Posted on 09/19/2011 6:29:44 AM PDT by Second Amendment First
One of two Peepoo bag collection and drop off points in Silanga, Kibera, on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya.
“a single-use, personal toilet...”
I dunno about all y’all, but I know I have to pee more than once a day! Single use won’t cut it.
;^)
This is really kind of silly...talk about permanent dependency! Human waste “drop off points???” to a Peepoople company?
This clearly violates the “Give a man a fish, he eats for a meal, teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime” principal.
If Kenyan villages are unsanitary, THAN HELP THEM LEARN HOW TO BUILD THE INFRASTRUCTURE, don’t be their nanny by carting off their nappies.
Ridiculous.
One wonders why the technology of an 18th century outhouse is beyond the capabilities of many of the world’s people when they are left to their own devices:
1. Dig a pit.
2. Put crapper over the pit.
3. Place shovel against crapper, next to dirt pile from pit.
4. After using said crapper, use shovel to cover your business, thus eliminating flies.
5. When pit is full, move crapper over 4’ and repeat process.
The above also works with chamber pots.
I was sure the Peace Corp would have solved this problem by now!
Nairobi isn’t a village, it’s a city of 3 million people.
In the U.S., we take basic sanitation ideas for granted, but it was only 150 years ago that basic concepts for the U.S. Army like building latrines downstream from the camp was still not widely understood.
Much of the rest of the world does not understand how disease spreads, why sanitation is important, or how to properly dispose of waste.
And, I bet, if you were to drop 100 Americans into a wilderness area, 90 of them would not know how to build a safe latrine or where to position it relative to whatever shelter they have.
Because
1. the technology of the eighteenth century led to a lot of deaths from dysentery, as the leachate from an outhouse can get into wells or into the water table, and
2. outhouses have to be cleaned out from time to time, more often in hot places, and as long as poop has to be hauled away anyhow, this company is doing something smart with it--making fertilizer.
Perhaps a man with a cart and a triangle calling out, "Bring out your dead. Bring out your dead."
Actually, no. Raw sewage in storm drains that ran into the tops of wells were the cause of dysentery. Properly built and used outhouses function the same as a septic system and are quite sanitary. You are thinking of large cities with open sewer ditches. Had 19th century London used outhouses instead of tossing their waste into the gutter, they would have been fine.
2. outhouses have to be cleaned out from time to time, more often in hot places, and as long as poop has to be hauled away anyhow, this company is doing something smart with it--making fertilizer.
Not if you follow the steps I listed, as you are creating a natural waste pit that breaks down naturally over time.
If you don't place the pit within 50' of your shallow water well, you are fine. A deep water well would be even better, but not likely in these areas.
and now we have Daddy Poo from Kenya in the WH...outstanding.
Can’t they build/buy septic tanks? Kenya has no excavators
or contractors capable of installing septics?
Seriously, this is job one for any municipality. Sewers and
water.
If all cultures are equal, then why are the Swedes potty-training Kenyans? Has Kenyan culture not been around long enough to figure out that it’s a bad idea to crap in the village well?
I’m sure you are right about 90% of Americans, and more of that for Kenyans....but it doesn’t make sense to provide temporary-and-dependent solutions, when the manpower and know-how is available to build simple basic sanitation systems, therby protecting future generations—long after the peepoo do-gooders are gone and forgotten.
To me it’s a bit like giving clean needles to Heroin addicts...when what they need is serious help to break the addiction, not the state enabling it.
As was amply demonstrated when New Orleans was flooded.
Everywhere he goes and everything Obama touches turns to fertilizer.
This is generally for the outer fringes of the city. Trust me, the well to do and modern Kenyans that live in the gated, guarded enclaves have plenty of sanitation and indoor plumbing.
But when you come into a city, and live in an undeveloped area, there is none.
It’s not like in the U.S. or Western Europe where the government provides services. When you are a poor East African, you live where you can find work and afford food, and the government doesn’t care or feel a sense of duty to you.
This service will at least slow the spread of disease and will hopefully get some people into thinking about how refuse can be used to help grow crops.
Civilization takes time and it takes showing people how. This is a decent first step.
>>After just a few weeks, the bag transforms the waste into a nutrient-rich fertilizer. <<
HIV infected fertilizer, I suppose.
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