Photo credit: Sanergy
Sanergy makes hygienic sanitation affordable and accessible in urban slums throughout Africa’s informal settlements. Starting with Nairobi, Kenya, Sanergy builds healthy prosperous communities by addressing the sanitation crisis. 2.5 billion people lack access to hygienic sanitation, which is the second largest cause of disease in the world. Unhygienic sanitation also leads to contaminated waterways and food supply, as well as diseases like diarrhea, causing nearly 2 million deaths each year. The problem is particularly acute in urban slums where high population density is combined with lack of infrastructure and resources. Slum populations are expected to double to 2 billion by 2030 and Kenya is at the epicenter of this crisis, where 80% of the 10 million people living in slums lack access to basic sanitation.
The Sanergy Model takes a systems-based approach to solve this sanitation crisis sustainably through five steps:
- Build low-cost, high-quality sanitation facilities close to homes.
- Franchise by building a network of Fresh Life Operators- local residents who purchase and operate the hygienic sanitation facilities become franchise partners.
- Collect and remove the waste on a daily basis from informal settlements.
- Convert the waste at a centralized facility into useful by-products such as insect-based animal feed and renewable energy.
- Sell end-products to farmers and feed millers to meet currently unmet demand.
Since the launching of their first toilet in November 2011, Sanergy now has a network of 619 Fresh Life Toilets in nine informal settlements where there are 31,700 daily uses from community members that now have access to affordable hygienic sanitation. Sanergy has safely and professionally removed 7,878 metric tons of waste from the communities they served, after which it is safely treated and converted to valuable end-products. In addition, Sanergy has created 787 jobs, including the Sanergy team, the Fresh Life Operators, and the attendants that they hire as they expand. Currently, 90% of Sanergy’s team members are Kenyan and 60% reside in the communities they serve. Sanergy was cofounded by David Auerbach, Nathan Cooke, Lindsay Stradley and Ani Vallabhaneni.
In a recent interview with Sanergy, the team provided us with some detailed information regarding the company’s background and current work. Sanergy was cofounded by David Auerbach, Lindsay Stradley, and Ani Vallabhaneni in 2009 at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. The idea emerged as a business solution to address a poverty challenge afflicting more than 1 billion people around the world. For their idea, the founding team won MIT’s $100K Entrepreneurship Competition, which awards funding for start-up companies.
Based on feedback from community members, including wants and needs, the toilets were designed by Nathan Cook and Mike Haan. Currently on version three, these toilets include a full tile floor which is easy to clean, a specially-designed squat plate, a mirror and a coat hook. The toilets are distributed through three channels: as commercial public, pay-per-use toilets, as residential toilets for tenants to access within their compounds, and as school toilets for students to access on school grounds.
Aside from providing hygiene teacher training programs, Sanergy also hosts community “edutainment” events on topics like handwashing and menstrual hygiene management. Overall, Sanergy’s vision is to make hygienic sanitation accessible and affordable forever, and to promote the sustainable development of agricultural inputs to facilitate sustainable and domestically supplied agriculture.
For more information visit Sanergy’s website at http://saner.gy/
Written by Kathleen Emerson (1/26/2016). Updated (3/2/2016).