lack of sanitation problem that they are currently facing. Instead of educating them, which in the past has been proven to be futile, we simply offer them money as the incentive which is generated from their own urine/feces. It's a sustainable loop that can operate for decades.

We've talked to people from UNICEF, members of the Nigerian Government, CAWST, WaterAid, water.org, CBSA, and more organizations to further understand the problem from experienced people. A majority of the first few months working on this project were spent on purely the root cause analysis and understanding exactly what this problem is and why it is happening. 

We've also got a 41 family pilot that we intend on beginning once the final details are sorted. The pilot list of families can be viewed here. We've made several iterations on the product by talking to both our users and advisors in the industry.

As a result, talking to all these organizations and having the opportunity to talk to our pilot families gave us a unique perspective that very few other companies have in the world.

Here's what we've done so far:
1.) Successfully in the lab turned urine into ammonium sulfate.
2.) Created our device that'll turn feces into charcoal and tested it out.
3.) Created our toilet that's successfully separated feces & urine to be completely odorless.
4.) Received $15k that we've used to create the prototype described above.
5.) Gotten government and religious leader and family approval to start our pilot with 41 families in Jos, Nigeria.
6.) Setup all the logistics with vendors & people in Nigeria who will be facilitating the parts of our process.

Our solution involves converting feces into charcoal and urine into ammonium sulfate. Generally, we can consider this part to be the core part of our solution since, without it, we wouldn't be able to sell something for a valuable resource and generate revenue to pay for ongoing costs or pay the families as an incentive. 

To convert feces into charcoal, using a device called a kiln. This device induces a process called carbonization which according to experts is the best way to create charcoal whether we have feces or wood.

Our kiln has a 44% conversion efficiency. Meaning per one family's 120lbs we can convert it into 52lbs of charcoal! A normal kiln can convert around 40% but by making minor optimizations including the chimney at the top we were able to improve the efficiency to 44%.

To convert urine into ammonium sulfate, we first put it into a cold room for 24 hours. Then by adding calcium hydroxide and sulfuric acid, then using a ceramic diffuser to strip the ammonia, we create ammonium sulfate. Here is a procedure document.

Currently, our solution is about to serve 51 families or about 250 people. Next year we plan on serving 2000 families based on conversations we've had with UNICEF and other organizations. This number would be achievable assuming that the pilot goes well and there aren't too many changes that have to be made to the solution.

We simply want to stop families in Nigeria from open defecating or improve the current state of sanitation for families that have poor facilities. Sanitation is a basic human right(SDG 6.2) and currently, the problem in Nigeria has statically been getting worse. Not only is there minimal effort being done to solve the problem, but the current solutions are not economically feasible to be scaled to hundreds of thousands or millions.

This is such an obvious problem to solve and we view it as a no-brainer to help people that can be helped with the right approach. 

We're using the number of communities as a measure of impact, but the number of families as progress. Communities all have different ways of living life and as a result, being able to impact several communities effectively would mean that our solution can be scaled to millions of people all through Nigeria and even into other countries.

Families impacted shows that we're making progress with the project. The more families we have the better but to show that our solution is transforming people's lives, we're using communities as the main way of measuring.

Technically, we have absolutely no concerns. We've done prototypes of the toilet shell, lab experiment, feces -> charcoal process, etc.

Legally, we've gotten approval from the community leaders in Jos, Nigeria to go ahead and implement thanks to an NGO called Lazarus Care Mission International. 

Culturally, we've structured our solution to make sure that regardless of culture, the solution can still be adopted because of the monetary incentive.

The only barrier we currently have is financially getting more money to invest in the project. We've done all the numbers, now it's just a matter of getting funding to buy the one-time items like warehouses, kilns, etc.

What uniquely positions us to solve this problem is not a massive background in the field. We're young people who are driven to solve big problems in the world. The unique position we hold is a unique insight on the problem that came from a year of studying, talking to some of the smartest people in the industry, and rigorously iterating on our solution so it has virtually no gaps in the operations. The numbers show there is no meaningful impact currently being done to solve the problem long term. As a result, the problem doesn't lie in funding, but rather the approach that people are taking. At the core of our product lies the idea that we must incentivize these people and create an economically sustainable solution. This is something that most people aren't acting on and as a result, makes us uniquely positioned to solve this problem.

- Lazarus Mission Care International. Helped us reach 51 families in Nigeria and get ministry approval.

- Redstar Express. In charge of logistics, primarily, transportation and labor.

- Currently working on a partnership with CBSA