Update January 2023

Toilets for Ghana, Toilets for Busua

Our goal is to improve the sanitary situation in Africa.

• Life expectancy, health, and therefore higher productivity and well-being in Europe and other developed countries has increased since W W II.

The main reason for this increase is improved sanitation.

Currently in Africa the vast majority of people have a communal toilet or no toilet.

Our goal is a private toilet for each family. Toilets dramatically decrease early childhood death and improves the health of all people.

With our little resources as a small private initiative we are concentrating on converting one village - Busua in Ghana - to set an example. We are working together with the assemblyman (Mayor of Busua Joseph Dadson) despite other initiatives, mainly in Nima, an old quarter in the capital Accra.

We finished the first toilet in Busua this year 2021 in March.

Double chamber urine separating squatting toilets.

The benefits: -low cost, low maintenance =-long composting time one chamber last for 6 - 18 month) urine separation to collection for use as garden fertilizer

The chambers are fly tied sealed. The faeces are covered with 50/50 mix of sawdust and topsoil for hot composting.

Urine separating composting toilet double chamber squatting toilet in progress

Contact: Christian Simon loopitpeehappy@gmail.com 0064 28 41 50 895 regular updates on www.pee-happy.com Phone / WhatsApp / Signal

After building several stand alone toilets the people recognized that there was no smell. Therefore we can now start to build the toilets directly attached to the house.

Technical support

Our friend Joseph Arthur is in charge of advising and helping the people in Busua to build their own toilet. ( 2023 January )

He prebuilds the concrete platforms and hold them and the plumbing materials for the urine separation in stock.

Costs

The costs to build one double chamber urine separating toilet are 1,000 Ghana Cedis about NZ$ 250 including the concrete platforms, plumbing material and roof sheet of 375 Ghana Cedis about NZ$ 86.

Financial credit support With your donations, we offer a credit for the concrete platforms, the plumbing materials and the roof sheet. This credit can be paid back by communal work. The toilet building by themselves (base, walls) has to be done by the family themselves.

Communal work benefits the whole village. The creditor can pay back the credit for their toilet by working for the community.

This can include cleaning the gutters, building greywater treatments, cleaning the beach from plastic, collecting seaweed, germinating Artemisia shrub (grown to prepare tea for malaria treatment), growing and planting trees, growing, harvesting bamboo for further building projects, and much more.

Through the communal work repayment, your money has a double and tripling effect.

Newsletter

We initiated a monthly village Newsletter “Busua on the move”. With this newsletter, we want to address our village problems, inform about different concrete platforms plastic collection at the beach

Contact: Christian Simon loopitpeehappy@gmail.com 0064 28 41 50 895

regular updates on www.pee-happy.com Phone / WhatsApp / Signal

private initiatives and creating a discussion platform.

The first edition will be published before Christmas. Look it up here: www.busuaonthemove.com

Flushing toilets are four times more expensive than our compost toilets. Flushing toilets contaminate the water body under settlements all over the world.

Regardless this is healthier than pooing everywhere where the flies can sit on excrement and later on our food. We advise and have supported building one flushing toilets, but up out of the ground. In this way we pre

filter the effluent with charcoal and sand/gravel filter similar to the greywater filter shown below.

Squatting or Sitting Mainly the elderly demanded a sitting toilet.

Therefore we build a “Top Up Seat”.

Grey-water filter

In Nima an old quarter in Accra we want to improve the gutter.

This will take some effort to take the whole neighbourhood on board.

But we are on way. Christian Simon development engineer

Coopers Beach Northland 10/10/2021

How you can help: Donate. Every dollar builds toilets and helps

Give a little: https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/save-childrens-lives-in-ghana-with-toilets

Paypal loopitpeehappy@gmail.com

Christian Simon:

WISE Bank New Zealand: account 02-1290-0757531-00

Euro: BIC: TRWIBEB1XXX IBAN: BE52 9671 7087 9509

US: Routing number 084009519 Account number 9600000000625152

UK: Sort Code 23-14-70 Account No. 51985026

IBAN GB 16TRWI 2314 7051 9850 26

sit down grey-water cleaning

Contact: Christian Simon loopitpeehappy@gmail.com 0064 28 41 50 895

regular updates on www.pee-happy.com Phone / WhatsApp / Signal

Greetings from Busua Beach Ghana. August, 2021.

