Smart Wired Tundra Toilets for Alaska

Problem

For 12,000 people in remote Alaska native villages, human waste disposal is primitive.  The toilets are 5-gallon plastic buckets, the "plumbing" that carries the waste away is an all-terrain vehicle, a sled or a person (all of which tend to drip on the ground along the way), and the "wastewater treatment plant" is a melted spot in the permafrost on the edge of town.

The use of these "honey buckets" contributes to a rate of gastrointestinal disease that is twice that of other Americans. 

Smart Solution

But a UC Davis engineering student is working to change all that. This week, in the Native Village of Chefornak in western Alaska, Simone Sebalo will begin testing an experimental "smart" toilet that could make things much healthier.  If the $2,000 toilet works, the waste, instead of ending up in frozen limbo, will naturally turn into compost that can be used for gardening projects or to cover dump sites.

"These are citizens of the United States living with limited or nonexistent sanitation facilities," said Simone Sebalo, who is studying for her master's degree in environmental engineering.  "But Alaska is a place where it's difficult to find sound environmental solutions.  In much of the state, you can't put in septic tanks and leach lines because the ground is frozen all year.  And logistically it's difficult to bring materials in."

The project is funded by a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grant with additional support from the Tahoe research program.  This week, Sebalo will install the first toilet in the community store in Chefornak.  A few months later, four more toilets will be installed in family homes.

A large part of the grant will support a Chefornak resident who will be the local project manager.  He will translate educational material about the toilets into the native language of Yup'ik, maintain the toilets, collect additional data, and alter procedures based on Sebalo's findings.

Back in California, Sebalo will be able to monitor the first toilet, long-distance.  Sensors on the toilet will measure the frequency of use, air temperature, compost moisture, and power consumption by the heater and fan.  The data will be transmitted to UC Davis via satellite and the Internet, for the first detailed assessment of the actual performance and true costs of operating composting toilets under Alaskan conditions.

Source: UC Davis News: Tundra toilets, ocean trash, climate change, Tahoe, sustainable agriculture

N.B. I'm sure that after the experimental stage, you won't need $2K wireless toilets and they will drop in price by an order of magnitude--Walter Derzko

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Walter Derzko

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Comments

[john kerry]

The Medadent Mail-Back Service provides a safe, cost-effective method of containment and disposal of medical waste.
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[Scott Smith]

To clarify, this is our toilet, the Envirolet MS10 Composting Toilet.

Our full list price for this system is $1650.00. Any kind of qty purchase drops the price as well.

Learn more on envirolet.com.

[Mark]

$2k is a lot of money to people that are using 5-gallon buckets as their sanitation system. There's a solution that's little more complicated than their current system:

http://weblife.org/humanure/default.html

[I'm sure that after the experimental stage, you won't need $2K wireless toilets and they will drop in price by an order of magnitude--Walter Derzko]