Environmentalists and other interested parties continue to devise creative ways to dispose of human defecation and improve sanitation.

They encourage anyone who wishes to reduce environmental impact to build a home with a green toilet, use a composting system to decompose human excreta and generate energy from such wastes and so on.

However, developing countries are still struggling with access to public utilities such as sewer systems and running water.

40% of the world’s population still do not have access to proper sanitation despite the invention and use of modern toilets. This has put people’s lives at risk as they continue to live in hazardous conditions.

But there is hope. Researchers at Cranfield University have come up with a design for a waterless toilet that has the potential to turn around the unsanitary conditions these people find themselves in.

The Waterless Nano Membrane Toilet design as it is known is so impressive that it caught the attention of Bill  Gates whose Foundation granted $710,000 for the advancement of the innovative waterless technology.

For the development of the lab prototype and the trials phase to begin in Africa, the researchers based in Cranfield University have since received more awards towards the technology used in developing the waterless Nano Membrane Toilet.

The design is said to be so promising that it is believed it will change the lives of billions of people globally who are facing life-threatening diseases as a result of unsanitary conditions and lack of  safe clean water.

The recent grant, which is substantially more than any prior funding will go a long way in further improving the user friendly Nano Technology Toilet to offset the scarcity.

The new waterless toilet plan is likely to best serve the poor metropolitan areas which seem to be the easiest to reach and serve.

This is because the toilet needs to be located in areas where the maintenance technician can easily facilitate his visits.

Once the technology proves viable in cities, then the team of developers will move it into the remote areas where people find it extremely challenging to provide good sanitation.

How Does The Toilet Work?

The Bill Gates Nanotechnology toilets have a complex design but are easy to use and seem to be promising as the future of sanitation. The toilet runs on batteries and the end products from the wastes can be utilized to generate energy.

The green toilet is built with a rotating toilet bowl and a vat underneath. Once a person is through with their call of nature, they close the lid of the bowl which then makes a 270-degree rotation to pour the waste into the container beneath.

Any remaining waste in the bowl is scraped off using a scraper tool and the rock-hard waste is pushed to the lower part while the fluid floats on top.

Inside the chamber are some pencil-thin fibers which assist in moving the steam in the fluid excreta up a perpendicular tube that is located at the back of the toilet.

The thin nanofibers as they are known are arranged in bundles to condense vapor into water to allow it to flow downwards in a tube to settle in a vat situated at the forepart of the Nano toilet.

The toilet uses a system running on battery to lift the solid waste left in the vat into a different  chamber where a  wax is used to coat to suppress the smell before it is given sufficient time to dry.

Once the water and the solid waste is separated, the water can then be used by households to clean their homes, tend to plants and edible gardens, bath and cook for their families.

The solid refuse, on the other hand, can be transported to another plant for heat-processing and to be converted into energy that the community can utilize.

A local maintenance technician is bound to visit the community on a weekly basis to replace toilet batteries when necessary and remove the compact litter and the water.

The Upside of the Green Toilet

The Nano toilets will facilitate job creation as the local communities will require people to safely and effectively maintain the toilets.

However, the training process might be rigorous and can take a lot of time to understand the designs.

According to the design developers, field testing for the nanotechnology toilet will commence later this year and a single toilet is able to serve at most 10 people for $0.05 at most per user per day. This is in accordance to the original prize criteria laid down by the Bill Gates Foundation.

The Limitations

The major challenge for this design is scalability. Like numerous other designs before it, availing the lavatories to the developing countries that are in dire need for them has been a problem. Many designs are known to work perfectly in theory, the implementation is an uphill task.

Another limitation is that users cannot use toilet paper in the Nanomembrane toilet. The developers admit that this is a downside of the design since most users will be required to toss used toilet roll into a  waste basket nearby.

This act will likely not go down well with users who will be skeptical about throwing such paper in a bin after finishing their business.

However, the team of developers is working round the clock hoping to come up with a way of disposing of the waste paper in future.

The team is seeking ways of burning the toilet paper after use, an act that might not be the most ecologically sound  method of disposing it after all.

But hopefully, it could leave a much smaller footprint on the environment and add more years to people’s lives and therefore create a win-win situation.

Conclusion

Waterless toilets are the way to go. To save planet earth and Mother Nature from the ravages of environmental degradation the green toilet offers a great solution.

At the same time, billions of people will have access to sanitary conditions of waste disposal while not having to worry about scarcity of water.

The Nanomembrane toilet is a great initiative for eliminating sanitation-related diseases.