Fresh wind sweeps Kibera as Peepoo loos take over

By Lillian Aluanga-Delvaux

A fresh wind is blowing over sections of the vast Kibera slum in Nairobi, literally.

That wind is not only turning the economic tide in dozens of households in the area, but is slowly beginning to rid the slum of an eyesore that has for years posed environmental and health challenges.

At the Global One Kibera School in Gatwikira, one of several villages within the slum, Charles Olwaro animatedly talks of an initiative that has seen diarrhoeal diseases among the school’s 240 pupils drop significantly in recent months.

“Before we began using Peepoo we had about 10 children missing school each week because of diarrhoea. Now we hardly have any absenteeism and if pupils miss classes it’s because of other ailments like the common cold or coughs, ” he says.

Olwaro attributes the drop to the use of a portable toilet that is changing lives of nearly 4,500 residents of Kibera-Silanga where it was first tested three years ago.

Simply referred to as ‘Peepoo’, the portable toilet is a simple, easy–to-use biodegradable, self-sanitising bag, usually used with a small bucket while the user is sitting, squatting or standing.

The slim elongated bag is designed for single use and has a thin layer of green gauze inside that prevents contact with a user’s excrement. The gauze usually unfolds to form a wide funnel when the bag is opened. Once the biodegradable bag is used and securely closed it remains odour-free for between 12-24 hours and self-sanitises human excreta after defecation.

This prevents feaces from contaminating the immediate area and its surrounding. Given that Peepoos are designed in a way that transforms human waste into pathogen-free fertiliser, use of the bags has enabled collection and disposal systems to arise within the slum thus providing a source of income for many.

At the Global One School, four cubicles stand at the back of the large iron sheet structure. Outside the cubicles stand at least 20 small green potties lined with Peepoo bags and tissue paper ready for use by pupils. A water tank and soap also stand where pupils wash their hands after using the toilets.

“The children have been trained on how to use the bags. This is done often thus giving new students and teachers an opportunity to learn how to use them,” says Olwaro.

“Using Peepoos leaves the place clean and free of odours unlike before when all we had were polythene bags that were poorly disposed of and left a bad smell,” he adds.

The school is one among more than 20 others with nearly 3,000 pupils within the slum that are now using the bags.

Olwaro reminisces how neighbours were worried when he first broached the subject of putting up the cubicles that offer privacy for pupils using the portable toilets. A quick glance around the area shows why neighbours were not keen to embrace the idea.

The school is sandwiched between several mud and tin roofed houses that form a semicircle around it, leaving little space for construction of any structure, let alone an ablution block. With no running water and muddy rivulets running through alleys it was anyone’s guess how the waste from an ablution block would have been disposed.

“The idea wasn’t well received. Many were concerned about the odour. But they are surprised because with the Peepoos, one can hardly tell there are toilets here since they offer an option to dirty, overflowing latrines or defecating in public. Now they, too, are using the bags,” he says.

Besides keeping children free of diarrheal diseases, Olwaro says the biodegradable bags offer much relief from days when he had to be at the school at dawn to clear ‘flying toilets’ that littered the compound.

In an informal settlement where the few available toilets are not only a health hazard but whose accessibility at night poses danger for women and girls, many like Ruth Auma have benefited from micro-entreprenual opportunities offered by Peepoos.

Auma, 29, who prefers to go by the name Mama Obama, is a mother of three, and says the portable toilets have not only spared her the nightmare of venturing into the dark to access toilets, but also given her a source of income.

Like several other women in the slum, Auma now collects used Peepoo bags that are then deposited at a drop point. From the drop point used Peepoos are transported daily to a temporary storage area where they are kept for four weeks until fully sanitised and processed into fertiliser without the risk of contamination.

For each bag collected Auma earns a refund of one shilling. On a good day she makes up to Sh300, which is paid in lump sum at the end of the week.

“My husband lost his job and we had been struggling to make ends meet until someone gave me the idea to start collecting the bags,” she says.

That was in May and Auma, who now prides herself in being self-employed, has no intention of turning back.

Her day starts at 6am when she rises to prepare her children for school, before picking up a huge white gunny bag into which used Peepoos collected around the slum are dropped.