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These are being sent to refugee camps, where people don't have regular access to electricity or water (or $100).

baybal2 5y ago
A generator + second hand industrial washing machine will cost less than $1000 together, and will probably be enough to wash clothes of hundreds of people in a day. That's more usefulness than any of these space toilets NGOs splurge millions of bucks on.
- burkaman 5y ago
  If you have a plan for a generator that can power washing machines for an entire refugee camp, plus the machines themselves, plus a supply chain to deliver fuel for the generator, plus a stable supply of water for the machines, plus plumbing to distribute water throughout the camp, plus electrical infrastructure for the camp, plus education and materials for residents to maintain and repair all of that, all for under $1000, I'm sure Oxfam would be very interested to hear it.
  - baybal2 5y ago
    I see it very simple, and my firsts ache to reach the face of a first person to shout "lets do SWOT analysis!" First, water must be coming to the camp some way, or another, or people would've been dead. Whether it's in tankers, or anything else. Second, just go, and buy a 2nd hand 1kva generator from eBay for $150-$200, and a cheapest owned 10-15kg washing machine. Spend the rest on few months of water in tankers, and fuel.
    - mschuster91 5y ago
      > First, water must be coming to the camp some way, or another, or people would've been dead. The water (and fwiw, also food, medicine, literally everything) coming into refugee camps is extremely, extremely rationed to a point where even in summer months, people have to get by with sometimes half a liter per day and person. Forget about showering, forget about washing clothes. The biggest single cause of the 2015 mass migration was that Germany withdrew its UNHCR funding from 301 million $ to 143 million $ (per https://www.heise.de/tp/features/EU-Staaten-hatten-2015-fast-durchweg-Hilfen-fuer-syrische-Fluechtlinge-gekuerzt-3375668.html https://www.heise.de/tp/features/EU-Staaten-hatten-2015-fast...). The result of that loss of a small amount of money was that suddenly hundreds of thousands of people lost access to food. With the current financing situations, the last thing refugee camps need is more to take account for in the supply chain.
      - baybal2 5y ago
        I don't swallow this. Even in the most water starved countries, 10000 litre tanker delivery costs $10 at most. That's 1 million tons of water for 1 million bucks a year. It will be an insult to my intelligence to believe this. If you don't need drinking water the cost will go down further.
        mynameisvlad 5y ago
        > 10000 litre tanker delivery costs $10 at most. Source? Because I highly doubt that the entire supply chain, from getting the water to the tanker, to getting the tanker to the refugee camp, to unloading and making it available for use, costs $10 at most for a single tanker. Hell, even without the last step. Even without the first step. The fuel alone to get a tanker to the camp from wherever is itself more than $10.
        baybal2 5y ago
        That's the cost in Karachi with its completely depleted water table, where water comes from tens of kms from outside of the city.
        mynameisvlad 5y ago
        Once again, source? You're making pretty wild claims, you really need numbers to back it up.
        mschuster91 5y ago
        A quick google for "karachi water cost" brought up this: https://www.samaa.tv/news/pakistan/2021/01/karachi-water-tanker-rates-increased-by-rs300-to-rs500/ https://www.samaa.tv/news/pakistan/2021/01/karachi-water-tan... Given 2340 pakistani rupees for a 3000 gal tanker, it's about 12€ or 14$ by today's exchange rate. A tiny bit more expensive than GP claimed, but acceptably close enough.
dredmorbius 5y ago
A centralised service seems far more likely to be an efficient use of capital, labour, and scarce resources than distributing hundreds or thousands of hand-cranked tubs to individuals. Though as a make-work scheme, the latter might have benefits.
- burkaman 5y ago
  I agree, but this is a human system so efficiency is never the only concern. Would people feel comfortable handing their possessions over to a central service? Would they trust the people running it? Should they? Would people appreciate the overall time savings of a centralized service, or would they prefer the flexibility of being able to wash whenever they need? Which solution is more efficient for people who live in very remote places and can't easily travel? Is it really feasible to ask overburdened and underfunded administrators to set up another centralized system on top of food, water, medicine, shelter, education, etc.? If they have no capacity to take on more work, a distributed system might be better.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    There are different models of centralisation, and yes, trust is a factor in several ways. "Centralised" needn't be "a single centre serving an entire camp", though that's clearly one model. It could also be nodes distributed amongst every-so-many refugees, based on a full-utilisation estimate. Say: every family does laundry 1x weekly, for 2 hours, within a 12-hour day, 6 days a week, giving one washing machine per 36 families. Hypothetical though plausible numbers, modify assumptions to arrive at different values. If a family has 4 members, this would be about 7 machines per 1,000 camp inhabitants. Are we comparing 250 x $30 hand laundry systems (1 per family) vs. 7 x $100 laundry systems (plus power and water)? The electrically-powered machines would be 1/10th the total cost, though requiring greater coordination and infrastructure. The service might be fully staffed, or a family member would operate the washer. The risks for a full-service laundry are of loss of clothes to the refugees. The risks of a self-service laundry is abuse or damage to the equipment to the providing and/or managing agency or operators. One problem facing refugee camps is that they're organised on the explicit assumption that they are temporary, and that there isn't an economy --- people not only don't work and produce goods and services, they often cannot by camp and government regulations. A resident-operated laundry might be sensible, but prohibited.

