Perpetually Sterile Toilet
- Pre-Seed
Auto-sterilizing toilet for public use, which is inexpensive, easy to deliver into remote location and simple to assemble. The design will eliminate pathogens, reduce mortality and morbidity and save funds allocated for treating toilet-associated communicable disease.
We’re building a disease-fighting, green toilet.
The toilets are modular and scalable, transportable and easy to deploy. The purpose is to control and reduce the spread of disease by using a self-sterilizing mechanism to eliminate the presence of bacteria or virus within the facility. The structural construction will be based on low weight, thermal insulated panels. Internal configuration may vary according required options. The layout is optimized for safety, which should greatly reduce any risk of accidental injury. The internal finishing is designed to prevent bacterial growth and allow for easy cleaning. Special components will be installed to provide the auto disinfection and sterilization of the toilet cabin. These components are subject to IP protection. The toilet will be eco-friendly (green) requiring minimum energy to operate. Most of the components required for manufacturing will be off-the-shelf items. This approach will allow faster assembly. For exporting purposes, the toilets will be collapsible to reduce shipping volume. Once delivered on-site, assembly will not require technical expertise and will be executed fast.
Population is increasing especially in underprivileged areas.
Diseases spread more quickly in high density location. Furthermore, lack of proper hygiene exponentially escalates the spread of infectious diseases.
Most of bacteria and germs are present and spread within the public shared toilets.
References:
Greed, Clara. "The role of the public toilet: pathogen transmitter or health facilitator?." Building Services Engineering Research and Technology 27.2 (2006): 127-139.
Deslypere, Jean-Pierre. "Effects of public toilets on public health." Conference proceedings of the World Toilet Association Summit, Beijing, November. 2004.
The long term change goal is to reduce Communicable Diseases.
The steps needed to bring this change:
- Increase quantity of public toilets,
- Take the needed measures to keep these public toilets clean.
The proposed pathway to change is to deploy inexpensive, easy to assemble, low maintenance, self-sterilizing toilets.
We understand that several assumptions are made, which include:
- Availability of funds to deploy the toilets and to perform the simple maintenance.
- People will adopt these new toilets and support their maintenance.
What?
Reduce spread of disease caused by shared public toilets.
Who?
Beneficiaries include:
- People living in underprivileged areas
- People in dense (even temporary) spaces: such as construction sites, schools, etc…
How?
The toilets will be financed by governments, UN organizations, or other agencies. Toilets will be physically delivered in compact packaging (can withstand harsh delivery conditions) and will be assembled and installed by the local beneficiaries.
data collection and comparison from the local clinics or central healthcare center. Reduction of expenditure on management of toilet-associated disease. - Less disease within the community and subsequent money saving
students have reduced cases of:
- Absence during flu season,
- Diarrhea
- Missed school days - Less days of missed schools.
Percentage of absence due to viral sickness within a construction site or a factory. - Better workers attendance to Jobs.
- Child
- Low-income economies (< $1005 GNI)
- Primary
- Non-binary
- Rural
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Middle East and North Africa
- Biotechnology (genetic engineering, new biomolecules)
- Electrical engineering
- Environmental engineering
- Manufacturing & process optimization
- Mechanical engineering and hardware
Design & Construction
• Design: based on HCD approach (Human Centered Design) with Safety compliance.
• Construction: standard, off-the-shelf material.
• Assembly: on-site, simple snap-on, basic tools.
Special Technology (UVP)
Currently developing proprietary technology (Intellectual Property – IP)
• Auto sterilization with no chemicals
• Unprohibited auto disinfection of the user.
• Eco-friendly septic tank
We have visited several Syrian refugee camps (within Lebanon) and discussed their sanitation problems.
We have worked on tuning both the toilet design and the adapted technology to address these problems.
Currently, we are building some toilet prototypes to deploy within the refugees camps to test the outcomes and further tune.
The toilets will be inexpensive and affordable. Most importantly it will save lives of children and reduce morbidity. Thus saving funds spent on healthcare associated with such setting.
The toilet cost will be covered by government, local municipalities, community associations, international organizations, NGOs, Event organizers, anticipated construction sites, etc...
- 4-5 (Prototyping)
- For-Profit
- Lebanon
Direct profit margin from selling the toilets and the sterilization system or other additional features.
Secondary profit can be from selling spare parts, or potential maintenance contracts (although the toilets are easy to maintain).
Potential challenges in accurately quantifying the benefits in reduced transmitted diseases.
- 1 year
- 3-6 months
- 3-6 months
- Communicable Diseases
- General Wellness
- Healthcare Delivery
- Water Sourcing
- Built Infrastructure
Our on-going interface with current partners allowed us to further tune our design.
Interaction with SOLVE will provide us with larger exposure especially with experts from wider fields which will allow us to save time on our design iterations and thus improve it further to reach a suitable solution ready for implementation.
There are no competitors that address this issue. There are several toilet manufacturers.
Project Manager & Engineer
Professor