Organization: Wild China (China)

Nominated by: Anita Narayan, WildChina (Organization Category)

Project Description

In October 2009, WildChina’s educational travel department launched a new sustainable tourism initiative to improve local practices and standards of living in rural southwest China. This initiative involved organizing service learning projects for student groups in which they helped villages in Sichuan province, still recovering from the devastating May 2008 earthquake, build eco-friendly, waterless toilets.

Water cleanliness is a persistent problem for China’s water lifelines that carry snow melt from the Himalayas eastward to the Pacific Ocean. This problem is often the result of unsanitary conditions and practices in human settlements that border major rivers. Building eco-friendly toilets in these areas is crucial to sustainable development, as the sterilization process that occurs in these outlets affords two improvements to local life. First, it can restore a natural cleansing system of the area’s water, allowing for local community members to preserve the pristine nature of some of the area’s most important water resources. Second, it allows human waste to be used as fertilizer, which can further bolster crops and prevent contamination from waste in food and water.

Through our innovative eco-toilet initiative, WildChina has taken school groups to villages like Anglong near Chengdu and Shenxi near the Tibetan Plateau. Students helped construct toilets made from bamboo or brick, depending on the topography of the villages.

For the Anglong Village project, WildChina worked with a Sichuan-based NGO, Chengdu Urban Rivers Association (CURA), which is dedicated to transforming the village into a model of sustainable development that can be applied to similar rural areas of China. Located along the banks of the Zou Ma River (one of the Fu-Nan Rivers) near Chengdu, Anlong was once a community plagued by severe water pollution as a result of livestock, chemical fertilizer and more. Although efforts in the mid-1990s cleaned up the rivers to some degree, the Fu-Nan Rivers Comprehensive Revitalization Project was not entirely effective. As such, communities like Anlong still needed help to rid themselves of pollution and contamination.

CURA has been working with the Anlong community to develop sustainable practices for farming, sanitation and development. The NGO is trying to reduce chemical infiltration and pollution into the river systems that feed into Chengdu’s rivers and form part of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. While in Anlong, WildChina’s student group learned about Anlong community and its issues and spent time testing and reporting on the local water quality. The group then helped construct eco-friendly toilets and proudly presented new bathroom facilities to the village at the end of the project.

For the Shenxi Village project, WildChina worked with another local NGO, WildGrass (Yecao), which is dedicated to providing sanitary living conditions in earthquake-stricken areas of Sichuan. WildGrass educates rural communities in how to better manage their waste, reduce ground water pollution and process waste materials in a sanitary fashion.

Shenxi is located at the upper reaches of the Minjiang River and the edge of the Tibetan Plateau—an hour’s hike from the nearest paved road. Although it is a remote area, the activities of this village profoundly influence the rest of Sichuan and surrounding areas, as it sits atop the Sichuan water basin, which stores water runoff from the Himalayas and supplies vital water to Sichuan and regions downriver.

Separated by only a mountain from the epicenter of the May 2008 earthquake, Shenxi was devastated by the damage it inflicted. Aside from the toll on human life, many of the buildings collapsed outright and those still standing suffered heavy damage. Villagers who returned to Shenxi after the earthquake rebuilt their homes with the limited resources available, and the result was a village that lacked adequate sanitation.

This is where WildGrass comes in—the NGO incorporates new technology into their waterless toilets. The toilets are built from bamboo and locally recycled materials, and use underground fermentation with ash from local plants to sterilize the waste. The byproducts are then used as crop bio-fertilizers. These toilets save nearby rivers and the water-bed from waste pollution. Moreover, the toilets provide a resource to the local farmers, who can economize on locally purchased fertilizer.

WildChina’s student group hiked into Shenxi Village, where the winding mountain road is still in disrepair from the earthquake and certain stretches have disappeared altogether. Working with WildGrass, WildChina and local villagers, students built six waterless latrines with self-sterilizing technology for the village. After the project, one of the villagers for whom the students had built a toilet cooked a meal for the students as a show of gratitude.

As WildChina’s expertise with building eco-toilets grows, we plan to continue to work with local NGOs and our educational travel clients on this sustainable tourism project and thereby help improve local practices in rural areas of southwest China.

WildChina Eco Toilet Project

Waterless Toilet Platform

Bamboo Frame and Walls

>> Learn how the waterless toilets are built

Related Articles

Improving Local Practices in Southwest China, Part I: Developing a Model Village for Sustainable Peri-Urban Development in Anlong, Sichuan
Improving Local Practices in Southwest China, Part II: Bio-toilets in Sichuan Province

Learn More about WildChina

Mei Zhang, Founder of WildChina, will be presenting on the panel “Creating opportunities through environmental education and outdoor learning” at this year’s Ecotourism and Sustainable Tourism Conference (ESTC), being held in Portland, Oregon, USA from September 8-10. The ESTC brings together innovative minds from across the industry to discuss practical ideas and solutions that inspire positive changes. Learn more & register online at: www.ecotourismconference.org.