Loo that burns waste may be the solution

While government is under pressure to eradicate pit latrines at schools, an East London semiretired accountant believes his invention is the solution.

Ben Mfazwe, from Stirling, has invented a toilet that he has dubbed “Andyloo” which uses no water and converts human waste into ash through incineration.

Mfazwe said he thought of the idea 30 years ago when he realised that South Africa might run out of water one day.

“I was working as an auditor in Lesotho when I realised that if Lesotho would close its taps and stop supplying water to South Africa, the country would run out of water. That is when I came up with the idea,” said Mfazwe.

Twelve years ago, Mfazwe started developing his idea.

Today, the portable toilet is made out of an enamel box where the incinerating process takes place, a toilet seat lid that triggers the “flushing” process when closed, a chimney and a three-metre-long perforated pipe that is dug into the ground to channel fluids.

Explaining how the toilet worked, Mfazwe said faeces is deposited into a heat-sealed self-cleaning revolving receptor which separates the urine into the sump in the ground.

“Upon flushing , the revolving receptor rotates and drops the faeces into an incinerator which receives its heat from an automatically fed bio-mass briquette-burning combustion chamber below it.

“As the heat, not fire or flame, travels through the incinerator, it dries and heats up the faeces from the bottom until it reaches its combustion temperature, which in turn produces more heat to burn the faeces above it,” said Mfazwe.

All excess heat and moisture escapes from the toilet via a chimney and the burnt briquettes and ash fall into an ash tray which can be removed.

“The ash could be used to improve soil quality,” he said.

Together with his business partners, Luvuyo Gobodo, Loyiso Mfazwe, Mzukisi Galada and Tsepo Mohapi, under their registered business called Hygiene Complete Solutions, Mfazwe said they had presented the idea to government at national and provincial level, and to the Ghanaian government.

“We recently presented this at the Sanitation Indaba held in Durban in 2015. The Minister of Water and Sanitation was amazed by the product and researchers said the Andyloo was what they were looking for, a toilet that destroys faeces on site. Last year, we approached MEC of education, Mandla Makupula, who was also blown away,” he said.

Mfazwe said laboratory tests had already been conducted by the Water Research Commission, which issued them a functionality certificate.

“All we need is for government to help take this invention to the people, especially in areas where there is no water and schools where pupils are still subjected to unsafe pit latrines.”