OpenIDEO - How can we improve sanitation and better manage human waste in low-income urban communities? - Inspiration - Deploy Moldering Privies to Make Gold out of Human Waste

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Deploy Moldering Privies to Make Gold out of Human Waste

Moldering Privies are the most cost effective and eco-friendly solution to human waste disposal

Deploy Moldering Privies to Make Gold out of Waste

SANEAMIENTO ECOLOGICO ALTERNATIVO: SISTEMA ECODESS

Moldering Privies, which use red wiggler worms to turn human poop into clean compost, are the most cost effective and eco-friendly solution to waste disposal. All you need is a little toilet paper and some wood shavings to cover your "deposit":)

Moldering Privies:
-save precious water
-do not smell
-produce clean compost to fertilize the soil (the compost can be sold to recover the cost of building the privy)
-recycle wood shavings
-usually have a nice view (might be replaced with a door in urban areas)!

The compost box could be modular, allowing it to be easily replaced (slid in under the privy?) and portable (pulled by a tricycle?) allowing it to be taken away for storage at a central site for the composting to complete. All this work could be done as a profitable business service.

Moldering Privy: moldering-privy.pdf

Moldering Toilet: molderingtoilets.pdf

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Larry Cheng

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December 07, 2010, 07:56PM

Drawing a parallel to industrial composting, as well as agriculture, winemaking, cheesemaking, and other time-intensive product manufacture, there needs to be land set aside for the bugs to do their work over time, which means infrastructure and people to watch over the work in process.

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Thao Vo

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November 25, 2010, 03:20AM

I really like the simplicity of the molding privies; it's so simple yet so effective and efficient. Thanks, for sharing!

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Avi Solomon

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November 18, 2010, 08:14PM

Thanks Nathan & Vincent. The compost box could be modular, allowing it to be easily replaced (slid in under the privy?) and portable (pulled by a tricycle?) allowing it to be taken away for storage at a central site for the composting to complete. All this work could be done as a profitable business service.

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Vincent Cheng

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November 18, 2010, 07:49PM

Thanks for the interesting post Avi. I think I used one of these recently while camping. For these solutions, also important to have a system in place for maintaining (i.e. emptying) over time: though it sounds like the moldering privy is easier to maintain assuming usage volume isn't too high.

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Nathan Waterhouse

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November 18, 2010, 05:17AM

Wow, that's pretty cool Avi! thanks for this, really inspiring how you can construct something so simple from such simple materials and (in some areas) readily available areas.

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