Users and schematics for the award-winning IDE Easy Latrine. Photos courtesy Jeff Chapin and IDE Cambodia.
What do a consumer technology product, an ecologically responsible laundry detergent, and a simple design innovation for an age old product have in common? They were all selected as winners of the prestigious Best in Show Award at the 2010 IDEA Awards for international design excellence.
Latrines are a decidedly unsexy topic, more likely to induce uncomfortable giggles than provoke innovative thinking. People in the developed world take access to sanitation for granted. Yet in most of rural Cambodia, lack of adequate sanitation causes more deaths than HIV, malaria and tuberculosis combined. Despite this fact, many villagers view purchasing sanitation equipment as an unnecessary luxury, partly because of the expense and difficulty of installing traditional latrines.
Jeff Chapin, a designer on sabbatical from IDEO worked with our IDE Cambodia team to tackle the problem. The solution? A low-cost sanitation system that villagers could build themselves using cheap, locally available materials. Each latrine costs about $25, and more than 2,500 have already been purchased and installed by villagers.
We couldn’t agree more. Congratulations to Jeff Chapin and the entire IDE Cambodia team on this well-deserved recognition.
[...] Fast Company, 1 Jul 2010 ; Aaron Langton, IDE Blog, 24 Jun 2010 ; WSP, Sanitation Marketing Takes Off in Cambodia, WSP, [...]
I have just read an article in the local paper about your Easy Latrine and would be interested in looking at this design for our new campground . Could you please send me a manual for its instalation.
Thank you
George Beaudry
[...] (Users and schematics for the award-winning IDE Easy Latrine. Photos courtesy Jeff Chapin and IDE Cambodia; via IDE’s Blog) [...]
I request to be safe chemicals for human waste breakdown and precipitation in pit latrines. I love assisting communities. The land acrage in kenya is very small and therefore difficult to sink pit latrines many times.
Thanking you in advance
Ruth morara
Technical Sales & marketing manager
A soft copy of the said mainual may be published on the web so that any body can understand the system.
Thanks/Regards,
Rajib Kumar Sharma
This is a wonderful idea! Where can I purchase or download an instruction manual to build these composting latrines? We need them around Lake Atitlan, Guatemala after Hurricane Agatha this past June. Many houses fell into the river and the lake and there are homeless people everywhere. We’re looking at building houses with plastic bottles stuffed with mud or sand, and the latrine in the next most important thing. CatherineTodd2 at gmail dot com.