Public toilets in India is a design problem which is yet to reach full resolution. Only close to 45 % of Indians have access to any kind of toilet. I remember traveling with my parents as a child while growing up in India. We never stopped at any public restrooms since there weren’t any. If one needed to go, there were always the fields, bushes and trees to hide behind to take a leak. That is pretty much the reality for a big chunk of Indian poor who live in the slums and don’t have toilets at home. They use the railway tracks, fields, riverbanks, any place that is close by but a safe distance from the dwellings. There have been a number of public toilet initiatives launched in the past 20 years but public toilets in India is not something the weak of heart can stomach. A lot of them are not maintained and get clogged and unusable in no time. A solution to sanitation problems needs to be a combination of strategic thinking, systems approach and good design.

Sulabh International founded by Dr Bindeshwar Pathak in 1970 created a scavenging free two pit pour flush toilet in order to put an end to the age old occupation of scavenging in India. The toilets are pay and use facilities that are popularly called Sulabh Shauchalaya. It is estimated that close to 10 million people use Sulabh toilets everyday in India. These toilets also generate biogas and bio fertilizers. This initiative tried to get at the root of the problem and created a systems approach that is sustainable in the long run and touches upon a number of issues including waste management and the lives of the scavengers.

Sulabh Toilet

A more pointed approach focussed mainly on toilet design came to my notice recently. An NID toilet design initiative led by Prof Abir Mullick, a professor of design at Georgia Institute of Technology, won the national award given by National Center for Promotion of Employment for Disabled people. The toilet design is supposed to follow the universal design tenets where the design can be used by any person regardless of gender, age or health conditions. The toilet design seems like a juxtaposition of the Indian style and western style toilet and was designed after considerable research that involved user interview and study. The research exposed a number of issues that included behavioral issues like the habit of defecating in the open and physical problems with fixtures and faucet design. The design thus created included a system to accommodate not only able bodied people but also children, pregnant women and the handicapped. The latrines have buttock support (which does not look very comfortable, but maybe works better than the squat toilet) and wall mounted grabs for sitting down and standing up. The toilets are prefab units and can be installed on site in a short duration of time.

NID universal toilet

Another interesting research project is ‘The Potty Project’. The project commissioned by Bill and Melinda Gated Foundation was undertaken by Quicksand Design Studio. The goal of the project was research into the behaviors and beliefs around sanitation in low income communities in urban India and a synthesis of the user experience related to sanitation. The team went to 5 cities in India including Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai and Pune. The key areas of engagement included defecation behavior, toilet infrastructures, health, hygiene and property rights. The findings provide insights and directions for future use for the urban poor. The organization encourages other organizations and businesses to build upon their research and findings.

Community soap (courtesy pottyproject research findings)

A new scheme for community toilets was commissioned by the Jugaad Urbanism exhibition. The toilets were designed by Vir Mueller Architects for a village called Delawara in Rajasthan. They developed a proposal for a toilet that could be locally built, emit zero waste and prevent ground water contamination. The toilet suggested was a dry composting toilet because of water scarcity in Rajasthan. Other design elements included rain water harvesting for washing and a community space for villagers.

Delwara community toilet rendering

Designing toilets and a sanitation ecosystem in India is a huge challenge. A number of competitions have been floated by the government and other national and international NGO’s, one of them being the Rural Toilet Design competition which was launched on the World Toilet Day last year. The first prize winner in the systems division went to Benjamin Clouet who picked up a Euros 6,000 (approx USD $8,600) for his combined shower, urine diversion, dry latrine and drip irrigation system.

As a conclusion, this video by Ashleigh Graber and Kenan Reel aptly summarizes the issue and need for sanitation facilities in this day and age.- Sh*t Talks, Talk Back

Related links

DNAIndia Coverage of NID toilet design

Diverse Education coverage of Prof Abir Mullick

American Army fascinated by Sulabh Shauchalaya

Times of India coverage of the NID toilet design

The potty project tumblr

Winners for Sanitation is Sexy Competition.

Unlike the westerners Indians use water to clean themselves after going to the toilet. However while traveling in cramped trains, the toilets have running water, but dont have containers or mugs to store the water to clean with. This unique problem has been addressed by Paul Sandeep. He designed a sustainable, disposable mug that could be distributed/sold by local vendors.  The mugs could also carry ads for local businesses and will be made out of recyclable paper and organic glue. It should be able to carry 1.2 litres of water.

For more details check out Paul Sandeep’s explanation of the product on INDEX awards.

“This is the first toilet in the world — in the world — where you use the toilet and you get paid,” Nair says. Now India is trying a different kind of cash reward to encourage toilet use. The Nirmal Gram Puraskar, or “clean village prize,” gives 50,000-5 million rupees to local governments that end open defecation. Thirty-eight villages qualified in 2005. A year later, 760 villages and 9 municipalities got the prize. In 2008, more than 12,000 awards were presented.

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