Today Kenya joined in celebrating The world’s toilet day. Like many other developing countries across the world, Kenya population is undergoing rapid urbanization with majority of the poor living in urban informal settlements where people struggle to get access to basic sanitation facilities like toilets due to lack of enough space. The slum dwellers are often forced to use flying toilets when it gets dark, defecate in open or pay to use community latrines that are not in good condition…often cleaned due to water shortage among other challenges thus risk of waterborne infections such as diarrhea as a result of untreated human waste.

Waste management is therefore a key challenge with 8 million people in Kenya’s slum alone generating 4 million tons of fecal sludge annually .None of this is properly collected and treated.

Working as a Sanergy fellow, I have had a great deal of exposure to sanitation business value chain .Sanergy works with a vibrant urban informal settlement called Mukuru located in one of the Nairobi Informal settlements .Their “Fresh life toilet” is designed for people living in the slum, because it has special features that helps make it easy to clean, sanitary and remove the waste from. The Freshlife toilets have replaced the “flying toilets” at Mukuru because they are run by local entrepreneurs who become franchise partner.  The franchisees charge for usage of the toilets, and can make up to $40 a week by running two toilets. Sanergy’s trained and properly equipped freshlife frontline collect the waste everyday from the facility and takes it to a processing plant for conversion of useful by-products such as organic fertilizer and energy biogas source.

Freshlife toilets are part of the environmental solutions because they have minimized “flying toilets “again they do not use water instead small sawdust is used as a cover material after a long call .The toilet is a business to the local resident at the same time solution to environmental problems .How cool is that…