the tippy tap, drops make ripples

many of the news articles i've read had said one of the immediate priorities for saving life in the aftermath of the haiti earthquake is the provision of clean water and sanitation. in crowded areas, without proper hygiene and sanitation, disease outbreaks can be fatal.

this brings us to the tippy tap, a simple device that enables handwashing in areas without piped water or plumbing infrastructure. many of the diseases--like diarrhea and respiratory infections--responsible for a significant portion of infant mortality in the developing world, can be largely prevented simply by washing hands. the rationale for handwashing is further explained at the global handwashing day website. handwashing is an irrefutable integral part of any water, sanitation, and hygiene project.

tippy taps allow people to wash their hands, often times with a foot-powered lever, make it extremely hygienic. in addition, tippy taps use much less water than faucet handwashing. i've heard estimates of up to 90% less. another bonus is that they are cheap to make and can be adapted to use locally available materials. you don't need much more than a water container with a handle, some rope, a machete, a nail, a hot fire, a container to hold liquid or hard soap, and sticks or bamboo.

i first heard about tippy taps at an international sustainable sanitation conference i was attending in inner mongolia in sept 2007. i made my first tippy tap in april 2008 before a training held along the thai-burma border. at the training, i set up 5 stations and gave a presentation to local karen on the importance of handwashing.

they are really quick and simple to make. i used the directions found here as a template. shortcomings of his design include a level that isn't firming fixed into the ground, but moves around; and the lever string that obstructs the act of handwashing. this design makes people wash their hands with the level string between their hands, which is inconvenient and leaves a potential for contamination through string-hand contact. i've improved upon this design by pegging in the foot lever on a track and putting it off to one side. i've also experimented with different types of sinks to catch and drain away dirty water. another thing i've been trying out is different ways to tie off the cap so that the lever string doesn't obstruct or come in contact with dirty hands. but i noticed that looping the string can damage the plastic water container. a better alternative for greater convenience and more hand clearance would be to drill the opening for water to come out close to the side of the container opposite to the side where the foot lever is pegged. i'll work on these next time i build tippy taps for a more functional 3.0 version.

we used locally available, free, and renewable bamboo. i've seen gourds used for containers to hold the handwashing water before as well. the container can last a while, as long as it's taken care of. a hose running from piped water can be used to refill the tippy taps, as lifting and unlifting a filled container can be too heavy a task for younger children.

i made 7 more foot-powered tippy-taps in november 2009, 6 of them at safe haven orphanage, mentioned in previous posts, and another at a displaced persons camp.

on positioning the outlet hole and foot lever

i used a small diameter nail to melt a hole about 2 cm down from the top lip. you can play around with this to a certain extent, balancing between the two competing priorities of water retention capacity and tilt ease. the higher up the hole is, the hard it will be to tilt the tap to dispense water. if the lever bottoms out, hits the ground, and water doesn't come out, it means that the level ran off the track or the rope loosened up. check the track pegs and then the rope. you might have to add tension by adjusting the rope knot.

advice on picking a container:

i've seen containers as small as 1.5 liter being used, but i've chosen to use 10 liter containers to accommodate greater flows of people. 20 liters is simply too big. it'd be difficult to find a stick cross bar that would hold up that weight.

i originally thought that clear translucent containers were the way to go, because you can visually check the water level. but at the orphange, only solid black ones were available. i used them reluctantly, but was surprised when the water heated up in the sun and provided a nice warm wash. the black color also blocks out light and helps curb algal growth inside the containers.

i've also seen and heard of hand-tipped designs, which can serve those with foot handicaps. i think these are more complicated, but may be appropriate, depending on what locals want or need. one of my friends works with these types of systems in india. his video on it can be seen below.



in addition to "hardware," which is the physical infrastructure, to wash hands, making sure that the "software," or knowledge, skills, and attitudes to foster regular handwashing practices are adopted needs to be stressed. it's pointless to construct handwashing facilities and provide soap unless the target community understands oral-fecal contamination routes and linkages between handwashing and good health. "software" training needs to happen early on and regularly so that communities buy into projects and are able to take ownership of them. this way, institutional sustainability is insured and community members can then spread knowledge to others.

on a side note, i recently heard some awesome news: it was one of my karen friends' b-day a few weeks ago, and i went over to his place to say hi and celebrate. one of his friends who also turns out to be a former co-worker was also there. i had taught him how to make tippy taps back in april 2008. (i was a bit defeated and considered those tippy taps a failure, as the place where we put up tippy taps was lost to pro-government troops and the people that i had built them for had to flee the fighting). but i was pleasantly surprised that the knowledge is slowly, but surely spreading. he told me that he had built 2 tippy taps in one of the refugee camps, copying the design that i had showed him months earlier.