The New York Times recently reported on the Peepoo, a biodegradable plastic bag containing urea crystals that serves as a single-use disposable ‘toilet’ for people that lack access to regular toilets. The urea crystals kill the harmful bacteria in the excrement that would ordinarily end up contaminating water supplies and spreading very preventable diseases.
The World Health Organization estimates that unsafe water kills 1.8 million people a year, and that inadequate sanitation and hygiene is responsible for 88% of that burden. When you include the millions who daily suffer from non-lethal sickness from contaminated water, its easy to say that this is one of the world’s biggest problems.
The inventor of the Peepoo got the idea from observing African slum dwellers using regular plastic bags as ‘helicopter toilets’ that would be disposed of by twirling overhead after use to fling as far as possible. Bags easily burst on or after impact, so this practice is as ineffective in dealing with the problem as it is humorously disgusting. Can you imagine all the bag bombs flying around Kenyan slums in the morning?
The company claims to have done successful testing of the bags in Kenya, so would disposable, biodegradable ‘toilets’ work in Indian slums? Let’s consider the question from several perspectives.
Economics
Each bag will be sold for $.02 – .03 , so an average Indian slum family of 5 would spend 10 – 15 cents (or Rs 5 – 8 ) per day, or Rs. 150 – 230 per month for their waste disposal needs. That can be as high as 10% of household income for waste disposal in the face of several compelling alternatives.
Option 1: Status quo. Open defecation wherever you want. Financial cost: zero.
Option 2: Gov’t toilet. On-going programs in most states allocate funds for toilet construction for those who lack access. Financial cost: Rs. 1000 unsubsidized; or Rs. 100 with NGO subsidy.
Option 3: Pay-use toilet. Like seen in Slumdog Millionaire, or those operated by a number of private players like Sulabh. Financial cost: Rs. 1 per use.
Clearly, any option trumps the Peepoo. The economics of a solution usually determine its fate, but there are ways to mitigate economic cost so we’ll examine social aspects next.
Social Dimensions
First, there is a widespread belief in India that the excrement of children is more ‘pure’ and less dirty than that of adults. Slum kids tend to defecate openly even when their households have a toilet, and dislodging the adult misinformation around changing this practice is challenging.
Secondly, most Indian slum dwellers use water and their left-hand to clean themselves after defecating. I wonder if the design accommodates for this, as it would make it more challenging to tie and dispose of the bag in a manner that doesn’t contaminate the right hand.
Boy holding his own poop in a bag.
Third, the stigma surrounding any type of waste handling is huge, and also has deeply entrenched caste and class characteristics. An illustrative example is that people are opposed to using the biogas from composting toilets to cook even after all the smell has been removed. Ignoring these facts, would you want to be seen carrying a bag labeled “Peepoo” in big letters? I didn’t think so.
Fourth is the question of privacy. For women in Indian slums, this is often the driving force behind getting a toilet, trumping all other financial and social costs associated with open defecation. Peepoo does nothing to address this fundamental market-driver for toilets.
Lastly, one of the value propositions of Peepoo is that can be buried and used and fertilizer for crops. However, there is usually very little digging that happens for human waste in Indian slums. Only farming communities have adopted this practice, though I have not researched how widespread it is.
One segment of Lok Darshan‘s first episode, made by our talented team drawn from Gujarat’s largest slum, examines the realities of toilets for Indian slums through humor and song.
Community Compliance
Assuming economic and social barriers are overcome, Peepoo requires 100% community compliance in order to reduce the burden of disease. In other words, it only takes one person pooping outdoors to contaminate a community’s water supply. To my knowledge, the only organization deploying toilets and sanitation solutions that has understood this from the beginning is Gram Vikas, which insists that 100% of a community sign up for full sanitation facilities before deploying anything. Everyone else can pat themselves on the back for building a few people toilets, but cannot rightly hope to impact that family’s or that community’s incidence of waterborne disease.
So What Is Peepoo Good For?
Despite this product’s current limitations in the context of Indian slums, I would argue that it has a number of practical, potentially powerful uses besides those in African slums.
Refugee Camps and Disaster Areas
Keeping them from becoming breeding grounds of disease is difficult. I’d be willing to wager that the end-to-end cost of the current portable options is much higher than the PeePoo, and that gov’ts and aid agencies would be thrilled to take advantage of the cost savings.
Hikers / Campers In The West
On trails and locations that lack access to toilet facilities, Peepoo would be ideal. Stores like North Face and REI could probably sell them for $1 / bag or more, especially if the price aimed at subsidizing 50+ free bags for refugee camps.
Diapers
Seriously. Just counting America’s 8.8 million babies, we generate 27.4 billion disposable diapers a year. Getting even a small fraction of these to be biodegradable reaps huge benefits, though landfill degradation is still slower than normal degradation. Again, I would subsidize free bags for Africa through sales to disposable diaper makers.
Regular Plastic Bags
The Pacific has its plastic garbage patch and it was recently discovered that the Atlantic has one to match, leading progressive cities like San Francisco to ban plastic bags entirely. During the 2005 monsoon season, Mumbai was flooded because plastic bags had clogged the drainage systems, leading to a statewide ban on them. If the plastic in Peepoo is truly biodegradable, why not take the urea out of them, re/de-brand the bags, and make them available to all the places still using plastic. Its an instant market that addresses a global issue, and has huge potential to subsidize free PeePoos where needed.
All that said, there is a model for how Peepoo could work in Indian slums. Whether the company is smart enough to discern it’s appropriate use and drive the market towards this solution is an entirely different question, and perhaps the test of how committed they are to their stated mission.
Ponticulus Indica 