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In this document through subtletiy I have detailed how LooCafes can solve open defecation, supply chain systems and so much more, giving it a billion dollar potential with just a city’s worth of toilets, this document not only elucidates actual challenges but presents real solutions that the smartest minds in WASH are working on.
In 2020, 3.5 billion people—nearly half the world’s population—lacked access to safely managed sanitation. The effects of this are very serious. It means waste is being discharged directly into lakes, rivers, and oceans and contaminating water where people drink, bathe, and play. In fact, sewage contamination causes diarrhea and dehydration resulting in the deaths of over 1000 children a day.
While it is primarily the world’s poorest communities that are most affected by the lack of safe sanitation, more developed markets are also impacted. Cities are struggling to keep pace with the pressures that rapid urbanization places on aging sewage infrastructure, which is more expensive to maintain, and in rural areas thousands rely on septic tanks with inefficient waste disposal and risk of leakage. This crisis is likely to accelerate even further with climate change, as both flooding and droughts become more common.
Brick and mortar models cannot survive, with most public toilets built to fill the minimum requirement by the government to end open defecation fail.—the Indian open defecation tag, that has been plaguing our country’s image for years.
[Abhishek: Founder, LooCafe gives an elevator pitch about LooCafe at InkWASH 2020
](https://youtu.be/ka0Qe8TOLPY)
Abhishek: Founder, LooCafe gives an elevator pitch about LooCafe at InkWASH 2020
Despite the regulatory roadblocks, India presents the potential for hardware design solutions that will launch the next generation of drones, replace plastic, fight climate change, take us to Mars, reduce road congestion, and so on. And this can be done profitably because of solutions designed for scale and low cost, crucial for success in the Indian market.
These are problems that are not just unique to India, and the solutions will be relevant to the developed world. Of the list of recent EV India winners, counterintuitively, the first thing that comes to mind is deploying the smart toilets by Abishek Nath’s Loo Cafe in San Francisco where the city takes 2 years and spends $1.7 million to build one public toilet!
By Shruti Rajagopalan—Why everyone should pay more attention to India
Science and engineering have always been instrumental in solving the world’s greatest challenges, and the sanitation crisis is no exception.
Science and engineering are helping to reinvent the toilet, to deliver sanitation to the millions who need it. Imagine the lives that could be saved and how much safer and cleaner our world could be.
More on LooCafe explored → LooCafe
LooCafe Mini models → LooCafe Minis
Public toilets made inside a shipping container, with a point of sale—retail space attached with advertisement panels on the top.
It’s as simple as that, as a structure.