Completed project · Kabul
Afghanistan
Five public toilet and bath complexes in Kabul, with biogas plants that kept working at minus 30 degrees.
Sanitation in Kabul
Five public complexes, still in service
In 2007, in a poor and war-torn country, Sulabh International completed five public toilet complexes in Kabul, each with a biogas plant. The plants worked well even when temperatures fell to around minus 30 degrees Celsius. These public toilets serve the city well to this day.
The complexes were built between 2005 and 2007 with Kabul Municipality and with financial support from the Government of India. Each has separate sections for men and women and bath cubicles, and the municipality runs them on a pay-per-use basis.
- Built
- Five public toilet and bath complexes, 2005 to 2007
- With
- Kabul Municipality; aid from the Government of India
- Partner
- Sulabh International Social Service Organisation
- Operated by
- Kabul Municipality, on a pay-per-use basis
The biogas plants kept running through a Kabul winter at minus 30 degrees.
Waste goes into biogas digesters. The gas lights lamps, fuels a cooking stove and runs a generator, and the treated water is used for irrigation. A UN-Habitat official in Afghanistan called the two-pit pour-flush system an appropriate and affordable answer to the country's dry-vault toilets.
How the model works
Gallery
On the ground in Kabul
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The water and biogas tanks that serve the complex
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