Good news today from Washington, DC for stressed passengers.

The Washington Post reports an announcement by the capital’s Metro that there will be  restrooms for riders at every station on its new Silver Line.    The American Restroom Association has long advocated for toilet availability along the extensive light rail system. Today’s victory is thanks to a change in the Virginia building code.  As of 2006, Virgina has required public restrooms in new constructions.

While there are toilets at a number of existing Metro stations, riders  have to know about their existence, ask the station manager for a key and then find them hidden behind doors marked “Fire Equipment Cabinet” or “Authorized Personnel Only.”

Each of the eleven new stations that will open in 2013 on the line serving Dulles Airport will have four private stalls, with two for men and two for women.

PHLUSH considers unisex stalls more efficient and better for potty parity, but  applauds any increase in toilet access.   At three of the future Metro stations, restrooms will be located outside of the turnstiles, making them truly public facilities.

Meanwhile Federal Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today announced new regulations protecting the rights of passengers to use toilets in planes that are held on the tarmac after pulling away from the gate.  The new regulations stipulate that: “Carriers are required to provide adequate food and potable drinking water for passengers within two hours of the aircraft being delayed on the tarmac and to maintain operable lavatories and, if necessary, provide medical attention.”

The Feds acted only after the airlines failed to enact a passengers bill of rights, after a bill introduced by Barbara Boxer got stuck in the Senate, and after a court struck down similar legislation in New York.

While the new regulation Enhancing Airline Passenger Protection, should put an end to the horror stories,  pundits at the Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic point out that the measure offers no compensation for inconvenienced passengers.  The fine for non- compliance $27,000 per passenger, which of course goes to the government.   Passengers don’t even get a partial ticket refund!

We’re happy to see that all presentations from the World Toilet Summit on December 2-4 are now on line.  Here  they are  for Day 1,  Day 2 (includes our PHLUSH presentations), and Day 3.

Since returning from Singapore, we’ve had to tackle the backload of work here and our reporting on the Summit has slowed down.  In fact, we only got through Day 1.  Now that we have all the presentations  we’ll insert them and move forward with the report.  The discussions which followed the presentations were extremely interesting and we look forward to sharing our notes.

PHLUSH remains extremely grateful to our friends in Portland’s Old Town Chinatown community and beyond who got us to Singapore.    Thank you everyone!  You made us proud and we feel accountable to you.

According to Wikipedia, Ecosan is based on the systematic implementation of reuse and recycling of nutrients and water as a hygienically safe, closed-loop and holistic alternative to conventional sanitation solutions. Ecosan systems enable the recovery of nutrients from human faeces and urine for the benefit of agriculture, thus helping to preserve soil fertility, assure food security for future generations, minimize water pollution and recover bioenergy. They ensure that water is used economically and is recycled in a safe way to the greatest possible extent for purposes such as irrigation or groundwater recharge.^[1]

Day 1 of the World Toilet Summit ended with a special session of the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance, or SuSanA, a network of creative and knowledgeable practitioners who came together at the 2007 World Toilet Summit in Delhi.

Thinking systemically and closing loops. Arne Panesar of GTZ defined sustainable sanitation as comprising health and hygiene, environment and natural resources, technical solutions and operations, finance and the economy, and sociocultural and institutional issues.  All parts of the sanitation chain require appropriate management and financing tools.  By failing to understand ecosan systemically, we lose sight of feedback loops.  This is also a reason why infrastructure in industrialized cities is deteriorating and it documentation is not yet causing alarm.

According to Panesar, ecological sanitation…

• is not a specific technology, but a new philosophy of dealing with what is presently regarded as waste and wastewater for disposal
• considers human excreta and wastewater not as wastes but as natural resources
• applies the basic natural principal of closing the loop by using modern and safe sanitation and reuse technologies
• opens up a wider range of sanitation options than those currently considered

Peak Phosphorus! For Arne Rosemarin of the Stockholm Environmental Institute there is no such thing as human “waste.”   Rosemarin made the case for productive sanitation systems in the context of Peak Phosphorus.  Although phosphorus has remained under the radar, President Obama has an advisor on Peak Phosphorus and an announcement from the US, which is expected to deplete commercially viable phosphorus reserves in 25-30 years, is expected soon.

