Eco-Loo City

Towards the middle of our trip, we took a break from service activities and had a few excursions planned. The inspiration for this blog post came from our two-night stay at Mumbo Island, a tropical paradise on Lake Malawi that hosts the eco boutique Mumbo Camp. Mumbo Island is an “eco boutique” because the island doesn’t have electricity and all the chalets are constructed from wood. The bathrooms are constructed from wood as well and are home to the critically acclaimed Eco-Loo. The Eco-Loo is basically a toilet that act as a composter because you use the toilet then cover your waste with leaves, dirt, and wood chips. This waste eventually turns to compost that you can use to improve plant growth and health.

When I returned to my internship from Africa, I told my boss at working about how cool the Eco-Loos were and we quickly found an application for them. We started working on a new project and realized that the parcel had no space for a septic tank and no cost-effective methods of installing sewer lines. Jokingly, we talked about how Eco-Loo’s (Els) would solve all of our problems and I got the idea to write about the benefits of a city that boasted Eco-Loos rather than normal toilets and sewers.

Running a city with ELs would make life easier for all levels of life in an area. First, ELs would boost water conservation greatly which would benefit places that are challenged by water scarcity. It would also increase sanitation of cities by replacing sewer systems that can be poorly kept. Fiscally, an EL system would help decrease taxes as there would be less money spent on the upkeep of expensive sewer systems and wastewater facilities. The compost that comes from the ELs could be sold and/or allocated to farmers in the community that would benefit from the resources.

While the EL system sounds great, it would be difficult to gather the public’s support due to concerns that the toilets could be unsanitary. It is also important to note that this would only be beneficial for smaller, more rural communities. Eco-Loo New York City is not a good idea and would cost way too much money to upkeep.

With all that being said, I think the idea of a compost toilet city is pretty cool and should be considered an option especially for rural towns that have to spend a lot of money on expansive sewer systems. Eco-Loo forever.