A generator + second hand industrial washing machine will cost less than $1000 together, and will probably be enough to wash clothes of hundreds of people in a day. That's more usefulness than any of these space toilets NGOs splurge millions of bucks on.

burkaman 5y ago
If you have a plan for a generator that can power washing machines for an entire refugee camp, plus the machines themselves, plus a supply chain to deliver fuel for the generator, plus a stable supply of water for the machines, plus plumbing to distribute water throughout the camp, plus electrical infrastructure for the camp, plus education and materials for residents to maintain and repair all of that, all for under $1000, I'm sure Oxfam would be very interested to hear it.
- baybal2 5y ago
  I see it very simple, and my firsts ache to reach the face of a first person to shout "lets do SWOT analysis!" First, water must be coming to the camp some way, or another, or people would've been dead. Whether it's in tankers, or anything else. Second, just go, and buy a 2nd hand 1kva generator from eBay for $150-$200, and a cheapest owned 10-15kg washing machine. Spend the rest on few months of water in tankers, and fuel.
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    > First, water must be coming to the camp some way, or another, or people would've been dead. The water (and fwiw, also food, medicine, literally everything) coming into refugee camps is extremely, extremely rationed to a point where even in summer months, people have to get by with sometimes half a liter per day and person. Forget about showering, forget about washing clothes. The biggest single cause of the 2015 mass migration was that Germany withdrew its UNHCR funding from 301 million $ to 143 million $ (per https://www.heise.de/tp/features/EU-Staaten-hatten-2015-fast-durchweg-Hilfen-fuer-syrische-Fluechtlinge-gekuerzt-3375668.html https://www.heise.de/tp/features/EU-Staaten-hatten-2015-fast...). The result of that loss of a small amount of money was that suddenly hundreds of thousands of people lost access to food. With the current financing situations, the last thing refugee camps need is more to take account for in the supply chain.
    - baybal2 5y ago
      I don't swallow this. Even in the most water starved countries, 10000 litre tanker delivery costs $10 at most. That's 1 million tons of water for 1 million bucks a year. It will be an insult to my intelligence to believe this. If you don't need drinking water the cost will go down further.
      - mynameisvlad 5y ago
        > 10000 litre tanker delivery costs $10 at most. Source? Because I highly doubt that the entire supply chain, from getting the water to the tanker, to getting the tanker to the refugee camp, to unloading and making it available for use, costs $10 at most for a single tanker. Hell, even without the last step. Even without the first step. The fuel alone to get a tanker to the camp from wherever is itself more than $10.
        baybal2 5y ago
        That's the cost in Karachi with its completely depleted water table, where water comes from tens of kms from outside of the city.
        mynameisvlad 5y ago
        Once again, source? You're making pretty wild claims, you really need numbers to back it up.
        mschuster91 5y ago
        A quick google for "karachi water cost" brought up this: https://www.samaa.tv/news/pakistan/2021/01/karachi-water-tanker-rates-increased-by-rs300-to-rs500/ https://www.samaa.tv/news/pakistan/2021/01/karachi-water-tan... Given 2340 pakistani rupees for a 3000 gal tanker, it's about 12€ or 14$ by today's exchange rate. A tiny bit more expensive than GP claimed, but acceptably close enough.

dredmorbius 5y ago

A centralised service seems far more likely to be an efficient use of capital, labour, and scarce resources than distributing hundreds or thousands of hand-cranked tubs to individuals. Though as a make-work scheme, the latter might have benefits.

burkaman 5y ago
I agree, but this is a human system so efficiency is never the only concern. Would people feel comfortable handing their possessions over to a central service? Would they trust the people running it? Should they? Would people appreciate the overall time savings of a centralized service, or would they prefer the flexibility of being able to wash whenever they need? Which solution is more efficient for people who live in very remote places and can't easily travel? Is it really feasible to ask overburdened and underfunded administrators to set up another centralized system on top of food, water, medicine, shelter, education, etc.? If they have no capacity to take on more work, a distributed system might be better.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  There are different models of centralisation, and yes, trust is a factor in several ways. "Centralised" needn't be "a single centre serving an entire camp", though that's clearly one model. It could also be nodes distributed amongst every-so-many refugees, based on a full-utilisation estimate. Say: every family does laundry 1x weekly, for 2 hours, within a 12-hour day, 6 days a week, giving one washing machine per 36 families. Hypothetical though plausible numbers, modify assumptions to arrive at different values. If a family has 4 members, this would be about 7 machines per 1,000 camp inhabitants. Are we comparing 250 x $30 hand laundry systems (1 per family) vs. 7 x $100 laundry systems (plus power and water)? The electrically-powered machines would be 1/10th the total cost, though requiring greater coordination and infrastructure. The service might be fully staffed, or a family member would operate the washer. The risks for a full-service laundry are of loss of clothes to the refugees. The risks of a self-service laundry is abuse or damage to the equipment to the providing and/or managing agency or operators. One problem facing refugee camps is that they're organised on the explicit assumption that they are temporary, and that there isn't an economy --- people not only don't work and produce goods and services, they often cannot by camp and government regulations. A resident-operated laundry might be sensible, but prohibited.