Design and Construction of A Low Cost Pit Latrine Emptier

Abstract

Globally, an estimated 1.77 billion people have access to pit latrines as of 2013. About 90% of the households in Uganda use a pit latrine while 4% only use the ventilated improved pit latrine. In all regions of Uganda, there is lack of a low cost solution for emptying the pit latrines yet it can be designed and developed to help low income earners and communities like schools, hospitals to continuously use their pit latrines through draining them once they are full.A low cost pit latrine emptier (PLE) that is human powered using a hand pump to drain the feacal sludge from the pit latrine was designed and tested. Mainly waste water form soak pits, septage and water mixed with mud were used while testing the prototype of the PLE. This was carried out in the neighboring three homes and the flow rate was almost constant.Six tests were carried out using different kinds of waste water including muddy water (Makerere 1, mukwenda zone - Kampala) from 18^th to 26^th of May 2016. The average flow rate of the feacal sludge into the PLE was 4.29 liters per minute and this gave an efficiency of 53.5%The PLE indicted less resistance while pulling it to the disposal point where 8 minutes were taken to pull the PLE from the draining pit a disposal point which was at a distance of 100m. Discharging the waste water took 2 minutes after opening the globe valve and the PLE was pushed back to the draining site to drain more waste water.