eToilet as Testing Platform for integrating innovative wastewater and sewage treatment technologies

Purpose

Eram developed India's first electronic public toilet with features like payment mechanism, doors, washing mechanisms. This project aims to make the eToilet self sustained through minimizing water and power requirements.

Activities

Eram developed India's first electronic public toilet, the 'eToilet', with unique automated features to maximize user experience (e.g. payment mechanism, doors, washing mechanisms). In this project, Eram proposes to refine the eToilet by minimizing water requirements, improving sterilization mechanisms, and reducing necessary power consumption. The final eToilet will be a completely standalone system, integrated with high-end technologies, that is sustainable in terms of cost and efficiency.

The Imperial Model offers salient features like:

• Coin/Card based Access Control
• Self-washing & Cleaning Mechanisms
• Sensor-enabled water conservation
• Automatic Seat Sterilization
• Vacuum Flushing Mechanisms
• Air-conditioned Interiors
• Stainless Steel Built-up
• Touch-free Switches
• European Styled Squatting Pan
• Automatic Urinal and
• Sensor-enabled Wash Basin

ESS is now developing eToilets that are self-sustainable and Nutrient-Energy-Water recovering and which meets international standards. ESS is collaborating with other grantees of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for recovering water, energy, fertilizers or a combination of one or more of them through suitable sewage management solutions. It is expected that these projects would ultimately make eToilets self-sufficient in water and energy requirements.

Countries of activity

Location of main activity

Objectives

To develop and test a public toilet plus treatment system for India that will benefit the underprivileged and will offer solutions to address sanitation requirements of the poor.

Our idea is to invent universally viable self-sustained, water conserving toilet enabled by appropriate technology and embedded with self washing and sterilization mechanism to ensure complete cleanliness. We propose to focus on improvising toilets on two areas viz. (a) clean and hygienic toilet through inbuilt sterilization mechanism (b) enclosure to make it extremely resource conserving and thus making the toilet more scalable and accessible to masses. The enclosure focuses on integrating low cost sterilization unit for public usage and reducing water usage through efficient washing-sucking mechanism. We plan to integrate high-end technologies to manufacture a completely standalone system; sustainable in terms of cost and efficiency.

Further information

Our R&D team is in a continuous process of design and development of the eToilet enclosure, thanks to the support of BMGF since the past years. These valuable feedback of well wishers like you are welcome and we understand, we still have a long way to go in providing the best of sanitation facility to the common man in India. We believe a comprehensive approach to provide sanitation encompassing the challenges of user awareness, adoption of new sanitation technologies, skill development, conservation of resources, sustainability and maintenance of cleanliness and hygiene is the need of the hour in India.

Filter tags

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Cities Community sanitation East Asia & Pacific Operation, maintenance and sustainable services Practitioners Private sector, including social enterprises Product design and engineering Schools Specific to one or several countries Toilets or urinals (user interface) Urban (entire city)

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