Banganga Slum Toilet

Working Towards a Better Tomorrow

Samatech has installed Mumbai’s first intelligent vacuum slum toilet at a slum in the Malabar Hill area in Mumbai. Currently most of Mumbai’s slum toilets are not connected to the main sewage lines due to their lower lying geography and due to the narrow alleyways. As a result the large amount of sewage generated in the slums of Mumbai go untreated directly into our oceans and has caused the Mumbai sea to become the most polluted ocean in the world. 

According to a recent global study conducted by the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), Helmholtz Centre for Marine Research in Germany, the Mumbai sea is amongst the most polluted in the world. The presence of faecal coliform due to untreated sewage being disposed into the oceans has crossed an alarming rate and has also resulted in the serious increase in water borne diseases. The study found that the discharge of untreated sewage is the single most important source of pollution of surface and ground water in India. 

Samatech Foundation introduced the world’s first vacuum slum toilet to solve this problem. This 4 toilet project was completed 2017 and was successfully connected to the main sewer line at an elevation of 30 feet and a running length of over 300 feet with several bends of the slum geography in the way. Today the toilet not only saves 90% of the water consumed in regular toilets but allows the sewage to be sent uphill to the sewage treatment plant in the vicinity. It is a testament to show that this is a solution to stop the dumping of untreated sewage in our Mumbai oceans which has resulted in our ocean being the filthiest in the World.