I have no idea but it’s a problem the eThekwini municipality in Durban has to answer, and soon if it wants to make a success of its urinary diversion (UD) toilets.

Let’s go back before we go forward.

Among the multitude of problems that still plague South Africa there are two that are pertinent to this post:

1. Sanitation or the lack thereof in rural areas and informal settlements.
2. Water shortages.

Both of these are addressed by UD toilets or dry toilets as they are also known.

Very basically, UD toilets have two compartments: one for urine and one for faecal waste. By separating the two the nutrient-rich urine can be used to create fertiliser. The solid waste is kept dry and free of disease, which makes it easier and safer to handle.

Research and development is currently being funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which gave the municipality a four-year grant for this express purpose. The Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag) is also providing valuable technical assistance.

It sounds like a very good idea, in theory, but in principle it’s not working out quite as planned. The problems have nothing to do with the technology itself. Instead they have to do with community buy-in.

Some township dwellers think that the solution is more appropriate for rural areas – they would much rather have toilets that flush. As a community leader has said, “Toilets are not about saving water – they’re about the dignity of people living in informal settlements.”

It’s an attitude that is perhaps understandable when you consider that most people living in townships moved there for a better life. Flushing toilets are equated with this better life; anything else is seen as something of an insult.

Other problems include lack of community consultation and maintenance issues. For instance, residents would be responsible for pouring sand over the solid waste to prevent flies, they would have to empty the full compartments and learn how to properly bury the waste and plant vegetables or trees on top. You can start to relate to their dissatisfaction a little now, can’t you?

But, the municipality is looking for entrepreneurs who would make it their business to collect the full waste compartments and deliver them to facilities that would then extract the ingredients that go into making a snorting fertiliser.

Still the battles are many, and mostly uphill.

eThekwini Municipality Water and Sanitation director Neil MacLeod is not about to give up, however. He compares the struggle to make dry toilets sexy to cell phones. I’ll quote him so that it makes more sense:

“The flushing toilet was invented in 1860, for Queen Victoria, and we use practically the same toilets today. If I gave you a cellphone that was made in 1980, you’d say, ‘I don’t want that thing, I want a Blackberry, or a Nokia or a smartphone,’ because the technology has advanced. So I want you to see a flushing toilet like the cellphone of 1980: clumsy, wasteful, not very clever.”

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has its heart set in revolutionising toilets and Durban, its municipality and its university all have key roles to play.

But without that sexiness, all the time and money spent could be in vain.

(Image by Usien (Own work) [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons)