Indian scientist develops automated technology for collection of toilet waste

An Indian scientist has developed an automated technology for the collection of toilet waste, which is easy to maintain and seven times cheaper than the bio-toilets and can be used to maintain the toilet system of the railways, the Department of Science and Technology DST said on Friday.

An Indian scientist has developed an automated technology for the collection of toilet waste, which is easy to maintain and seven times cheaper than the bio-toilets and can be used to maintain the toilet system of the railways, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) said on Friday. The existing bio-toilets use anaerobic bacteria for converting human waste to gas, but that bacteria can not decompose plastic and cloth materials dumped into toilets by passengers. Hence, the maintenance and removal of such non-decomposed materials inside the tank is difficult.

The technology developed by R V Krishnaiah from the Chebrolu Engineering College is an automated system for the collection of toilet waste from running trains and segregation of different materials and processing those into usable things.

The technology developed with support from the Advanced Manufacturing Technologies programme of the DST, which is aligned with the Make in India initiative, has been granted five national patents and is in the testing phase, the DST said.

The automated system consists of three simple steps -- the septic tank (which is placed under the rail track) top cover gets opened when a train approaches the septic tank using a radio frequency identification (RFID) sensor and reader placed at the engine and at the position of the septic tank respectively, the sewerage material in the toilet tanks is dropped into the tank when they are mutually synchronised and finally, the septic tank cover gets closed when the train departs.

The collected sewerage material from the train toilets is segregated -- human waste stored in one tank, other materials such as plastic, cloth materials etc. stored in another tank.

The human waste is further processed separately for conversion into usable material. The plastic and cloth materials are processed separately.

This technology has been developed targeting the Indian Railways specifically, with the aim of cost reduction and to obviate the necessity of the time-consuming anaerobic bacteria generation.

In contrast with the bio-toilets that cost Rs 1 lakh per unit, the new technology brings down the cost to Rs 15,000. Krishnaiah has tied up with MTE Industries for further upscale of the technology, the DST said.

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