Transforming Waste Into Resources in Haiti

World Centric + SOIL

$25,000 from profits from fiscal year 2021

This project supports these U.N. Sustainable Development goals

If you’re one of the 3.3 million people living in urban Haiti who does not have a toilet, you have very few options available to you. Haitian cities, like many rapidly growing urban areas globally, have no sewer system. Pit latrines are expensive to construct and susceptible to flooding. Flush toilets are even more expensive in that they require a steady supply of running water and a costly septic tank. Also, neither of these options includes waste treatment. Given this context, it’s not a surprise that Haiti is battling one of the largest cholera epidemics in recent global history.

Since 2006, SOIL has been transforming wastes into resources in Haiti. Through the use of ecological sanitation, SOIL is working to create a revolutionary social business model for providing access to safe, dignified sanitation that produces rich, organic compost as a natural resource for Haiti’s badly-depleted soils, while also creating economic opportunities in some of the world’s most under-resourced communities.

SOIL primarily focuses on promoting the use of ecological sanitation (EcoSan), a process by which human wastes are converted into valuable compost. EcoSan simultaneously tackles some of Haiti’s toughest challenges by providing sanitation to people who would otherwise have no access to a toilet and producing an endless supply of rich, organic compost critical for agriculture and reforestation.

Working with communities to design and test ecologically and socially beneficial solutions, SOIL implements low-cost technologies that are simple, easy to replicate, require minimal water, and provide safe and dignified access to sanitation.

Through EkoLakay, SOIL’s household toilet service customers pay a small, subsidized monthly fee for a locally-made EcoSan toilet in their home, which is serviced by SOIL each week. The service includes collecting full waste receptacles and replacing them with empty sanitized ones, as well as replenishing a supply of cover material (used for “flushing” a dry toilet). The receptacles are taken to SOIL’s treatment facilities where the waste is safely treated and transformed into rich, fertile compost.

In 2021 SOIL served 1,500 households in Cap-Haïtien on the north coast of Haiti, provided safe sanitation for 9,000 people, and produced 170 metric tons of compost! SOIL also provided 68 full time positions and 70+ contract and temp positions for Haitians in the communities where SOIL works.

About SOIL

A World Centric partner since 2016.

The mission of Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL) is to promote dignity, health, and sustainable livelihoods through the transformation of wastes into resources. SOIL achieves this through developing social business models around ecological sanitation (EcoSan), a process in which nutrients from human wastes return to the soil rather than polluting fresh water resources.