UCT team wins sustainability award
A UCT lecturer and his team have won an international sustainability competition with their self-sustaining toilet hub that converts urine and faeces into fertiliser and compost.
Department of Civil Engineering water quality senior lecturer Dr Dyllon Randall and his multinational team won the global sustainability prize at UNLEASH 2018, held in Singapore recently, with their SaniHive prototype – a modular, fully integrated design inspired by the structure of honeycomb that maximises space in an urban slum.
UNLEASH 2018 is a global innovation lab that brings together 1 000 top talents aged between 20 and 35 from 100 countries to create real, scalable solutions to the UN sustainable development goals (SDG) on food, water, health, education, energy, urban sustainability, responsible supply chain and so on.
“The toilet hub is not connected to a conventional sewage network, requires no electricity to operate and it can easily be scaled up by merely increasing the number of toilet hubs using the profits generated from the waste recycling,” Randall said.
“It contains a urine treatment process as well as a faeces collection system for eventual composting.
“It’s different to current toilets in this area because it separates the urine and faeces within the toilet while using no water,” he added.
Phosphorous recovery from urine for fertiliser is one example of this.
SaniHive – derived from sani for “sanitation” and hive from the “beehive” inspiration – took the laurels for the SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation, as well as the Global Scalability Potential award, beating the 995 other contestants and 169 other solutions.
“The innovation would create employment, as local people could transport the waste to mini treatment plants where high-end products could be created,” Randall said.
With projections of close to one billion urban slum dwellers by 2030, Randall believed that sanitation innovations would play a big part in ensuring clean water and sanitation and in creating sustainable cities and healthy citizens.
“But it doesn’t have to be an urban slum,” he said.
“You can use the same methodology in richer suburbs, where you create an integrated, decentralised system with a mini treatment plant in the neighbourhood. The challenge would be to separate the waste.”
Randall and his group hope to pursue the SaniHive innovation and plan to approach funders to help commercialise the technology.
Civil Engineering Department head Professor Pilate Moyo said it was rewarding to see one of their researchers being recognised for their innovative work.
“As a department, we value innovation. We are extremely proud of Dyllon and the pioneering work he is doing in wastewater,” Moyo said.
According to the Engineering and Built Environment faculty deputy dean for transformation and social responsiveness, Associate Professor Tanja Winkler, the faculty hoped to develop innovative solutions to some of the socio-economic challenges facing the country and continent.
“We also remain committed to promoting sustainable outcomes via engaged scholarship and the co-production of knowledge. This is precisely what Dyllon is doing. His work is inspirational, and has great potential not only to generate employment opportunities but also to add value to waste.”