The challenge

In many emerging economics, or in rapidly urbanizing regions, septic tanks are the primary means of managing wastewater. Septic tanks contain wastewater, and allow it to decompose through biological means, and facilitate disposal of the fluid and solid matter. While septic tanks can be a safe and efficient form of waste water management, they must be emptied regularly i.e. desludged, to function properly. If this is not done, the tanks can malfunction, leading to ground water contamination, toxic gases , deaths of workers, and overflowing fecal waste into residential areas. In many fast growing cities and emerging economies, this preventative maintenance is rare, due to the lack of information about the tank, poor awareness among property owners, and the difficulty of enforcing compliance. The World Bank estimates that less than 30% of fecal waste collected in septic tanks is disposed with treatment. In India alone, almost 300 workers are reported to die every year while performing cleaning of these tanks. Service cost recovery is also poor, since in the absence of data the service cannot be planned, and is always performed under crisis conditions. If cities, service providers and building owners can better monitor this infrastructure, many public health issues, environmental hazards, and occupational deaths can be eliminated.

The solution

MoniTrd is an IOT service, that enables the tracking of all septic tanks to ensure that they are functioning in a safe, efficient, and sustainable way. They create value for building owners, sanitation service providers, and local/regional governments and their agencies. It supports important public health and environmental outcomes, while also reducing risks and costs for all the involved stakeholders. It consists of an IoT device to be installed inside the septic tank to monitor parameters of the tank’s health, use, and remaining capacity. This information is relayed though a mesh network, and used to alert service providers to full tanks, potentially malfunctioning tanks, and tanks which may have hazardous environments. This data can be used to better plan service provision. MoniTrd also aims to leverage the sensor network created by this device to generate inferential analytics about public health and ground water characteristics to create additional value and reduce direct costs for the household. We also aim to employ mesh networks to ensure that even if one device in a neighborhood is within range of a connection to the servers, all nearby devices will be able to push their data through the mesh.

Mission

To build monitoring tools that make wastewater services financially, ecologically, and socially sustainable; bringing safe sanitation to everyone.