Challenge Brief

This OpenIDEO challenge will complement a social innovation project by IDEO, Unilever, and WSUP that is also exploring sanitation solutions for low-income urban areas. The project team will be on the ground in Kumasi for the majority of our Inspiration phase, sending OpenIDEO news updates, Tweets, and photographs from the field to support your enthusiasm for — and thinking about —the challenge. Upon return from Ghana, the team will synthesize your inspirations and identify overarching themes to inform the Concepting phase. In other words, your ideas will help IDEO, Unilever, and WSUP conceive and deploy the solutions to waste-management challenges in Ghana. Get involved!

Phase I: Inspiration

Think about everything from high-tech and portable latrines to household cleaning products and emergency-kit waste bags. The broader you go, the more possibilities we’ll have to consider.

Some questions we’d like you to answer:

• What does “clean” mean to you?
• What innovations have you seen in waste-management and sanitation in developed nations or emerging markets?
• What analogous situations can we think about as we explore this space? Can we find inspiration in the way waste is managed at construction sites, campgrounds, hotels, or even on cruise ships?
• What effective business or service models related to cleaning, waste removal, or sanitation are you aware of?

Phase II: Concepting

Please tell us about the low-cost, sustainable solutions that you believe will help address waste-management and sanitation issues in Ghana. Think: products, services, business models, and systems. How can your concept(s) be executed efficiently? For this phase, we’ll add details about the current state of sanitation in Ghana as our own Inspirations, as well as provide design constraints to help you hone your concept into a winning solution.

About Unilever and WSUP:

Unilever is a multinational consumer goods company whose products touch 2 billion people worldwide. Unilever is exploring new opportunities in sanitation and waste management. Unilever has recently announced the Unilever Sustainability Living Plan and a commitment to double the size of its business but at the same time reducing its environmental impact.

Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP) is a tri-sector partnership between the private sector, civil society and academia with the objective of addressing the increasing global problem of inadequate access to water and sanitation for the urban poor and the attainment of the Millennium Development Goal targets, particularly those relating to water and sanitation.

Have ideas already?

Acumen Fund is soliciting ideas about how to make sanitation sexy through a variety of communication channels. Submit your ideas there (prior to November 21) and then be sure to post them again here during the concepting phase which begins December 14.

Challenge Administrators

Liz Armistead

Comment on the Brief

If you'd like to leave us your thoughts on this brief, tell us what you think. Be sure to also take part in the challenge.

Tarana Hafiz

delete comment

December 10, 2011, 01:26AM

When working last semester on conditions in Nima, sanitation went back to the urban fabric and re-envisioning a larger-scale system that would work at the community scale. The strongest constant that kept Nima from falling into chaos is the cooperation from the Mother's Club, the action of the youth groups and the strength of the religious identity. Where scattered public toilets to users (private toilets rarely exists there) ratio is 1:4000 roughly, the religious institutions and community centers' ratio to users is 1:800. The gutter at the edge of the border between Mamobi and Nima became a significant cry for help. In recent news, the gutter has been commissioned to be covered from Nima East by the soccer field and Nima West. Our design approach proposed incremental growth anchored at providing a hierarchical road network around existing religious institutions
as the first stage of equal distribution (of resources).

http://www.ifrc.org/en/news-and-media/news-stories/africa/ghana/red-cross-mothers-clean-up-accras-big-gutter/

Some of the models of emptying out pit latrines, for examples include one by WaterAid: http://www.wateraidamerica.org/what_we_do/how_we_work/sustainable_technologies/the_gulper.aspx

Another very interesting model of expanding sewer and water to neighborhoods without proper tenure status looks towards the condominial approach by the WorldBank, which has been successful in Brazil:
http://water.worldbank.org/water/related-topics/condominial-approach

And lastly, for designers, thinking of ingenious methods to make use of our waste for short-term solutions to sanitation and safety, here is a design that creates grade 'a' fertilizer from our human waste:
http://www.peepoople.com/showpage.php?page=3_8

