Loowatt waterless toilet

Waterless toilet which instead of flushing human waste away, seals it within biodegradable film to provide a potential fertiliser and energy source, this design was used in the first phase introduction of the technology into Madagascar in 2012, made by Loowatt Ltd, London, England.

Across much of the world a flushable toilet is considered a basic necessity of everyday life, but such devices are generally part of networked systems that both supply the water needed to flush and then remove waste, to be processed and disposed of elsewhere. Hundreds of millions of people do not have access to such facilities and many countries have, at best, very limited sewage infrastructures.

Initially conceived by Virginia Gardiner as an industrial design project when completing her master’s degree at the Royal College of Art in London, the Loowatt provided an alternative to traditional water-wasting toilets. It also hygienically captured the human waste which could then be processed through anaerobic digestion to generate renewable biogas and organic fertilizer.

Gardiner intended that the design could be used in densely population areas which lacked basic levels of sanitation or remote locations were facilities were similarly lacking. Loowatts were also seen as having a role in disaster relief zones, where existing public health systems may have been damaged or destroyed. They were initially launched in 2012 as part of a pilot project in an impoverished area of Antananarivo, of the capital city Madagascar.