Venture off the beaten track in Australia and you never know what you’ll find in the way of ‘amenities’, but a new toilet trial in remote Western Australia could help improve the safety and hygiene of desert cesspools.
Key Points:
- Disposing of waste in remote toilets is a challenge for a dedicated group of volunteers
- Track Care WA hopes a new dry toilet trial will offer a more hygienic solution
- A team traveled to the famous Canning Stock Road to install the new toilet
For more than 25 years, Track Care WA volunteers have put countless hours into making and installing toilets along the Canning Stock Route — an 1,800km stretch from Halls Creek to Wiluna.
What to do with the waste
While flushing a Royal Dalton in a city will lead the waste to a well-constructed sewage system, the same luxury is not available for remote toilets.
Figuring out what to do with waste can be a challenge for those who manage it.
Track Care WA’s Rod Durston said the first option was to burn the waste once it had dried.
“But if you’re in a relatively fire-prone area or the wind is high … it’s just too dangerous,” he said.
Mr Durston said the waste “doesn’t actually compost very well” and created health problems when it could not be incinerated, particularly during the tourist season in the cooler months.
“Sometimes [the toilet] was used that very day and you go to empty it and of course all the waste is quite wet,” he said.
“There’s nothing you can do about burning it apart from throwing it in the bush, so all of that can lead to some health hazards.”
“There have been some issues in the past with people getting some nasty wounds and so on from the waste.”
A whole new system
Looking for a solution, the Track Care team came across The Sago Network, a community development organization that was facing similar challenges in Papua New Guinea.
Sago’s response was to develop the Sago Dry Toilet, a permanent and waterless overhead toilet designed to last at least 15 years.
The toilet uses a two-chamber system with two bins.
Waste is collected in one container and broken down into safe material, with the dual system providing time for safe removal and replacement of containers every six months.
The ventilation system also reduces odor and keeps flies away.
Track Care brought the Sago dry toilet system to Australia and worked with Masters students at the University of Notre Dame in Fremantle to design the toilet for the Canning Stock Route.
Volunteers traveled from Perth to the Washington desert in October and braved temperatures of 40 degrees to install the first prototypes.
Troppo Architects is leading the project, and founding partner Adrian Welke said if the toilets work well on the Canning Stock route, they could be used elsewhere in the country where water is scarce.
“Huge opportunities”
“We shouldn’t be pumping water, we shouldn’t be storing water, we shouldn’t be flushing it and then … treating the waste in a septic tank,” he said.
“It simplifies everything down to the container, where water is not an essential part of the process.
“This has huge opportunities for a huge number of places in the country, especially in remote areas.”
Track Care’s Rod Durston said the extra creature comforts of the outback would be a boon to anyone traveling the Canning Stock route.
“The health implications for all people, those who maintain the toilet systems and those who use them, should be a better experience,” he said.
