My name is Pijke, 25 years old and working on my master's degree Integrated Product Design at the Faculty of Industrial Design. For my graduation project, I am going to the Imvepi Refugee Settlement in Uganda for 9 weeks, in order to develop a toilet in collaboration with the company Semilla Sanitation.
The toilet aims to improve clean and safe sanitation in the settlement, as well as create opportunities for income for its inhabitants, by means of local production, maintenance and repair. After scaling the project, the system will improve groundwater quality by eliminating contamination from human waste. This will drive back waterborne disease and with that improving drinkwater quality and quality of life for inhabitants.
The company specializes in building decentralized human waste treatment plants. In this case, they have built a bio-digester that can service 25.000 people in the settlement. Turning their feacal sludge into compost, biogas and irrigation water.
