SUSTAINABLE ORGANIC INTEGRATED LIVELIHOODS

With the number of people living in urban areas expected to double by 2050, it is critical to identify innovative technologies and services to meet the basic needs of those in informal urban settlements around the world. Sanitation is one of the most pressing challenges faced by rapidly expanding cities; consequently, SOIL is developing a transformative model for how safe, dignified household toilets can be affordably and sustainably provided to people living in the most impoverished and water scarce urban communities in the world.

SOIL's work is globally relevant in that governments, organizations and international financing institutions are actively seeking technological alternatives to existing technologies. Traditional urban sanitation technologies include sewer systems and onsite solutions such as pit latrines and septic tanks. Unfortunately these traditional sanitation interventions are either impossible to implement or unsafe in rapidly expanding informal settlements and therefore innovative, low-cost solutions like this one are critical for preventing public health crises. To this end SOIL is collaborating on a global scale with partner organizations, international institutions, and a variety of research partners to rigorously evaluate the impact and potential of Container Based Sanitation (CBS) solutions as a viable alternative for traditional sewerage at the government and municipal level.

SOIL's flagship program, EkoLakay, provides household-level ecological sanitation to over 1,000 families in some of Haiti's most vulnerable communities. EkoLakay is a monthly toilet rental service – clients pay a small monthly fee and receive an EkoLakay toilet and weekly waste collection services. All waste is safely treated and transformed into rich compost in a treatment process that respects World Health Organization standards. Revenue from toilet user fees and compost sales supports ongoing project costs and showcases the potential to affordably provide household sanitation in dense, urban communities. SOIL is currently producing over 100 metric tons of compost annually, with production increasing as the EkoLakay toilet business grows. The compost is used to support agriculture and reforestation efforts in Haiti. SOIL is also conducting comparative research with partner institutions to evaluate the climate impact of composting waste treatment versus traditional waste treatment methods.

SOIL is currently providing services in Haiti's two largest cities, Cap-Haitien and Port-au-Prince. It is estimated that only 34% of urban Haitians have access to improved sanitation facilities and less than 1% of human waste is safely treated. This sanitation crisis is mirrored on a global scale with 2.4 billion people (33% of the world's population) still lacking access to a toilet. Many attempts to create or repair sanitation systems are themselves ineffective, focusing only on the provision of toilets and neglecting waste treatment. But a toilet without a waste treatment system is just a means for displacing a problem, cleaning up one local environment while polluting another. Where waste treatment systems do exist, the processes for disposing of wastes also disposes of valuable nutrients, instead of harvesting them for reuse. Despite billions of dollars spent on sanitation interventions, the global population continues to suffer from the lack of access to safe sanitation and the environment continues to suffer from pollution and declining soil fertility.

SOIL has been working in some of the poorest areas in Haiti since 2006 to facilitate the community-identified priority of ecological sanitation (EcoSan), where human wastes are converted into valuable compost. Since building Haiti's first EcoSan toilet in 2006 and Haiti's first waste treatment facility in 2009, SOIL has gone on to become one of the most well-respected sanitation providers in Haiti with clean, popularly-received and effective toilets and waste treatment facilities around the country. SOIL also boasts strong partnerships with the non-profit, business, and government sectors, and a robust information-sharing and educational program that has helped increase the use of EcoSan by organizations, businesses, and institutions around Haiti and by international NGOs globally.

Notable strengths include:
-A holistic sanitation delivery system (toilets, waste collection, waste treatment, and nutrient reuse) with multiple sources of revenue and very low barriers to entry.
-An emphasis on using low-cost and locally-available materials for easy replication across the country.
-A unique combination of compassion, local knowledge, scientific experience, and entrepreneurial thinking that provides communities with culturally-accepted sustainable options for sanitation and livelihood generation.
-A staff that is over 90% Haitian, providing cultural and lingual fluency and a strong understanding of the target market.

To date SOIL's achievements include:

• Over 2,200 household clients in the EkoLakay program.
• More than 13,000 individuals benefiting from household sanitation
services.
• Average monthly payment rates of 85% and an attrition rate that is
lower than 4% each month
• More than 500 metric tons of waste treated annually resulting in
approximately 150 metric tons of compost produced each year.
• Over 250 discrete customers have purchased SOIL compost and
customer profiles range from individual backyard gardeners, to
large agricultural companies, to government bodies and non-profit
organizations involved in the agricultural sector. Additionally, we
are regularly sold out of compost and have a waiting list for
compost purchases.
• Customer satisfaction surveys indicate over 90% of customers are
satisfied or very satisfied with the EkoLakay service and more than
97% of compost customers report satisfactory results.
• More than 6,000 people attended SOIL's educational events in Haiti
in the past fiscal year and SOIL's online “SOIL Guide to EcoSan" has
been downloaded by more than 1,000 people from over 90
countries.
• In the past fiscal year, SOIL generated over $25,000 in toilet user
fees and $21,000 in compost sales

As a non-profit organization with a mission to promote dignity, health and sustainable livelihoods, SOIL is committed to transparency and open source solutions. We believe strongly in the value of research driven implementation and are passionate about monitoring and evaluation because of our fundamental philosophical conviction that development work should adhere to the same standards of quality and evidence-based action upheld by academic institutions. To ensure that the communities in which we work receive the highest quality service with the greatest chance of financial and environmental sustainability, SOIL works towards a simultaneous commitment to community engagement and rigorous scientific enquiry.