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Cape Town - Would you pay for using a toilet? Thousands of people in Africa already do.
“They are willing to pay for shitty toilets,” says Niels Henrik Johansen, director of Enviclean in Aalborg, Denmark (a company which designs wastewater treatment plants). He points out that the pay-toilets in places like Kampala, that cost about 30 US cents a time to use, are in poor condition and not well maintained and clean.
A billion people across the world don’t have access to a toilet, and that feeds one of the top killers of children - 2 000 children die of diarrhoea every day globally, many of them in Africa. Enviclean saw an opportunity in this to do some good and create a sustainable income stream.
At a meeting in Aaalborg eralier this week with journalists from Ghana, Kenya and South Africa, hosted by Denmark’s International Media Support, Johansen described the concept his company has developed. It is a clever and win-win way to incentivise people to use pay toilets, and create a virtuous circle which removes and reuses waste while making money.
The One-Stop Shop, which is currently in testing stage, combines clean toilets (and showers) with a shop for hygiene products like soap, toilet paper and shampoo. People will be able to get tokens or cards which can be charged to pay for the visits.
Each time they swipe the card to use the ablution facilities, they generate a credit at the shop, so their hygiene products are effectively discounted. The revenue from product sales generates income for Enviclean.
The One-Stop Shop will keep the sewerage sludge for reuse, in combination with organic waste.
When the company was researching habits in Uganda, “I noticed that people who came to the market generated a lot of waste from vegetable peels and the like, and I saw that as a pile of money,” says Johansen. “But it is mixed with plastic.”
To obtain clean organic waste, Enviclean plans to invest in a mill for plastic. People who bring in waste plastic will get credits on their toilet token. The plastic will be ground down for recycling. Enviclean gets clean organic waste, free of plastic, to mix with the sewerage sludge and create material for a biogas plant that will generate energy.
The person on the street gets a few more trips to a clean toilet while in town.
And the town gets a method of cleaning up unsightly and insanitary waste. A great example of finding a business opportunity in waste, while going some way to solving a public health problem.
- Fin24
“They are willing to pay for shitty toilets,” says Niels Henrik Johansen, director of Enviclean in Aalborg, Denmark (a company which designs wastewater treatment plants). He points out that the pay-toilets in places like Kampala, that cost about 30 US cents a time to use, are in poor condition and not well maintained and clean.
A billion people across the world don’t have access to a toilet, and that feeds one of the top killers of children - 2 000 children die of diarrhoea every day globally, many of them in Africa. Enviclean saw an opportunity in this to do some good and create a sustainable income stream.
At a meeting in Aaalborg eralier this week with journalists from Ghana, Kenya and South Africa, hosted by Denmark’s International Media Support, Johansen described the concept his company has developed. It is a clever and win-win way to incentivise people to use pay toilets, and create a virtuous circle which removes and reuses waste while making money.
The One-Stop Shop, which is currently in testing stage, combines clean toilets (and showers) with a shop for hygiene products like soap, toilet paper and shampoo. People will be able to get tokens or cards which can be charged to pay for the visits.
Each time they swipe the card to use the ablution facilities, they generate a credit at the shop, so their hygiene products are effectively discounted. The revenue from product sales generates income for Enviclean.
The One-Stop Shop will keep the sewerage sludge for reuse, in combination with organic waste.
When the company was researching habits in Uganda, “I noticed that people who came to the market generated a lot of waste from vegetable peels and the like, and I saw that as a pile of money,” says Johansen. “But it is mixed with plastic.”
To obtain clean organic waste, Enviclean plans to invest in a mill for plastic. People who bring in waste plastic will get credits on their toilet token. The plastic will be ground down for recycling. Enviclean gets clean organic waste, free of plastic, to mix with the sewerage sludge and create material for a biogas plant that will generate energy.
The person on the street gets a few more trips to a clean toilet while in town.
And the town gets a method of cleaning up unsightly and insanitary waste. A great example of finding a business opportunity in waste, while going some way to solving a public health problem.
- Fin24
