Ghana is a country located along the Gulf of Guinea and Atlantic Ocean, in the sub region of West Africa. It has a diverse and rich resource base that also includes engineering and exportation of digital technology.

For millions of locals in Ghana lack of in-home toilets, is a reason for worry. Thus causing not much of options to fulfill the basic needs of human body. Thus, in collaboration per Unilever, IDEO.org and Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP), a Clean Team was developed. Complete hygiene system that successfully maintains and delivers toilets doe those wish to subscribe. At present, the Clean Team is serving almost 5,000 individuals in the region of Kumasi, an

Ghana is a country located along the Gulf of Guinea and Atlantic Ocean, in the sub region of West Africa. It has a diverse and rich resource base that also includes engineering and exportation of digital technology.

For millions of locals in Ghana lack of in-home toilets, is a reason for worry. Thus causing not much of options to fulfill the basic needs of human body. Thus, in collaboration per Unilever, IDEO.org and Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP), a Clean Team was developed. Complete hygiene system that successfully maintains and delivers toilets doe those wish to subscribe. At present, the Clean Team is serving almost 5,000 individuals in the region of Kumasi, and Ghana. The team is making it possible for people to have a cleaner, healthier, better and more gracious lifestyle.

THE OUTCOME

The IDEO.org team created a complete hygiene system that meets the demand of low-income residents of Ghana. The Clean Team service is a tailor made stand-alone rental toilet along with a waste-removal system. The design work is extending over the overall ecosystem that includes brands, uniforms, business plan, and payment model. At the onset, the project was piloted foe 100 families in the city of Ghana and Kumasi.

THE PROCESS

This document studies the various challenges faced by the team. It also explains how the team overcame these challenges and achieved success. The team was finally able to successfully implement and influencing locals to use portable toilets.

INSPIRATION

The phase of Inspiration was intense, as there was need of lot to understand. Numerous interviews were conducted to understand the various challenges associated with it. Various tasks like talking for almost 6 weeks with various experts, and shadowing a toilet operator, studying the history of sanitation, and understanding the key requirements of how toilet should resemble and how the waste collection should be processed were undertaken.

A historic observation was done, i.e. for years night soil collection was happening. There were people who scrubbed out buckets of toilets every night. However, since the dumping was done on streets the same was banned in the year of 1990s owing to the threat it possessed to public health. Thus causing the company to ensure there is no association with illegal dumping.

IDEA

This was the fastest phase of the overall project, as it jumped from learning to prototyping in almost 7 weeks. After lots of brainstorming that included locals and experts, the team came to a direction to begin with.

Numerous questions and discussion on aesthetics and type of toilet were done. The question of comfort for citizens with respect to servicemen coming to their homes was also raised. The position of the toilet in home. Will it be feasible to design a toilet that can be emptied only by a waste management facility?

With the help of some prototypes and modifying the current portable toilets, the team was able to get tangible elements of the service into the hands of Ghanaians. Knowledge of service positioning, raw and fresh ideas for purpose of marketing and promotion, along with technical limitations, were discussed. The technical limitations included flush functions that were known in the early days of the going. Here the water scarcity was a major factor to work around with.

IMPLEMENTATION

Once the service and aesthetics were finalized, WSUP gave an actual prototype of the Clean Team Service.

The team WSUP worked on a live prototype for the clean service team. As the tools were expensive the team used off-the-shelf cabin toilets. The results were great and hence manufacturing started in the year of 2012. The toilets are in production and sport IDEO.org branding. Presently it is being used by more than 5000 people.

The biggest advantage of prototyping was that it gives a real-life like experience of your ideas. Those belonging to the design team had assumed that the idea of collection of waste would be beneficial for all. The illegal dumping made it important to make a system that is accepted by all.

Post discussing the same with people, the feedback was that users will be happy to dispose their own waste to save money and waste. Also, the overall feedback was reluctance towards people coming to their homes.

The team had some notion about working of the team and the way service would operate. The design prototyping of toilets in homes of potential subscribers. After sometime they came to understand the reactions of the people.

The toilets became popular instinctively, people became aware of the benefits of delegating the task of waste disposal. Once the idea of full toilet was home, then the disposal methodology changed. The team was overall happy to have their predication correct. At the same time, the larger win was understanding that various potential customers prefer a sanitary route. This further helped them in designing and giving the best waste disposal and service people a clean team system.

Conclusion

Ghana is just one of the regions, where portable toilets have helped in changing the lifestyle of people. In developing Asian countries like India, the portable toilets are slowly capturing attention. These are extremely efficient and can be placed anywhere. Furthermore, use of portable toilets helps in avoiding any illness that might be caused due open toilets.

At present there is a high demand for portable toilets and the market for same is valued at a high estimate of USD 9000 million by the year of 2025. There is a growing demand across various construction sites and public places and factories. Among all these segments, portable toilets are widely used in the construction sites due to its ease of convenience.