Durban will pay for the urine to conserve water
DURBAN, South Africa—Get paid to pee. That's the deal
on offer in the South African city of Durban, where the city
is looking to buy liquid waste to encourage residents to use
dry toilets.
Aiming to improve hygiene and save money, the portcity has
installed in home gardens about 90,000 toilets that don't use
a single drop of water.
Now Durban wants to install 20-liter (quart) containers on 500
of the toilets to capture urine-rich in nitrates, phosphorus, and potassium, which can be turned into fertilizer.
A municipal worker would collect the jerry cans once a week
and could pay around 30 rands (four dollars, three euros) to the family—not a small sum in a country
where 43 percent of the population lives on less than two dollars a day.
Currently the tanks are emptied by each household, and the waste often ends up getting dumped
into the environment.
Swiss lab Eawag and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are backing a study to draw up the
modalities for the scheme, which is already winning fans.
"If we can turn the toilets into a source of revenues, then they will want to use the toilets," said Neil
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