A toilet that makes human excreta touchable

A day would start the same way for the people of Senior Group Village Head (SGVH) Chikuzankhu, in an area stuck between two hills extending from deep inside Nyika National Park near Bolero in Rumphi.

One of them would feel like relieving themselves. So they either go into the bush or a pit latrine dug just near the house.

If it were in the bush, they would go there, turn and face the direction they came from before doing the job. They would, afterwards, walk straight to where they came from, never looking back. The pattern was the same if it were the pit latrine. There was no looking at what they left behind.

Such is the case in most societies. So often every day, we visit imaginary toilets in bush or the most decent water closets within our houses. But rarely do we cast the eye on that stuff once it is dropped.

The people of SGVH Chikuzankhu, however, are gradually drifting from that group. These days, they not only look at their excreta but also heavily dilute the despicableness with which society associates touching human excreta.

“We have realised that that is the best manure one would ever think of. It is a combination of both the basal and top dressing,” said SGVH Chikuzankhu at Mkama in the area recently.

“Those of us who have used manure from human excreta have noticed how that manure even beats a combination of 23:21:0+4S and Urea. The faeces are Nitrogen and the urine is Urea. But we get that combination at no cost at all that is why I say it beats that combination.”

As a cultural custodian himself, Chikuzankhu never fathomed that the despicableness with which he associated touching his own excreta would one day go away and that easily. That day and the ease came soon enough for him.

Through their routine exercise, some people working under the Kulera Biodiversity and Water and Development Alliance (Wada) Project approached people from his village one day.

They brought two types of manure. One of them was that from human excreta harvested from a toilet promoted under the Community Water and Sanitation Programme (C-Wasp), funded through a partnership between United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and The Coca-Cola Africa Foundation.

They were asked which of the two types of manure we would comfortably touch with their bare hands. They all pointed at that of human excreta. At that point they had not known that it was human excreta.

“They explained the process of making that manure to us. They told us the entire trick was in the ecological sanitation (eco-san) toilet which never wastes what is dropped into it,” said Chikuzankhu.

Obedi Mkandawire, Rumphi Zone Manager for Total Land Care (TLC), other implementing partners for the Kulera/Wada Project, says the eco-san toilet has two components. Each component, he says, is usually one metre deep and a square measuring 0.8m

Each component is covered with a sun plate and one of them is used at a time. When it is full, the opening on the sun plate is covered and the other component is opened for use.

“Every time someone uses that toilet, they throw in a handful each of ashes and soil. The ashes kill the germs and the smell and the soil takes away the being human excreta,” said Mkandawire.

“The manure is usually ready for use after six or eight months. At this point the manure looks like dark fertile soil which is why people say it is the one they would easily touch than that from cattle dung, for example.”

Chikuzankhu says the manure from the eco-san toilets has boosted yields in the fields whose owners cannot afford the basal and top dressing fertilisers, saying once applied, the manure shows signs that it can keep supplying the nutrients for over two years without replenishing with another lot.

He said the response to the use of the manure is currently low. However, he said the combination of its performance and how it looks is fast attracting a number of villagers in the area.

The project targets 225,000 individuals in communities within a 10 kilometre band surrounding Nyika National Park, Vwaza and Nkhotakota Game Reserves and Ntchisi and Mkuwazi Forest Reserve.

Using interventions like conservation agriculture, village savings and loans and small-scale livestock production, the project seeks to improve livelihoods of target communities around the reserves so they don’t encroach and rely on the natural resources in the protected areas.

While all the initiatives under the project seek to change people’s attitude towards their surrounding environments, it is the performance of eco-san toilets under the Wada component that has borne the most interesting fruits.

The people of SGVH Chikuzankhu have changed their attitude and can now touch their own excreta. But that is not the only miraculous performance from the eco-san toilets.

“It is the cleanest system of disposing of wastes,” says Mkandawire.