Meet Malawi's SkyLoos

The top killer in Malawi isn't malaria, and it isn't AIDS. It's a condition far more mundane than either of those diseases, and something that not many people want to talk about: diarrhea.

Across Malawi, lack of toilets and clean drinking water takes the lives of some 12,000 children a year. The Mgona area, for example, is home to about 36,000 people — a settlement crammed into a small space near an abandoned railway line, where IRIN describes access to toilets as "almost unheard of." There, diarrhea-related diseases, including dysentery and cholera, find easy stalking ground.

Now, though, local residents are beating back these diseases through the use of composting toilets, which operate under the cheerful name of SkyLoos.

The toilets are built as a series of brick pits, which are covered by a concrete slab that's paired with a metal access cover. Waste falls through a hole in the slab, which villagers then submerge using ash from cooking fires. The ash, in turn, raises the waste's alkalinity, which — combined with the heat from the sun — kills pathogens, while allowing the feces to decompose into a thick manure.

From Haiti to India, composting toilets are growing in popularity, and for good reason. They're low-tech, waterless, relatively affordable — apart from the occasional application of additional ash, they require almost no maintenance — and they give back to the community in copious quantities of rich fertilizer.

Earlier this year, Kate blogged about the use of similar "Arbor Loos" in East Africa; we've also previously written about the development of single-use, compostable toilets (so-called "PeePoo bags"). And now, with the help of composting toilets like the SkyLoo, villagers from Malawi are literally managing to turn toilets into trees.

Photo Credit: AJ Tallam