Sanivation delivers clean and efficient sanitation services to urbanizing communities in East Africa, and treats the waste to produce an affordable fuel source that reduces the demand for firewood.

Sanivation installs modern container-based toilets in homes of urbanizing communities in Kenya. Installation is free and the company then charges a small monthly fee to service the toilets. Then, instead of dumping the waste, it is treated and combined with agricultural waste at the company’s processing plant and transformed into charcoal briquettes.

Sanivation’s re-subscription rate for their toilets is more than 90%. According to the company, their briquettes outperform traditional charcoal, while helping to address problems of deforestation by reducing the need for firewood. By addressing the full sanitation value chain, the company helps people in urbanizing communities throughout Kenya to live a modern and healthy life. Sanivation licenses its model to refugee camps, helping to meet the growing demand for locally deployable sanitation services.

“I challenge everyone to think of sector that has more pronounced and crosscutting impacts than sanitation when it comes to health, environment, local economy, dignity, and the overall resilience of communities. We can’t. That’s why we’ve chosen a market-based approach to achieve rapid scale.”

Andrew Foote – CEO, Sanivation

Why you should care

Globally 2.4 billion people lack access to a decent toilet, and 90% of human waste is disposed into the environment before being treated. This has caused diarrheal diseases to be the second leading cause of death for children under five. Sanivation addresses all of these challenges by offering clean sanitation services and turning waste into clean-burning fuel.

How the Global Goals are addressed

Clean Water and Sanitation

By providing free toilet installations and low-cost disposal of fecal waste, Sanivation is reducing open defecation and thus improving access to clean and safe drinking water.

Affordable and Clean Energy

Using Sanivation’s charcoal briquettes saves 88 trees per ton sold, according to the company, creating a sustainable and low carbon energy source.

Life on Land

Sanivation turns a human waste product into a valuable and sustainable energy source for communities to use for cooking, boiling water and heating.