Phosphate experts Cordell et al. summarize the opportunities for recovering phosphorus as follows.  A key opportunity to meeting the goal of global food security lies in the often overlooked link between addressing hunger and sanitation. Phosphorus (P) is a critical nutrient input in agriculture and …also a constant nutrient stream in sewage emerging from human settlements that is often considered an environmental pollutant. Each year, we produce 3 million tonnes of P in our urine and faeces globally. If displaced nutrients (like P) are recirculated back to agriculture from where they first came, we can sustain food production into the future and decouple communities’ dependence on globalized and increasingly inaccessible P fertilizer markets.

Reconnecting sanitation and urban planning.  In the third presentation in the session on ecological sanitation, Christoph Luthi of EAWAG/SANDEC in Switzerland pointed out that starting this year more than half of the world’s people will be urban dwellers.  He’s currently finishing a new “Roadmap for Sustainable Sanitation in Cities”, which argues for reuse and for getting urban planners and sanitation experts from North and South to collaborate.

The disconnect between the two fields dates from the mid 19th century when centralized solutions took over and proved unsustainable.  The question today is which mix of centralized and decentralized technologies is inappropriate.  In other words, how far can rural sanitation penetrate the peri-urban (and suburban)?

Meeting Demand. Jon Lane of the Geneva-based Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council introduced the World Sanitation Financing Facility under the leadership of Arthur Wood.   WSFF brings together people in sanitation, social innovation, finance, commerce and the law to make sanitation an economic activity.  This represents a shift a shift from top down, supply-driven, charity-oriented, grant-based approaches and efforts to meeting the unmet demand of households in the developing world that stand ready to spend $85 billion over the next 10 years.

Lane noted that for years we’ve expected people to want build their own toilets when they just might not want to and when local entrepreneurs can do a much better job both in construction and servicing.  And now that the composting of human feces is becoming socially acceptable, there’s a need for on the ground specialists in decentralized eco-san and closed loop systems.

Mimi Jenkins and Nguyen Van Quang with Jack Sim

People use what they choose. Three speakers then defined the area of Sanitation Marketing, or San Mark.  Mini Jenkins of the University of California at Davis talked about the supply side gap, or why behavior change models that try to get people to adopt toilets just don’t work. Likewise subsidies fail; they are captured by the non-poor and often push inappropriate tech.  The health education approach is also of limited effectiveness because non-health drivers are simply more powerful.  People use what they choose.

So, says Jenkins, stimulate demand by interesting consumers in new technologies through information and education.  At the same, develop market-based supply through market research, R & D, understanding producers and their skills, building capacity, and endorsing or certifying service providers.

Sell dreams, not latrines. Next Nguyen Van Quang, Country Director for International Development Enterprises, the international NGO founded by Paul Polak,  gave a most interesting presentation on the experiences of his organization.  ”Sell dreams, not latrines,” the Willamette University MBA said.  Use emotional triggers rather than talk about function or health. Use person to person communication.  Encourage “being an explemplary person in a cultured village.”   SanMark rejects subsidies and holds that the purchasing power of the poor should be underestimated.

Scaling up demand and supply. Ari Kamasan of WSP-World Bank Indonesia then demonstrated how a marketing mix was able to scale up supply and demand for improved sanitation in East Java.  Success indicators include 49% increase in improved sanitation, 715 villages becoming ODF (Open Defecation Free), capacity built in 29 local governments, and 1,740 masons trained and set up in business.

Experts at the World Toilet Summit in Singapore this week all agreed that sanitation pays off. The World Health Organisation alone has shown time and time again that a single dollar’s investment in sanitation brings anywhere from $3 to $34 return in health.  One estimate of the cost of fixing sanitation in the developing countries is a mere 0.1% of OECD GNP. So how do you get investors, governments and the international community to invest more?  Speakers in the opening session had some ideas.

