The transition to smart, sustainable and aspirational sanitation for all, and unlocking the promising business opportunities associated with it, is catching the market trends. Many governments, as well as private players, are entering the sanitation industry with the aim to provide access to clean, hygienic and well-maintained sanitation services that are accessible round the clock.
Providing sanitation goes beyond building toilets. It requires the community toilets, with a focus on optimizing usage at scale and behavior change; waste management and resource recovery; and digitizing with the use of sensors within the sanitation system.
It is a big stigma when even in the 21st century India is known to be the open defecation capital of the world with 600 million people practicing it. To eliminate this stigma, the need of the hour is to build toilets based upon the pre-treatment technology, that support an efficient service meeting the standards of government and utilities which can be scaled to address the sanitation challenges of growing urban as well as rural centers.
The latest sanitation industry trends for the upcoming year 2019 will focus on developing a toilet design which is essentially indestructible, integrated with new-age technology (Internet of Things). As the technology has gone far in almost every sphere, so is the same when it comes to innovation in toilets, or close to smart toilets.
The introduction of automation by bringing in the aspect of artificial intelligence would sooner be seen in the smart washrooms. Like the auto clean mechanism will clean and sanitize toilet seats itself or the intelligent smart toilets will function wherein the toilets will open up as the user approach and flushes when the user leaves, all automatically through the sensing technology. These smart toilets model in the coming years will do more than open and flush; as they would be so efficient enough to upgrade your toilet experience by changing the seat temperature to make the users feel comfortable and warm. Smart Toilets will have the option to set up the cleaning water temperature, pressure, and the position. The temperature and pressure could be increased or decreased based on the user’s convenience. Such a revolution will entice the “call-of-nature” even at the public restrooms bringing in the aspect of artificial intelligence into the restrooms and reducing the human intervention, dependence and supervision.
Also, these restrooms would be self-sustainable in terms of energy consumption, as the new age sanitation system would be equipped with toilet blocks having solar power, LED lights, sufficient ventilation through exhaust fans and waste management enabled techniques etc. Also, they would cater to the new age sanitation vending products like germ-free sanitizer dispensers, then a couple of women-centric toilet essentials like pee safe, sanitary pad vending machines, etc. to name a few.
Caring for the differently able section of the society as well, these restrooms would be designed owning to an infrastructure that has ramp access, handrails, to ensure they are efficiently differently abled friendly restroom.
Not just this, smart toilets would stand fair to water efficient toilets as well. They will ensure upon using less water compared to the other standard toilets and will also have options for full flush and eco flush. With the dual flush option and the less water to flush the toilet, these toilets save the usage of water in the toilets. Now, most of the smart toilets use siphonic and as well as vacuum to enhance the flushing and reduce the water usage as well.
Owing to all these trends in the sanitation arena would incline the corporate’s interest to encourage the inflow of investment flow or progressive business models even to this unplumbed segment.
This article is contributed by Mr. Ashutosh Giri, Founder Fresh Rooms
