PooPac – A bioactive bag for human faeces

Joshua Urieli

PooPac – A bioactive bag for human faeces

How can a product-system for container-toilets in Kenya be designed, to collect and transport faeces in slums with safety and dignity?

Product

One in three people worldwide live without safe and dignified toilets, over 200 million in African slums. This leads to widespread illness, pollution, and death. Container-based sanitation services address the problem by collecting human faeces in containers, inside toilets, inside peoples’ homes. These services regularly collect the containers and biodegrade the faeces into products, e.g. compost. Generally, container-toilets are smelly, and services are inefficient and unsafe. In this thesis, ethnographic fieldwork, rapid prototyping, and experiments are used to develop a new solution: PooPac.

PooPac is a bioactive paper bag that suppresses the toilet smell. The biodegradable PooPac is sealed for transport, and directly composted, removing all contact with faeces. PooPac can increase access to safe and dignified sanitation.

Mentoring:
Roland Eberle, Mona Mijthab

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