London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

The School (LSHTM) has received a grant of $4.8 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support a three-year project to research and develop new concepts for on-site sanitation in developing countries.

The project aims to find novel ways to extend the lifetime and improve the affordability of on-site sanitation, such as pit latrines, which are used by approximately 1.7 billion people in the developing world. In particular the project will survey recent advances in biotechnology, for example the development of novel enzymes and micro-organisms for converting plant waste into biofuel, to assess their application to improving this form of sanitation.

For many of the world’s poor who do not have access to sewage systems, pit latrines or other forms of on-site sanitation are the only realistic and affordable sanitation option. However, pit latrines can fill up quickly, requiring pits to be emptied or new pits to be dug. Both options can be costly and may not be feasible due to lack of space, especially in unplanned settlements or emergency camps where sanitation facilities can be overwhelmed by the numbers of people they have to accommodate.

To date, the development and use of pit latrines has been the focus of limited research. Little is known about what controls decomposition of pit contents. LSHTM seeks to build a solid platform of knowledge about decomposition processes and evaluate the potential of biotechnology and improved design to accelerate decomposition. By coupling this information with a better understanding of the needs and aspirations of users, LSHTM hopes to generate novel solutions to extend the lifetime of pit latrines and other on-site sanitation systems. Concepts will be generated through a creative process involving the project team, end users and experts identified during the earlier stages of the project.

The ultimate goal is for these new solutions to be turned into affordable, sustainable innovations available on the market. As well as the health benefits of improved latrine performance, these innovations will aim to reduce lifetime costs for sanitation in an environmentally safe manner. The project will lay a solid foundation of user-informed ideas and assessing their technical feasibility for subsequent commercialisation. In the search for solutions the project team will seek to involve the best academic and industrial expertise through an open innovation approach. An innovation fund is available within the grant to fast-track promising ideas. It will be used for example to make early prototypes of promising technologies and product concepts.

The idea for the project was born out of discussions between the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), Oxfam, Bear Valley Ventures, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The core team will be led by Steven Sugden of the Disease Control and Vector Biology Unit (DCVBU) of, LSHTM as Principal Investigator. The team will also include Jeroen Ensink and Adam Biran (both of DCVBU) leading the workstreams on pit decomposition and user needs respectively, Eileen Chappell (DCVBU) as business manager, and Walter Gibson (Bear Valley Ventures) leading the workstream on technology landscaping and acting as Project Director. Oxfam will continue to be involved through the Steering Group and by providing field support. The project will also involve a number of significant external collaborations with organizations such as University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa.