The Best Ideas Happen
on the Loo
To celebrate World Toilet Day 2025, we have created this learning hub to explore innovation, ideas and developments in the sanitation sector. We hope to spark some great new ideas!
The Best Ideas Podcast
Listen to our chat with
Listen to our chat with
Listen to our chat with
This World Toilet Day, we’re celebrating the power of brilliant ideas 💡
Because sometimes, simple moments spark the biggest innovations. At Loowatt, we’re proving that toilets can do more than meet a basic need. They can drive sustainability, improve health, and create circular value from waste.
3.4 billion people (that’s 58% of earth’s population) still lack access to safe sanitation, and solving that requires bold thinking. Our waterless, chemical-free toilet systems and circular sanitation model show what’s possible when innovation meets necessity.
This World Toilet Day, we’re shining a light on the ideas, and the people, transforming how the world thinks about sanitation.
Question Time
What’s the best idea you’ve had on the loo?
Interesting and Innovative Toilets
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Bradley Godbold
HEAD OF PRODUCT
“This image is from the Zeitz MOCAA (Museum of Contemporary Art Africa) in Cape Town, South Africa. They have cool toilets (not the sole reason I went) and a very cool atrium space.
The building started life as multiple concrete grain silos, the cutout that creates the central atrium space is based on the shape of a single grain, scaled up to span the full 27m height.
I first heard about the building when attending a talk by Thomas Heatherwick, a British designer and the building's architect, at the Royal Academy back in 2018, the same year I joined Loowatt as a design intern.
Never did I think I'd see this building in person, but 5 years later I did while working with our South Africa team.”
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Virginia Gardiner
CEO & FOUNDER
“Many people who have attended Stockholm World Water Week may have used this bathroom, which is in one of the city's finest restaurants. The interior was designed by Thomas Sandell, a Swedish Architect, in 1989. Sandell sums up his design philosophy with three words: function, art, and joy.
Although I have never shared this bathroom, I love the convivial humour of its two toilets. It brings back childhood memories, when I did indeed have long conversations with my sister in bathrooms, and also had a good cackle at one of Saturday Night Live's toilet-themed skits (The Love Toilet).
It also reminds me of what we are trying to do at Loowatt: to bring not only the functional necessity of a toilet to underserved homes, but to go with it, all of the joys that can come with a safe, dignified, clean and comfortable place to do your business.”
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Nicola Telford
HEAD OF MARKETING
“Long before I joined Loowatt, when I was living in Bristol, I briefly met the founders of PEEQUAL, Hazel Mcshane and Amber Probyn, and loved how someone was innovating for women in sanitation. This female-urinal concept transforms those endless loo queues into mere seconds (yes, fewer than you might expect), especially for women and AFAB folks.
Fast forward a few years, and here I am working with with Loowatt; who are also changing the lives of women through sustainable sanitation + equitable access. PEEQUAL’s gender-equalising urinals quit queue times, support women and girls (and everyone menstruating or AFAB) and just generally make people feel seen and like they matter.
Sanitation is deeply connected with gender equality, so I want to highlight women like Virginia, Hazel & Amber innovating for women in sanitation.”
Question Time
What’s the most innovative or interesting toilet you’ve seen?
Interesting Sanitation Reads
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We Need Toilets Fit for the Future
We must urgently invest in ‘future-ready' sanitation: resilient to climate change and accessible to everyone, everywhere, always. Read more about the UN World Toilet Day 2025 theme.
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Tackling Sanitation Taboos Across Urban Africa
What happens when sewer systems leave people behind? Across Africa, millions still live without safe sanitation, facing daily challenges that impact health, dignity, and opportunity. Read why traditional systems are failing and how communities are coming together with creative, people-centric solutions to build a fairer, cleaner future for everyone.
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World Toilet Day Factsheet
“In a changing world, one thing is constant: we’ll always need the toilet. No matter what lies ahead, we will always rely on sanitation to protect us from diseases and keep our environment clean. Today, billions of people still live without a safe toilet — with the poorest, especially women and girls, worst affected.”
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The Tokyo Toilet
The Tokyo Toilet project is a reimagining of one of the most overlooked parts of city life: public restrooms. Learn how they are transforming public perception about toilets and sanitation. Each restroom reflects Japan’s commitment to cleanliness, design excellence, and social inclusion.
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Safe Sanitation & Solid Waste Management
Learn more about Loowatt Madagascar’s evolving partnership with the Antananarivo city authority. By uniting municipal infrastructure with innovative private-sector systems, the project is proving that sanitation can be hygienic, dignified and environmentally regenerative, offering a real-world blueprint for urban sanitation in rapidly changing cities.
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Why Safe Fecal Sludge Management Matters
A recent study in Dakar, Senegal shows that viral genetic material from respiratory and fecal pathogens remains detectable in sludge from on-site sanitation systems for months (even at 30 °C.) This means that managing and monitoring human waste is just as vital as providing toilets when it comes to protecting public health and enabling early disease detection.
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World Toilet Day Interview with Andry Ratsifehera
“Toilets! Not that glamorous of a topic to talk about right? Well, it’s all we really like to talk about and so we’re going to keep doing it anyway.”
Dive into Andry’s interview with our partners at SOIL Haiti to learn more about why World Toilet Day matters, how we’re tackling safe sanitation in Madagascar, and so much more!
Helpful Resources from our Friends at SOIL Haiti
“We urgently need to invest in ‘future-ready’ sanitation today. Together, we must ensure toilets are: accessible to all; resilient to floods, droughts and other climate shocks; minimize greenhouse gas emissions; and, are supported by strong systems and sustained investment.”
(UN Water)
Now I can even read magazines in the toilet: Virginia’s World Toilet Day Reflections
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