Affordable WASH services and products
If you are selling low cost water and sanitation services directly to your customers, it is especially important to:
- Meet your customers’ needs. Think about the value of your offer, not about helping those with little or no income or money to spare.
- Remain affordable. Can you reduce the cost of your products and services?
- Grow your business. When your profit margins are small, your company must continue to add new customers. How and where can you find them?
Browse the factsheets below for low-cost options that provide sound services and good value. You will also find advice on how to reduce your costs and grow your business.
Remember: Customers at the base of the economic pyramid (BoP) may have limited ability to pay, but together they possess considerable purchasing power.
- Hardware
- Software
Affordable water supply technologies
SODIS
When microbially polluted water is exposed to solar light in transparent PET bottles, bacteria, virus and some parasites are inactivated by the solar…
UV-tubes
The bactericidal effect of concentrated ultraviolet (UV) light is used in many areas and in many set-ups. For drinking water treatment, simple,…
WATA®
Chlorination, which means adding active chlorine (sodium hypochlorite) to water, is the most common method used for disinfecting of drinking water.…
Biosand Filter
The biosand filter (BSF) is a simple household water treatment device, which is an innovation on traditional slow sand filters specifically designed…
Chlorination
Water disinfection by chlorination was massively introduced in the early twentieth century. It set off a technological revolution in water treatment…
Colloidal Silver Filter
Colloidal Silver Filters (CSF) are simple household water treatment devices based on a physical treatment, which does not require energy supply. CSFs…
Household Water Treatment and Safe Storage (HWTS)
Lack of improved access to safe drinking water together inadequate sanitation and hygiene are the overwhelming contributors to the 1.8 million annual…
Ceramic Candle Filter
Ceramic candle filters are simple devices made out of clay and used to filter drinking water in order to removes turbidity, suspended materials and…
Straining and Filtration
Straining is a very simple method of filtration. In this process, water is poured through a piece of cloth, which removes some of the suspended silt…
Solar Pasteurisation
Contrary to belief, it is not necessary to boil certain water to make it safe to drink. Heating water to 65°C (149°F) for 6 minutes, or to a higher…
Water Quality Testing
In many parts of the world, water is not safe enough to drink. There are basic qualitative observations that quickly determine if water is not safe…
Rainwater Harvesting (Rural)
Rooftop rainwater harvesting (RTRWH) is the most common technique of rainwater harvesting (RWH) for domestic consumption. In rural areas, this is…
Rainwater Harvesting (Urban)
Rooftop rainwater harvesting (RTRWH) is the most common technique of rainwater harvesting (RWH) for domestic consumption. It can be done easily,…
Fog Drip
Fog harvesting provides a cheap complementary water source for arid and semiarid, rural regions. As the wind blows the fog through specially designed…
Manual Pumping
Hand pumps are water-lifting devices that can be operated manually to withdraw water from surface water sources, groundwater sources and reservoirs,…
Leakage Control
Water leakage is an important component of water losses. Many methods for controlling leakage from urban water supply systems have emerged, but it…
Advanced Filters
Advanced point-of-use filter systems of various designs, costs and effectiveness are today readily available all over the world. While these systems…
Desalination
The chemical process of changing seawater into potable or fresh water is called desalination. Thermal distillation and membrane processes are the two…
Arsenic Removal Technologies
Safe Storage
The health implications of inadequate water and sanitation services include an estimated 4 billion cases of diarrhoea and 1.9 million deaths each…
Drilled Wells
Drilled wells can serve as a low-cost water supply for single households, for small rural communities and for more urban areas. The working principle…
Affordable technologies for sanitation services
Septic Tank
A septic tank is a watertight chamber made of concrete, fibreglass, PVC or plastic, through which blackwater and greywater flows for primary…
Biogas Electricity (Small-scale)
Biogas is a mixture of methane, carbon dioxide, water and hydrogen sulphide produced during the anaerobic decomposition of organic matter. Biogas can…
Urine-Diverting Dry Toilet (UDDT)
A urine-diverting dry toilet (UDDT) is a toilet that operates without water and has a divider so that the user, with little effort, can divert the…
Pour flush Toilet
A pour flush toilet is like a regular cistern flush toilet except that the water is poured in by the user, instead of coming from the cistern above.…
Human-powered Emptying and Transport
Human-powered emptying and transport refers to the different ways in which people can manually empty and/or transport sludge and solid products…
Double Ventilated Improved Pit (VIP)
The double VIP has almost the same design as the single VIP with the added advantage of a second pit that allows it to be used continuously and…
Urinal
