Department of Engineering and Communication
Engineers Without Borders Challenge: Students impress with concept for dry toilets in Sierra Leone
We take clean toilets for granted - but not yet for many people in rural Sierra Leone in West Africa. After a long civil war and the Ebola epidemic, diarrheal diseases and cholera are still widespread there. And so this year's Engineers Without Borders Challenge organized by Ingenieure ohne Grenzen e.V. focused on WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene). Following successful projects in schools and other educational institutions, sustainable dry toilets, so-called UDDTs (urine-diverting dry toilets), are now to be adapted for use in private households. These toilets separate urine and faeces, enable environmentally friendly disposal and the use of compost as fertilizer.
How the whole thing can work under difficult conditions such as no running water and lack of access to electricity: Eleven engineering students from the IWK department at H-BRS took on this challenge last winter semester.
Realistic solutions for little money
Develop technical solutions that meet local conditions and needs without imposing Western standards on other people: Aspects such as limited space, low costs and the education of the population must be taken into account. The aim is to create a practical and sustainable sanitation system that improves people's quality of life in the long term. Max, a third-semester Sustainable Engineering student, asked himself before the project began to what extent the sustainable improvement of the hygiene situation in the rural areas of Sierra Leone would actually be implemented: "It was very important to me personally that our project aimed from the outset to offer a design that could actually be implemented by the people in the region of application, without expensive tools, construction machinery and specialist staff."
As the budget of the local population is limited, the use of local materials plays an important role in saving costs and implementing the toilet system sustainably in private households. The students' self-imposed goal: a toilet for less than 100 euros. It was worth getting creative - and so the outer walls of the toilet facility were planned using woven branches. The individual elements of the toilet were designed on the 3D printer and printed out to make the model as realistic as possible.
Hygiene education through pictures and videos
However, the construction of the sanitary facility was not the only part of the challenge. Another, more didactic challenge was the question of how the model and the hygiene measures for disease containment and prevention could be brought closer to the rural population. As many people there can neither read nor write, the students developed training material in the form of pictograms for adults and children on how to use and maintain the sanitary facilities.
The budding engineers summarized the results of their project in a video. A total of 21 video contributions with proposed solutions were submitted to the Engineers Without Borders Challenge. The H-BRS team's design impressed the jury with its "good functionality and easily replicable design as well as the use of local materials".
Hagen and Max explain the concept of the dry toilet in the video
Teamwork, creative freedom and future visions
The project brought together students from the Sustainable Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering degree programs and taught them about the benefits of working in an interdisciplinary team. Hagen is studying electrical engineering in her third semester and really appreciates the teamwork and creative freedom in this project. This allows everyone to contribute their skills. Sustainable engineering student Max was also surprised at how much project management was behind such a concept. Marija, a third-semester Sustainable Engineering student, sees the social aspect of development aid as well as future prospects for Germany and Europe with regard to climate change and possible water shortages in this concept.
Due to popular demand, the project will be offered again in the coming winter semester and is open to all students in the department. Frank Dieball, project manager at H-BRS, would also like to see students from the department's communication courses explicitly taking part in the next challenge, as they can provide particular support in preparing the results and developing the training materials.
Similar to Doctors Without Borders, Engineers Without Borders is a non-profit and independent development cooperation organization. In addition to technical solutions in areas such as water and energy supply, infrastructure and schools, the association is also involved in educational work in the areas of STEM, global learning and integration. The organization closely supports the students through regular video consultations during the project weeks, during which someone on site answers the students' questions.
The project was supervised by Frank Dieball, Professor Stefanie Meilinger and Professor Johannes Geilen from the IWK department. Further support also came from the International Centre for Sustainable Development (IZNE) at H-BRS.
Kontakt
Frank Dieball
DM Projekt AGORA II, INEBB2, KLUGER Transfer - Klima - Umwelt - Gesundheit - Transfer, PhD student
Location
Sankt Augustin
Room
B 027
Address
Grantham-Allee 20
53757 Sankt Augustin
Contact hours
Terminvereinbarungen per Mail
Telephone
02241 865305