Get the media to get to the politicians. In his welcoming remarks, WTO Founder Jack Sim highlighted the fact that sanitation is preventive medicine and, in countries like Singapore, an engine of growth.   So how do you get toilets on the international agenda?  Jack says that advocates and activists need to add humor to serious fact in order to get the attention of the media .  Then politicians, who normally enjoy the limelight, get on board.

Make toilets sexy. Demand-driven, market-based models are the only way to reach the 2.5 billion without proper sanitation.  Engage the customer!  Poor people are like everyone else: their buying decisions are based on emotional needs as much as they are on rationality.  ”We need to make toilets sexy,” says Jack.

Decentralize with new technologies.   To leverage change we need to do the following:  First, de-link water and sanitation. Second, to decentralize and look beyond water borne systems and the big projects that engineers and donors have supported in the past.  Third, to push new vacuum technologies and with Teflon coated pipes that move waste horizontally without water.

Get the corporate sector creatively involved. Following Jack on the podium, Singapore Minister and long-time environmentalist Lim Swee Say called on the corporate sector to follow the lead of Caltex Singapore and make clean toilets part of their corporate mission.  He called for creativity to raise the status of cleaners while enrolling users in sharing responsibility.

Enlarge the vision. The Asian Development Bank’s Dr Arnand Chiplunkar noted that the WTO had created value for the development banks by bringing together a rich cross section of stakeholders.  Since most Asian nations are on track to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), now the objective should be to look at  the complete cycle of rivers and waterways. Combine sanitation with food waste recycling, bio-gas production, and carbon footprint reduction.

Reconnect sanitation and urbanization. Dr. Seetharam Kallidaikurichi Easwaran, Visiting Professor of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, spoke of the insanity of disconnecting sanitation from urbanization,  He demonstrated how poor sanitation correlates with Transparency International’s corruption index and noted the “insanity of passing the crisis to the next generation.”

Get the price right. Throughout the three days of the conference speakers railed against subsidies at every level.  Easwaran suggested we consider the water we use on lease. No one owns it.  It’s returned to the environment after use.  So the rental price needs to be right.  He noted sustainable pricing in Singapore, where a liter of fresh water costs the same as a liter of desalinated water.

Schools worldwide are getting kids to talk toilets.   Although the Summit didn’t focus on educating kids about sanitation and toilet use in their schools, the importance programs in schools was salient.  It seems to be something everyone is doing.  And the messages flow from the school to home and community.

Tan Puay Hoon introduced us to the school children manning the booth of the Restroom Association of Singapore at the Expo.   These kids were charged and the training was obviously producing take charge kids.  While Singapore is perhaps not the best model for global education, they do have experience in starting the conversation very early, as in  Happy Toilet School Education for Preschools.

Before launching his successful toilet cleaning business in Johanesburg, Trevor Malaudzi had a comfortable life of a high salary professional.   One day saw some kids on the street and pulled over to ask them why they weren’t in school.  They said the school toilets were filthy and they had to leave the premises to find a clean toilet.  So Trevor said show me.  He was appalled.   If filthy toilets were compromising the well-being of a generation of post-apartheid students, he needed to check it out.  Other schools were the same.

“God told me if I looked the other way now, nothing would change, ” says Trevor.   So he quit his job and launched The Clean Shop, which contracts with schools for restroom repair, maintenance and cleaning.   Many toilets require a complete redesign and rebuild.  To sustain the benefits of the work, Trevor devotes much of his time to talking to kids.    Now his former colleagues exclaim, “After meeting you, my daughter has been noticing drips on the floor in front of the toilet.  You have embarrassed us into paying attention to our behavior!”

The champion of education in the US schools is Tom Keating of Project Clean. Perhaps PHLUSH ought to try to bring him to Portland to launch a program in selected elementary schools.  The youngest kids often get it the quickest when it comes to the links between personal respect and restrooms, human dignity and adequate sanitation.

