Rwanda Environment Care (REC), a cooperative dedicated to protecting the environment, together with Kigali City Council, Wednesday launched the Kigali public eco-toilet.

According to Fidel Ruremesha, the in-charge of environment in Kigali City Council, the eco-toilet is perfectly balanced for the times and level of development and environment consciousness the city has reached.

"Considering the rampant demand of public toilets in Kigali City, we have responded by constructing various public toilets but this time around we needed to construct a toilet that is environmental friendly, and this is it,” explained Ruremesha.

During an interview with The New Times, the president of REC, Valentine Mucyomwiza, explained how necessary the eco-toilet is for any society that values its people’s lives and the environment.

"This initiative of eco-toilet construction is something we started basing on our desire and vision of normalizing and contributing to the safety of our environment,” said Mucyomwiza.

He urged the entire public to use this toilet responsibly not in a way that could ruin its setting and to emulate this example and construct such toilets even in homes and other public places like schools and prisons.

"We call upon schools and other places having a large population not to isolate the budget of toilets, like it is normally done; instead they should be given substantial budget facilitation to construct eco-friendly toilets,” he urged.

The in-charge of social affairs in KCC, Jean d’Arc Gakuba, appreciated the good work done by REC and asked the public to show their cooperation by handling the facilities well for the benefit of many.

"KCC has for long had a goal of enhancing cleanliness. This is one step towards achieving it and with this unique and eco-friendly public toilet constructed by REC; we are optimistic that hygiene will be uplifted,” underscored Gakuba.

The eco-toilet is constructed professionally with two inlets; one for urine and the other for solid waste, and this is done to separate the two with the aim of preventing liquid waste from mixing with the solid ones.

The eco-toilet pit is dug six feet deep to prevent the wastes from compromising water channels. Inside the pit is put a substance that attracts heat from the surface, which dries the wastes. The drying process is facilitated by the fact that the wastes don’t have any liquid in them.

After one pit is filled, people shift to another as the dry wastes are taken to gardens to be used as fertilizers. The elimination of water from the wastes is to kill the life cycles of living organisms that are responsible for the foul smell in toilets and to eliminate acids from the wastes.

This toilet is constructed with bathrooms for both males and females and containing all the basic facilities. To use this toilet, one will be paying some Frw50 for calls and Frw500 for bathing.

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