Swacch Shauchaalay – Making clean and hygienic washrooms accessible to the travellers

Description

Swacch Shauchaalay – Making clean and hygienic washrooms accessible to the travellers

Once when I was travelling on the highways to reach my destination I found it difficult to locate CLEAN and HYGIENIC washrooms, especially for my mother. With the progress of the Indian economy, many people travel to various destinations through the national highways. While the roads have improved a lot in the past decades, finding a clean washroom has become a challenge for tourists. To address the basic need of every person, I propose an IoT device that can be fixed at the toilets on the highways that will indicate the cleanliness of the toilet. More people will stop in the petrol pumps with clean washrooms, which also helps to maintain cleanliness and hygiene for the country, adhering to the SDGs 3,6,9 and 11, and it also uplifts Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

Latrines are major sources of the greenhouse gas methane (CH4) from the anaerobic decomposition of organic matter. It also emits Ammonia, Hydrogen Sulphide and CO2. The gas sensors(MQ137 and various other gas sensors) detect these gases and the IR/Ultrasonic/UV sensor detects the solid waste. There will be two dashboards one for the users and one for the owners(generally petrol pumps) of the washroom. The owners have to enter the type of washroom and the other facilities(eg- Restaurants and fuel rates) .The cumulative value of the data received from the sensors are displayed in the user dashboard in the form of a score(they can also view individual parameters and the facilities) on the maps(Google maps API). Reviews from the users who used the washroom will be taken which will further influence the score. The owners will also receive alerts when the score is below a certain level. The device can be powered using solar energy, making it sustainable and easy to use in rural areas. LoRa network where there is no availability of internet. The project also uses cloud servers.

The target customers are all the people who have a public washroom in their property, majorly the petrol pumps and the restaurants, on the highways or expressways and many other roads. From the financial perspective, the customers how have this project will have high returns/profits. This is because, when people plan their trip, they will try stop only at the places where there is clean washrooms and facilities available. Therefore more people will stop where the washrooms are clean, forcing the owners to clean the washrooms(benefit for the customers) and more people stop and buy from those places where there is clean washrooms(benefit for the owners).

The overall aim of the project is to reduce open defecation, problems faced by women, the spread of diseases, hygiene issues, cleanliness of the country, to help the travellers and for national and economic development of the country.