Although a small meeting of about about 500 participants, the World Toilet Summit is multi layered and brings together people fighting for safe, clean restrooms in industrialized cities as well scientists doing the serious thinking about the impending global sanitation crisis.  All are unified in the belief that “sanitation is dignity”.

On the first day of the Summit, the welcoming folks on organizing team arranged for us to have lunch with Ms. Tan Puay Hoon, the smart and stylish volunteer President of the Restroom Association of Singapore (RAS).  Turns out she’s both a Duck and a Beaver, having done her BA at the University of Oregon and then after several years in Singapore, heading back to do graduate work at Oregon State.

Tan is a real go-getter, taking over the organization from the unstoppable Jack Sim after he went on to found the (other) WTO.   Hers is a volunteer position, but RAS is well structured with a working board and a team of other volunteers.

RAS partnered in the Summit and used the occasion to present their LOO Campaign Awards.  LOO stands for Let’s Observe Ourselves and calls for a kind of civic introspection.  There were awards for everything from best restroom and cleaning company to volunteer of the year and outstanding toilet education programs in schools.    The go-getting Tan has also been honored in the WTO Hall of Fame.

Thanks to RAS, Singaporeans are okay with talking toilets and that makes all the difference. Sure, some people on the street are still slightly amused when we say we’re here for the World Toilet Summit – but it’s clear they get it.  Public restrooms are a part of urban livability. And on this tiny  island whose kids were dying from diarrhea as late as the 1950s, sanitation is a driver of national wealth and well-being.

PHLUSH has been invited by the World Toilet Organization to serve on a technical advisory committee drafting the Global Guideline for toilet design.

The committee chaired by building code officials from South Africa and Australia and coordinated by Jay Peters of the International Code Council is made of of restroom design specialists from 12 nations.

PHLUSH contributions to the committee will be in the areas of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) and “potty parity”, that is, design criteria for gender equity in toilet access.

While there was little coverage of the role of public restrooms in urban design at the Summit, the final session honored Clara Greed.  Greed, who was not present due to a family illness, received a WTO Hall of Fame Award.

Professor of Inclusive Urban Planning at the University of the West of England Bristol, Greed is author of Inclusive Urban Design: Public Toilets.

Greed recently become a Member of the British Empire so Summit delegates were treated to a great video showing her, hatted and curtseying, while talking toilets to Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace!

Over the coming year PHLUSH will have the opportunity to work with Dr. Greed on proposing international guidelines on restroom design, an effort led by the International Council.

Here in one of the cleanest cities of the world, PHLUSH Co-Founder Barbara Lescher presented Public Restroom Design for 21st Century US Cities: The PHLUSH Principles.   These design principles were passed by the Old Town Chinatown Neighborhood Association in June 2008 after extensive discussion in the community and by the neighborhood’s the Visions Committee.

The working goal of the PHLUSH Public Restroom Design Principles is the following: Cost effective public restrooms that provide maximum function in minimum space and are safe, accessible, available, attractive and easy to maintain.   Following an introduction, Barb presented each of seven principles and illustrated with best practices in restroom design form various parts of the United States.

The presentation was part of a session entitled “Design and Technology for the Built Environment:  Designs for Social Impact.”  Following her presentation, Barb responded to questions as part of a panel moderated by Christoph Luthi of EAWAG.  Other panelists included Dr. Asiah Abdul Rahim of the International Islamic University of Malaysia and Architect Frank Wu, who serves as Chair of the Taipei Toilet Association.

As cities in the United States strive to enhance livability, create vibrant business districts, promote public transportation, persuade commuters to walk or bicycle, support healthy living and active aging, they need public toilets. The PHLUSH Principles reply to a crisis in toilet availability. Many facilities in parks and public spaces in US cities have been closed permanently or function only limited hours. As costs of managing and maintaining poorly designed restrooms have escalated, they have been stricken from local government budgets. At the same time, urban planners, architects, and designers have paid inadequate attention to public toilets and to changing societal needs.