London, United Kingdom
Sandi toilet designed by Archie Read is a sustainable take on the essential fixture to provide those who live in rural or off-grid locations with a way to maximize efficiency.
The designer was inspired to create Sandi during his long stay in Madagascar, a low-income country, where he had experienced high unsanitary living conditions.
Read’s toilet is designed with a dual-section form to separate liquid and solid waste from one another, which would allow it to function with no water.
The toilet features a mechanical flush to be run with no electricity and shifts solid waste away to a storage section where it can be repurposed as fertilizer.
As a toilet concept, it is built with accessibility in mind with the designer setting the price at $74 per unit, while still being suited for large families.
Sandy would only need to be emptied of liquid waste every two days and solid waste every four days for a family of seven.
Over the years, there are definitely a lot of other off-grid toilets available on the market but what sets Sandi apart from them is that it flushes.
Although these other toilets do not require water to function, they do not flush at all, making the entire affair an unsanitary and uncomfortable experience.
Sandi features three main components – a mechanical flush (for areas with no electricity), a basic conveyor belt to move the excreta away in case of no water supply, and a divider placed inside the toilet bowl which separates the waste streams so that they can be repurposed as fertilizers.
It also has two distinct compartments – one guides the urine into a container placed below, while the other features a basic conveyor belt, covered with a fine layer of sand, which renews every time someone flushes.
The designer has selected sand as his material of choice because it ensures that the feces do not stick to the belt, however, he proposes that sawdust or dirt could work great as well.
Once one has finished, he simply presses the flush handle, which instantly rotates and moves the conveyor belt away from your eyes, and discards the feces into the container below.
In a world, where sanitation is considered a luxury and not a basic necessity, and 500 million people are still defecating in the open, the Sandi off-grid toiled can be considered an absolute necessity.
Project: Sandi Off-Grid Toilet
Designer: Archie Read
Photographers: Archie Read