I am the second time in this year - now already 5 weeks - in Ghana coming to improve the sanitary situation.

In Ghana general and also in Busua only 15 from hundert families have a kind of private toilet.

Till today we build 4 urine separating composting toilets in Busua for squatting. All toilets are well build to cope with the flooding in the rain saison.

Mainly the older one prefare sitting. Therefor we top up one toilet to a sitting toilet.

For further toilets we prebuild concrete platforms with cut outs for urine and feces.

Composting versus Flushing

Many people are asking for a flushing toilet. A local plumber offers a so called biogas toilet. A great name but in reality it is flushing into a covered and ventilated longdrop. Finally I desided to support an upgraded flushing toilet. Instead of flushing in a long drop the toilet is build 3 feets off the ground and use the hight difference for a graval / sand filter.

Our target are household toilets - one for each family. Only this gives the opportunity for a healthy clean toilet facility.

Even when I am strongly convinced that the composting toilet is the way to save the waterbody flushing can be treated to clean the deposel. For example the worm digester is an opportunity I tested successfully in New Zealand.

Instead of endless discussion the competition between composting and flushing has the advantage to compare regarding price, maintenance and compfort. Working together gives us the opprtunity to influence upgrading the flushing disposel.

Coming to Ghana with the strong goal implementing urine separation composting toilets I needed to recognise the more complexe problems of daily life.

Malaria effects the life deeply. Everyone living in Busua – really everyone – has Malaria. Some have every 2 month a Malaria attack, others twice a year. Treated with strong medication it keeps everyone down for nearly one week, one day so intense that many scream to die.

We like to research the life circle of the malaria transmitting mosquitos. Where is their breeding ground? Travelling West Africa I saved myself always successfully with a homoeopthic prevention. We now try an upgraded version as malaria treatment. The first results are hopeful.

Greywater treatment (mosquito breeding ground) need a change. We are trying sandfilter / graval / charcoal treatment , avoiding open dirty water surfaces.

Onother breeding ground are the lot of plastic bags. Separating plastic bags and bottels from organic material have just started. Till today compost is not known.

Busuo on the move

Together with the mayor of Busua we will produce a fortnightly NEWSLETTER “Busuo on the move” to inform and discuss what can be done. Beside more toilet building, plastic recycling, greywater-tretment those informations and discussions are needed if we do not want to stuck in single projects. The start is done, exampleas setted up. Now we need to motivate to get in action.

Busua a tropical paradise.

Dispite the sanitary situation and Malaria Busua is a tropical paradise. We are looking for experts that like to combine their surf holidays to support us with their knowledge.

Christian Busua 13/08/2021 Loopitpeehappy@gmail.com

How you can help: Donate. Every dollar builds toilets and helps.

New Zealand: WISE Bank account 02-1290-0757531-00

Account holder Christian Simon

Or

https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/save-childrens-lives-in-ghana-with-toilets

or

PayPal: Loopitpeehappy@gmail.com

Toilets for Ghana Project update 14/04/21

In Ghana, less than 20% of the population have a private toilet. The available public toilets are primarily unmaintained. An estimated 60,000 children under 5 years old die in Ghana each year due to faecal contaminated water. Contaminated water is estimated to account for 100 times more deaths of children under 5 years annually than the total casualties from Covid in Ghana to date.

Otherwise, Ghana’s economic, political, and social development is outstanding compared to all other African countries.

We design and build toilets that separate the urine and dry compost faeces. We promote covering faeces with 50 % organic material (sawdust) and 50 % humus (topsoil). The bacteria from the topsoil then effectively start the composting process (hot composting).

