Oh look there's a toilet museum. "Where?" My friend Ankit and his younger sister have met up with me in Delhi and we are perusing through my lonely planet guidebook to research where to go. Ankit's uncle had hired a car for the day and we wanted to take advantage of our mobility to peruse the city and check out some harder to reach places. After visiting the India gate, Connaught Square, A Himalayan temple and another sundial we get lunch and notice the museum in the book. With trouble finding something all three of us hadn't seen we decide to go to the Toilet museum. After getting lost in various streets around the Delhi airport, asking 6 passerbys who gave us funny looks. Our driver who was both grumpy and thought we were nuts pulled up to the Sulabh public toilet facilities. The entire area smells of rotten eggs and next to the public toilets is a gated area that leads to lush fields and gardens of marigolds and other plants. A gentleman who was seated in the far end of the corner comes running to us and we realize he is our guide. He leads us through some concrete area with several boxes standing next to pits. We realize we are in the village toilet section of the Museum.
Each stand has a sign of how much money it costs to build. How long it takes to fill up one tank per person and how long the facilities will last. Sulabh is an entire sanitation movement that works on bring environmental, hygenic and affordable toilets to India. 
Each exhibit was a little different in engineering, materials and efficacy. This model is one I personally might not want to use. 
Our guide jovially pointed out the luxury model versus the basic model. 
And we looked at several models through out the area. Apparantly as close of 5 years ago smaller villages in the poorer areas had no bathrooms or outhouse facilities and Sulabh came in and installed some of these units in order to improve hygene in these areas. As many of these units do not use a septic tank but bricks and earth, the water and waste is collected, dehydrated naturally to be used for fertilizer in the poorer villages. In more public areas the company has established public toilet areas where for 1 rupee one can wee and the collected waste is turned into biofuel, methane and filtered water that can be used for heat, electricity, cooking gas and water for crops. 
Within the building we were shown to a tongue in cheeck gallery of the history of bathrooms and models of toilets that doubled as side tables or thrones. 
Our guide very seriously and sweetly showed us toys based around toilet humor brought by visitors-mostly foreign. As he played this toy, the battery was low and we listened to a rather humorous passage in slow motion as our guide eagerly showed it to us. 
The gallery of models and photo passages and information about the history of toilets.
A heated model from the US that our guide switched on for us.
Sulabh has been increasing their facilities and has recently installed five of their toilet facilities in Afgahnistan. Our guide tells us how scared he was because of the Taliban but found the people in Afgahnistan to be both very greatful and kind to them as they installed the buildings in their village areas. Installing these areas helps create natural energy and filtered water--an excellent use of waste. 
Open view of the sample table/toilet.
Filter system for the waste. The water that comes out of it is clean and filtered but sourced by the local villager's Sulabh toilet center. 
A french designer sent the two dolls Pee & Poo to commemorate the creation of the museum. 
The front view of the public toilet. There is a waterless urinal that can be used for free and a very clean toilet system in the pay toilet area that charges one rupee per person. Truck drivers, villagers and the homeless use the system often and Sulabh systems have been installed in many part of India. 
Methane gas can be pulled into public kitchens where community kitchens prepare meals for 10 or more people within the village saving both food and gas costs for the poorer villages. 
The methane generator also can run very loudly to run both a CFL lightbulb and a room fan. The less methane and biofuel, the less watts. Apparantly depending the diets of the area the methane levels vary. Places like afgahnistan has more meat in their diets so their waste is very fertile while city dwellers in India and delhi have poorer waste compared to their counterparts in the rural area. Much of the gas could also be used to light very strong lamps for the streets and apparantly it takes the waste of five people a day to light one street lamp. The efficiency, calculations and thoughtfulness of the company was incredible as from our visit to India we can now tell that power shuts off quite often and most places cannot afford street lamps even in major cities. Combining human waste power capabilities and solar power and other sources can indeed help out in building an alternative and new infrastructure that is quite creative from ours in the west.
With a complete straight face and very eager eyes our guide showed us the labs, the testing, data and plants that help to filter the waste. As Ankit is an engineer at heart, his sister is into biochemistry and I am just weird-we asked many questions and looked very interested in his project. Although we went in to the museum looking for the laugh we came out amazed by the company and charmed by our sweet guide who very passionately told us about the project.
No comments:
Post a Comment