Menstrual Waste Incineration

As we’ve written about rather extensively, Project Sammaan can be viewed as the implementation phase that builds off of insights gleaned from the year-long research study of India’s urban sanitation facilities, the “Potty Project”. Part of this study involved researching the architectural infrastructure of existing facilities to evaluate where problems were arising and what could be done to alleviate them.

One such area of exploration revolved around menstrual waste disposal and the options that were made available to women and girls. Unfortunately, we found that most facilities do not provide mechanisms for disposal of menstrual waste, nor do they provide communications interventions that foster awareness around sanitary practices regarding menstrual hygiene. As a result, many toilets are blocked by pads and towels women attempted to flush and the facility grounds are littered with used sanitary towels. In several instances, toilet booths were blocked and rendered useless due to sanitary pads being dumped in there.

Due to this, it became imperative that the Project Sammaan facilities be designed to provide safe and hygienic means for menstrual waste disposal. Several options have been explored to this point, and it’s been decided that the project will move forward with a device that will incinerate this waste. Research along these lines has produced several options requiring further exploration, one of which being electrical incinerators.

We reached out to the firm Eram Scientific Solutions for information as they feature such devices in their Delight Bharat automated toilet facility, the first of its kind in India. It was an extremely informative conversation that featured several salient points which will help guide the Sammaan team in its decision over what device to use.

Key takeaways from the conversation:

• Their electrical incinerators are installed within the toilet booths themselves, eliminating the need for a chute that the waste would have to travel before reaching the incinerator itself. These chutes can cause issues as wet napkins do not travel well.

• A digital timer can be implemented to operate the incinerators on intervals, reducing electricity costs.

• The electrical incinerators they use can hold up to 50 napkins at a time and are super-heated to 250-degrees Celsius. At this temperature, incineration takes less than half-minute. Despite this temperature, there are no heating issues as there is nothing that can cause burns to users.

• Cloth may present an issue, but sanitary napkins can be burned without any trouble.

• Manual intervention on the part of caretakers is limited to removing ash residue once in about 14-15 days.

• Requires direct electricity with stable power; will not operate on an inverter. This is a potential hurdle given the inconsistency of electrical supply in some Project Sammaan locations.

More research into menstrual waste incinerators is required, but as of now, the project team feels this is a more viable option than fuel-based incinerators for several reasons.

First and foremost, as the name suggests, using a fuel-based incinerator requires a constant fuel supply, which could prove to be unreliable and expensive, much more so than electricity. In the absence of fuel, the waste cannot be burned which could then create unhygienic conditions. Fuel also poses storage issues and is prone to be pilfered as well.

Fuel-based options also produce greater amounts of smoke and ash residue. The former could lead to negative health and environmental implications; the latter would require more cleaning efforts and create more waste.

Weather can also present challenges. Bhubaneswar and Cuttack are prone to heavy rains at times throughout the year. These could prevent the fuel-based incinerators from being operational and, again, create unhygienic conditions.

Finally, with the electrical option, the capacity seems to suggest that the facilities will be able to manage even in the absence of 24-hour power supply. It would obviously be ideal to have constant electrical supply, but it is reassuring knowing that in its absence the incinerator will be able to act as a safe storage system until the waste can be incinerated.

Again, these conversations are all still very broad. Detailed cost and product specification analysis will need to be done on all options once a finalized list is made. That said, there is much to be encouraged by from these initial conversations.