We are experimenting with different systems and building materials (preferring local materials) while utilizing local handcraft/knowledge. We build sitting and squatting toilets, according to local preference.

Our main intention is to prevent water contamination from human faeces.

What have we done to date?

- Mankwatze a village near Winneba

The first public toilet, built 20 years ago by Christian, still in use. Photo 1

Six months ago, Raewyn from Taipa initiated the building of more toilets at several places in Ghana. When Raewyn returned to NZ, Christian travelled there to continue the project. Photos 1,2,3

- Macedonia (a suburb 20 km north of the growing megacity of Accra):

With personal funding and assistance from the landlord, we built a double chamber (each being 0.8m3) squatting toilet using concrete blocks. The landlord and three tenants use the toilet. One chamber is large enough to last for more than one year. Photos 4 and 5

Neighbors are now interested in building toilets in the same design.

- village near Acosombo (near the Great Lake):

We built a double sitting toilet out of timber and plywood. The faeces are collected in a 100 litre container, swapped over when the container is full. This project was financed and built by us and the “African Dance Assemble” and their “Village of Peace.” One toilet is used by a family of ten. A container is filled up in about 4 weeks and then exchanged with a new one allowing the first one to process untouched. Even using a hot compost process, 4 weeks is not sufficient. We need funds for additional containers, another toilet for 5 people, and a space for the final compost processing, Photo 6, 7

- Wli Volta region:

In this remote village, the pit latrine and bore are dangerously close together. Toilets are urgently needed to remedy the situation. We are rallying local support to build a toilet out of mud bricks, using concrete blocks only in the first layer for “dry feet.”

- Nima (a densely populated old quarter in central Accra):

We propose a 20-liter bucket system, emptied in 240-liter wheelie bins and regularly collected for final processing at a designated compost place with separate urine collection. For the 20-liter bucket system, we prepared metal urine separation units. Photo 9, 10

- Busua (fishing, farming, tourism-based village of 5,000 inhabitants by the Atlantic):

We built the first double chamber squatting toilet for a family of 4. Though our intention was a sitting toilet, the family preferred a squatting one (which can later upgrade to a sitting toilet if desired). The toilet was financed and built by us, our Ghanaian partner Feisel, and the Assemblyman (Mayor of Busua). The toilet has a double chamber (each measuring about 0.4 m3.) and should last 6 months before needing to swap to the other chamber. The chambers are house-quality concrete blocks. The top walls and roof are bamboo. Photo 11 video 12

We also prebuilt platforms with cutouts for faeces and the urine funnel. This method enabled us to prepare the toilets in advance and to produce more toilets in a shorter time frame. Photo 3

A second toilet designed in the same style is nearly ready. Photo 14

- For a bar at the beach, we installed a urinal collecting the urine in containers. Local farmers will be testing the effect of the urine as a nitrogen and phosphorus-rich fertilizer for crops. Photo 15

-The Assemblyman (Mayor of Busua) and committee are committed to building 1,000 toilets with us in the next year. The village has offered its community hall as a location to produce toilet platforms. Having one toilet for each household would be a landmark for Ghana. The obstacle is funding. For materials alone, $NZ 250,000 is needed.

Conclusion and next steps

Building “household” toilets will dramatically improve Ghana’s sanitary crisis. Busua is an ideal place to create a model for all of Ghana, demonstrating the complete conversion of a whole village towards private, sustainable, family toilets.

Until now, all expenses have been paid out of our pocket. Volunteers do the work. We need your help to purchase materials.

How you can help:

Donate. Every dollar builds toilets and helps save lives,

Christian Simon New Zealand WISE Bank account 02-129007531-00

Or “Give a little:

https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/save-childrens-lives-in-ghana-with-toilets

Any ideas or contacts to integrate the Toilets for Africa project in an established voluntary New Zealand organization would be a great help to make this happen.

Contact me: Christian Simon at loopitpeehappy@gmail.com