The majority of sanitation projects carried out in Haiti are implemented without forethought as to how the waste will be treated. Most toilets flush directly into rivers or the ocean and latrines are either abandoned when full or emptied untreated into sites that, again, leach directly into rivers or the ocean.
SOIL is committed, not only to providing safe sanitation, but also to safely treating human waste through the process of composting.
Since building Haiti’s first urban waste composting site near Cap-Haitien, Haiti in 2009, SOIL has gone on to become the largest waste treatment operation in the country.
According to World Health Organization standards, fecal pathogens are killed after one week at a sustained temperature of 122 degrees Fahrenheit (WHO Guidelines for the Safe Use of Wastewater, Excreta and Greywater, 2006). SOIL composts the human wastes collected from EcoSan toilets for a minimum of six months to ensure that the all pathogens have been killed and the organic matter has sufficiently broken down to be used for agricultural uses.
SOIL is currently transforming thousands of gallons of human excreta per week into rich compost critical for agriculture and reforestation efforts in Haiti.
SOIL has multiple compost sites in Port-au-Prince as well as a large site in Limonade that receive wastes collected from toilets throughout Cap-Haitien.