An urinal is used only for collecting urine. Urinals are generally for men, although models for women have also been developed. Most urinals use…
Urine Diversion Components
The separate collection of urine allows to reduce water used in toilets for flushing and to collect the nutrients contained in the urine in order to…
Dehydration Vaults
Dehydration vaults are used to collect, store and dry (dehydrate) faeces. Faeces will only dehydrate when the vaults are well ventilated, watertight…
Incineration (Small-Scale)
Small-scale incinerators are a useful technology to combust household waste, medical waste, slaughter waste, etc. instead of discharging it in a…
Biogas Combustion
In principal, biogas can be used like other fuel gas. When produced in household-level [8221-biogas reactors], it is most suitable for cooking.…
Dry Toilet
A dry toilet is a toilet that operates without flushwater. The dry toilet may be a raised pedestal on which the user can sit, or a squat pan over…
Affordable technologies and solutions for subsistence agriculture at the BoP
Greywater Towers
A greywater tower is a circular bag, which is filled with soil, ash and/or compost mixture and a gravel column at the centre. It is used to treat and…
Anaerobic Digestion (Organic Waste)
Anaerobic biogas digesters are airtight reactors in which organic waste is decomposed and transformed into biogas by a biological process called…
Planting Pits
Planting pits are used as a precipitation harvesting method to prevent water runoff and thereby increase infiltration and reduce erosion. Basically,…
Mulching
Mulch is a material placed on the soil surface to maintain moisture, reduce weed growth, mitigate soil erosion and improve soil conditions. Mulching…
(Co-) composting (Small-scale)
Composting at the household level is an important method for managing organic waste, which is normally the largest portion of household waste.…
Drip Irrigation
Drip irrigation is a technique in which water flows through a filter into special drip pipes, with emitters located at different spacing. Water is…
Subsurface Drip Irrigation
Subsurface drip irrigation is a variation from conventional surface drip irrigation techniques. By minimising evaporation it uses water more…
Innovation tools
Problem & Preference Ranking
Problem/Preference Ranking is a participatory technique that allows analysing and identifying problems or preferences stakeholder share in order to…
Blue Ocean Strategy
The Blue/Red Ocean Strategy is a way of assessing your business against your competitors in order to identify your competitive advantage. It is based…
Partners & Network
Companies can enter into partnerships with different types of organisations and with varying intensity. Possible benefits from partnerships can be…
Integrity Management Toolbox for Small and Medium Enterprises (SME)
The Integrity Management Toolbox for Water Sector SME proposes a systematic bottom-up approach to tackling integrity issues of small and medium-sized…
Human centred design
Human centred design (HCD) is an innovation methodology to develop appropriate and innovative ideas for solving problems. The HCD approach engages…
Identifying the value proposition
The value proposition represents a central element of each business model. It encompasses all parts of a product or service that generates value for…
Smart partnering
Creating sustainable smart partnerships is essential to establish viable safe water initiatives for the BoP. Partnerships help match knowledge and…
Frugal Innovation
Frugal innovation is a strategy that focuses on the design and creation of simple but effective solutions to deliver affordable products, services or…
Financial, marketing and sales tools
Writing a Concept Note
A concept note is a summary of a proposal containing a brief description of the idea of the project and the objectives to be pursued. In some…
Social Marketing (DC)
Social marketing is the use of commercial marketing techniques to promote the adoption of behaviour that will improve the health or well-being of the…
Project Proposal Writing
A proposal is a request for financial assistance to implement a project. The proposal outlines the plan of the implementing organisation about the…
Demand Creation - General
Various water and sanitation programmes have failed in the past because they were supply driven. It is of prime importance to understand that people…
Microfinance
Traditional banks do not usually reach the rural population and are not interested in giving small loans to low-income families. For this reason,…
Analyse your market
Businesses do not exist in isolation but have to be established in a market environment. At first, the industry sector in which the company operates…
Marketing
A company’s marketing mix most commonly consists of the “4Ps of marketing”: product, place, price and promotion. They are intricately and sensitively…
Learn how to manage your finances
Financial Management is a vital task for every company and should always draw the attention of an entrepreneur. This factsheet covers three distinct…
Prepare your elevator pitch
As an entrepreneur, you will need to be prepared to take every opportunity to gain interest in your start-up from potential customers, investors, or…
Social marketing for safe water
Social marketing is the use of marketing principles and techniques to advance a social cause, idea or behaviour. In contrary to commercial marketing…