Social franchise to solve toilet trouble

A recent article in The Conversation reveals some of the excellent advances made in addressing the persistent and devastating impacts of a lack of access to sanitation. One interesting one is a business called Sanergy, which profits from providing clean toilet services and the collection and treatment of waste. Sanergy provides the toilets, keeps them clean, removes the waste, treats and then produces a final product for reuse in agriculture. Using a franchise approach, their people safely compost large volumes of fecal sludge to make and sell valuable fertilizer. The Sanergy model can reach poor communities by using human labor to access and haul waste, where mobile trucks cannot access. Creating value for the product and jobs in the process, lays the foundation for sustainability and scale.