Aerosan

Area of Focus:

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene

Geography:

Nepal

A single public toilet in Kathmandu often services 180,000 people a year. These toilets are left unhygienic, unmaintained and unsafe, with waste often draining directly into local rivers. Water scarcity across the region is also a key barrier for low-income households to access regular handwashing facilities. 

Aerosan supplies public toilets and handwashing facilities to urban, overcrowded, low-income communities through an innovative HUB model which provides sanitary and menstrual health management facilities for women; harvests rainwater and recycles greywater to flush toilets; and turns waste into biogas fuel and fertiliser, all operated by women from marginalised communities.  

The HUBs address various social and environmental issues by providing clean, hygienic toilet and handwashing facilities, accessible to people with disabilities; conserving and harvesting rainwater and recycled greywater to flush the toilets; preventing waste from entering nearby waterways through on-site waste treatment processed into renewable energy (biogas) and fertiliser; and providing a safe space for women, employing female operators from marginalised communities. 

TRANSFORM is funding the project and helping explore additional revenue streams, to complement pay-per-user fees from customers using the HUB facilities.