Gooood Morning SuperForest,
This great man is Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak. He founded and runs Sulabh International.
Sulabh International is a social service organization in India that builds toilet complexes. Three quarters of people living in India are without access to toilets, so these complexes do wonders for the local communities. The Sulabh complexes free people from the indignity of having to poo out in public, as well as keeping the environment free of human waste. Women who had to “hold it” during the day or risk their modesty now have a place to go, helping them avoid a number of health issues. The Sulabh complex provides toilets, showers, and rooms for nursing mothers, all for the equivalent of two cents. The toilet/sanitation complexes also frees the former scavenger class (predominantly women) whose job it had been to go and manually pick up the humanure.
Here are some numbers:
“More than 7,500 Sulabh public toilets constructed and maintained throughout the country.
Each day, over 10 million people use the 1.2 million individual toilets and more than 7500 public toilets constructed and maintained by Sulabh.
Number of scavengers liberated: More than 120,000 scavengers have been liberated from scavenging and rehabilitated after proper counseling and vocational training.
Towns made Scavenging-free: 240″
With the money generated from the toilets, Sulabh runs a chain of schools dedicated to educating the former scavengers who job it used to be to go and clean up the poo. These lucky folks receive the education free of charge.
“(Dr. Pathak) has made innovative use of biogas creation by linking Sulabh toilets to fermentation plants, he had designed over three decades ago and which are now becoming a byword for sanitation in developing countries all over the world. One of the distinctive feature of Pathak’s project lies in the fact that besides producing odour-free bio-gas, it also releases clean water rich in phosphorus and other ingredients which are important constituents of organic manure. His sanitation movement ensures cleanliness and prevents greenhouse gas emission.”
His initial invention was the dual pit composting latrine. A low water-use system that can serve hundreds of people, it turns humanure into biogas for lights and power generation, and in the end renders the manure inert and useful for agriculture.
This simple system is now in service all across India, serving millions of people, cleaning the environment and freeing people from manual scavenging. The Sulabh complexes are a massive win for the people of India.
And I’m very much hoping that they could be a win for the United States as well. A clean, composting latrine facility that uses very little water, creates fertilizer and biogas, cleans the water, and gives people a comfortable place to do their thing, all while generating income is a great idea. Saves water, runs clean, generates energy, makes people happy, makes money.
SuperForest is beginning a partnership with Dr. Pathak and Sulabh to help communicate their incredible work within the US and wherever SuperForesters are reading this. In return, Dr. Pathak has agreed to an interview (hopefully series of interviews), as well as sharing the details of his technology with us, and sharing with SuperForest the stories of his works and triumphs.
Dr. Pathak, you and your organization are an inspiration to me and Team SuperForest. Thank you for the hundreds of thousands of lives that you have improved with your selflessness and generosity. You have worked to fulfill Ghandi’s wish to free the scavenging class from the horrors of manual refuse cleaning, and worked to rehabilitate and educate those who your work has freed. Thank you for your dedication to creating happiness.
We look forward to working with you and Sulabh for many years.
-Jackson & Team SuperForest
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