44 results for tag: research

Job Opening: Research Project Manager

ABOUT SOIL SOIL is an award-winning organization founded in 2006, inspired by the belief that the most pervasive human rights abuse globally is poverty. SOIL works in Haiti to increase access to climate-positive sanitation services using a groundbreaking circular-economy model that simultaneously improves public health, food security, economic development, and ecological resiliency. SOIL’s sanitation service currently provides over nearly 10,000 people with safely-managed sanitation, prevents over 500 metric tons of waste from polluting water resources each year, and produces over 80 metric tons of agricultural-grade compost annually. SOIL is a ...

SOIL visits Sanima in Lima

Researchers touring Pamplona SOIL’s Chief Operating Officer Nick Preneta and Research Associate Maya Lubeck-Schricker traveled to Lima, Peru last month to meet up with fellow research partners from the Off Grid Cities project for a series of presentations and discussions about progress to date, challenges faced, and steps forward. Off Grid Cities research focuses on an emerging off-grid sanitation paradigm in the form of container-based sanitation (CBS) across four country contexts – Haiti, Peru, Kenya and South Africa. The group works to address sustainable city-wide sanitation to meet the vastly unmet need for safe sanitation services in ...

Expanding SOIL’s Data Concepts and Analyses Using DataCamp

SOIL's Research & Operations teams collaborating  SOIL’s research team is always looking for ways to improve our EkoLakay processes so that we can continue to provide our customers with the highest quality sanitation service. To do so, the team regularly undertakes projects and analyses that inform strategic and operational improvements to our services. An important way for the researchers to identify and understand the specific changes that need to be made is by generating solid, data-driven evidence for analysis and study. DataCamp, an online, interactive learning platform that teaches users data science and skills, has partnered with ...

Strategies for Change: SOIL’s Partnership with Appleseed

SOIL’s mission is to deliver safe, dignified, and affordable ecological sanitation services to households in Haiti and to increase sanitation access for all who want and need it. As readers of our blog know, one of the ways we do this is by providing in-home toilets and removing waste from communities via our EkoLakay services. A monthly service fee is collected from our customers which helps to cover the cost of the household toilet rental, weekly container collection & replacement, and waste treatment service. The customer fee helps to generate a stream of revenue for SOIL’s service to contribute to operational costs. However, customer fees ...

GENERATING EVIDENCE TO IMPROVE CUSTOMER PAYMENT BEHAVIOR INTERVENTIONS FOR CBS SERVICE IN HAITI

In April 2022, SOIL launched a new research project in partnership with Appleseed, a behavioral research agency, to better understand and evaluate customer payment behavior, and develop strategies on how to encourage EkoLakay household sanitation customers to regularly pay the monthly fee for the service on time. SOIL charges a monthly service fee from customers for our household toilet, weekly collection and waste treatment service, in order to contribute to operational cost recovery and establish the provision of sanitation as an essential basic service rather than a charity in Haiti. Unfortunately, establishing on-time payment behavior has been a ...

Breeding in Progress: Updates on SOIL’s BSFL Research

SOIL's black soldier fly rearing unit containers, provided in partnership with USAID.  In 2019, the SOIL Research Team began testing out the possibility of using black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) as a method of transforming waste from our EkoLakay sanitation service into protein-rich larvae that can serve as animal feed. This technology can be used in combination with the existing composting process. After a delay in our pilot trials due to the Covid-19 pandemic, work resumed last year on the project, in partnership with USAID Haiti, and we have a few exciting updates to share.  Black soldier flies (BSF) are endemic to Haiti and wild ones have ...

New Publication Links Container-Based Sanitation and Human Rights

Haiti's sanitation system leaves 19% of urban households without improved sanitation access. CBS systems can help expand access while also creating safer jobs in Haiti.  At SOIL, our strategic objectives are informed by careful research and data. We are also committed  to understanding the human rights implications of the work we do. We are pleased to share a recent publication, in partnership with researchers at Oregon State University and the University of Oregon, and published in H2Open Journal, that explores the potential for container-based sanitation (CBS) as a component of Citywide Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS) in densely populated, low-reso...

New Research on Container-based Sanitation Models Published in H2Open Journal

Traditional sanitation models – flush toilets – require a reliable water source and sewage infrastructure, both of which can be cost prohibitive and infeasible to build in urban settlements with contested land tenure. The usual alternatives, like pit latrines and septic tanks, are also infeasible or unsafe in many urban areas due to space limitations, high water tables, and population density. With the population of urban areas set to double by 2050 and one in three people still lacking access to a toilet worldwide, interest in container-based sanitation models (CBS) as a viable sanitation alternative for cities is rapidly growing. Containe...

Field Day for the Directors: Launching a New Research Project

SOIL’s HR Director, Director of Operations and Compost Manager We at SOIL are always working to develop innovative approaches to support our growth strategy and further expand our reach to provide accessible, sustainable and reliable sanitation to those that need it the most. Research plays a critical role in SOIL’s efforts to achieve strategic goals and advance knowledge in the sanitation sector. This year has started off very busy for SOIL’s Research team, as we are working on a number of ongoing research projects including; small-scale black soldier fly larvae experiments, improving collections with human-centered design and utilizing ...

From Larvae to Chicken Feed: What’s New with Black Soldier Fly Research

In 2019, the SOIL Research Team began testing out the possibility of using black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) as a new, additional method of transforming waste from our EkoLakay sanitation service into another valuable resource. Led by SOIL Waste-to-Resource Consultant, Michèle Heeb, SOIL experimented with BSFL at our composting site in Northern Haiti and found that our EkoLakay waste was indeed suitable for this exciting technology. The Research Team even managed to breed the flies in captivity, a prerequisite for the technology to work on a large scale. These promising results made us hopeful that this innovative waste-to-resource technology could ...