0 Applaud Report this comment

I accept the terms and conditions

Zayed Tesfahunegn

delete comment

April 07, 2011, 09:26PM

I just join this site. Even if this challenge is over I just want tell what I know on an eco toilet project that implement in urban area like Addis Ababa.
US-based NGO Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and its partners have been promoting an ecological toilet called the ArborLoo, designed by Zimbabwean Peter Morgan specifically for African conditions. It serves both as a basic toilet and makes use of excreta for growing fruit trees.
The AborLoo is a single pit shallow compost toilet 1.0-1.5m deep comprising a ring beam, slab and structure.
“Each concrete toilet slab costs US$7-20 and anyone can use it. It best suits the elderly and disabled people. You can dig it in half a day and can also plant trees on it.
During use, fly and odour problems are reduced by regularly adding soil, wood ash and leaves to the excreta in the pit. Once full, the old toilet site is covered with soil and left to compost with the parts of the toilet being moved to another place, rebuilt and used in the same way again.
A tree is planted on the old site, preferably at the start of the rainy season, after the old pit contents have composted for a while.

Now the people who use it understand that latrines are important for their hygiene and health. ArborLoo has helped them a lot. They plant fruits, vegetables, trees and above all they are safe from acute watery diarrhoea and other diseases.

0 Applaud Report this comment

I accept the terms and conditions

Gub McNicoll

delete comment

March 18, 2011, 12:11AM

Are you familiar with the UK-based company Red Button Design? http://www.thisisredbutton.co.uk/
They have a water transportation device that purifies water during transit by reverse osmosis. The action of rolling the device from the water source to its destination provides all the power required to purify the water.

0 Applaud Report this comment

I accept the terms and conditions

Vincent Cheng

delete comment

March 08, 2011, 06:30PM

Though the sanitation challenge is over, just thought you all might appreciate this simple device for opening the bathroom door after washing your hands: http://toepener.com/

0 Applaud Report this comment

I accept the terms and conditions

Alessandro Ortega Amaral

delete comment

January 14, 2011, 01:24PM

Watch this video: http://bit.ly/g3qepj

Why is it that you, openIDEATOR, has not yet decided actually participate actively in the Sanitation Challenge?
Ends in a few days! We are trying to build something there and we need your contribution!

0 Applaud Report this comment

I accept the terms and conditions

Matt Cvik

delete comment

December 04, 2010, 03:58PM

Now I am thinking about a two fold problem in developing countries. One the waste issue that we are currently talking about and the need for homes. I have looked into the earth ship idea where they use recycled goods to build their homes. earthship.com is the site where you can learn more about these homes. The entire idea is based on no waste of any kind so this is a beautiful idea to use with developing countries.

One other thing that you would help address would be the energy needs would be reduced by design.

0 Applaud Report this comment

I accept the terms and conditions

Sanjay Joshi

delete comment

November 24, 2010, 11:39AM

Perhaps am late in joining this site. I am a development person working in India and my forte is education for water and sanitation. One of the experiences has been to link Self Help Groups (SHGs) to sanitation. Perhaps nothing new. But a doable idea has been implemented.

SHG members over the years, learn through exposure visits. One idea that clicked was extending loans for building toilets. Yes, it talked about but then have seen it happen not one but numerous women. it is a loan that gets repaid over the prescribed time. With no toilet at home, women would eat less. So that they did not have to go to defecate during the day. They fine tuned their bowel movements to such an extent that they would go out to defecate before sunrise or after sunset. they taught this trick to their daughters too. Security, menstruation, illness were all overcome - somehow.
But the toilet facility impacts the woman's health positively. She begins to eat well - no fear if she has to defecate during the day - now she has a toilet at home. It has increased their confidence levels and many have also built bathrooms. Safety issues for themselves and their daughters gets ensured. Guests appreciate so social status goes up. Plus when their daughter's are to be married, mothers check the to be in-laws house for a toilet !

This can be tried out even in Ghana for example. If more operational details are required do let me now.

Women need their dignity and a toilet provides it immediately!!

1 Applaud Report this comment

I accept the terms and conditions