One of the projects we're proudest to have contributed to. Haiyan, a designer-builder in New Orleans, builds self-contained mobile micro-shelters and gives them to homeless people in the city. We donated a urine separator for the composting toilet inside one of the shelters — the email below came back to us shortly after.
"Hey Paul,
Thank you again for donating the urine diverter to me. Today I gave the shelter away to a homeless person here in New Orleans.
Two other homeless people have approached me, so this January I will build another one. I hope to be able to use your product in some capacity again.
Here are some details of the shelter:
1. 10 ft by 5 ft on wheels, can be manually pushed by a person.
2. Total weight about 1,300 lbs.
3. 10 gallon rain water on board.
4. 50 Watt solar panel with 340 watt battery pack, inverter to 110V AC.
5. Sofa bed with storage.
6. Composting toilet (with plastic bag and urine diversion — thank YOU).
7. Shower with shower head and pump.
8. Hand-crank washing machine.Thank you so much again,
Haiyan"
Composting toilets in humanitarian use
One of the genuine practical strengths of compost toilets is that they need no plumbing, no sewage connection, no chemical supplies and no servicing. That makes them well-suited to humanitarian, disaster-relief and off-grid housing applications.
We've also supplied separators for a children's project in Haiti and disaster-response builds during the Cape Town water shortage. If you're working on a humanitarian or aid project that needs urine separators, please get in touch — we're often able to support good causes with discounted or donated units.