Loowatt’s waterless flush toilets take a star turn at upcoming V&A exhibition, ‘FOOD: Bigger than the plate’

Written by: Virginia Gardiner - CEO Loowatt

Loowatt is flush with happiness to be the only sanitation solution featured amongst 70 contemporary projects in the highly anticipated V&A exhibition opening this Saturday, 18th May 2019.

In a world-famous museum, going to the toilet is not usually part of their exhibition experience. Happily, the V&A has embraced this natural necessity as a logical component of their upcoming exhibition about food, the Loowatt waterless flush toilet sitting pretty in the ‘compost’ section of ‘FOOD: Bigger than the Plate.’

Loowatt’s presence at the V&A comes hot on the heels of our winning the ‘Game-Changer’ Prize last week at Cleantech Innovate 2019, a leading annual showcase of game-changing clean technologies. I am likely biased, but I sense there is an awareness and sentiment shift occurring on a mainstream level about the importance of sanitation as a world health challenge. Given 4.5 billion people lack access to safely-managed sanitation and 1 million deaths each year are caused by fecal-borne illnesses, at Loowatt we are glad it’s becoming more palatable to talk openly about serious shit that happens every day.
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FOOD: Bigger than the Plate is an exploration of how innovative individuals, communities and organisations are radically re-inventing how we grow, distribute and experience food. Our Loowatt waterless flush toilet deals with the inescapable byproduct of food, sealing human waste into biodegradable polymer film for anaerobic digestion. In the digester, human waste is converted into valuable renewable energy and fertiliser; so upon reflection, why wouldn’t an innovative sanitation solution take centre stage when talking about the food cycle? Bravo to the exhibition curators for taking this bold step and bringing the important subject of sanitation out from behind closed doors.