Nairobi — Whenever Mary Atieno and her family must use the bathroom it is always an anxious moment.

For the middle-aged mother of six, options in the Silanga village in Nairobi's Kibera slums, are limited.

During the day, there are long queues for latrines that cost Ksh5 to use.

At night, her family must relieve themselves in a plastic bag to be disposed of as a "flying toilet," early the next morning.

"It is not the most hygienic of ways, but what do you do when you have to use the toilet?" Mrs Atieno asks.

That's why when the curiously named "Peepoople" sanitation project came to Silanga Village, she was more than happy to participate in a research to develop an environmentally friendly toilet bag.

For millions of people like Ms Atieno, who live in East African slum communities with poor or non-existent sanitation facilities, the Sweden-based Peepoople initiative offers a sound solution to the immense problem of waste disposal.

Peepoople is the brainchild of Anders Wilhelmson, an architect and professor at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

He began research into the concept in 2005, in collaboration with SLU Swedish University of Agricultural Science.

The research stems from Wilhelmson's growing concern about sanitation issues.

Global figures on sanitation estimate that 2.6 billion people worldwide don't have access to basic sanitation.

Annually, 2.2 million people die from sanitation-related illnesses.

According to the United Nations World Water Development Report, 2006, 65 per cent of people living in Kenya's urban areas have no access to basic sanitation, while 40 per cent of rural dwellers go without sanitation facilities.

Related illnesses account for 6 per cent of premature deaths in Kenya, and most medical visits are caused by poor sanitation.

"Many people do not realise just how big an issue sanitation - or lack thereof - is especially in urban slum areas. Peepoople seeks to provide an optimum sanitation solution that is sustainable," says Suraj Sudhakar, the Peepoople project manager in Nairobi.

The first field test of the Peepoople bag was carried out in Kibera in 2008, to coincide with the International Year of Sanitation.

One of inventor Wilhelmson's partners, researcher Camilla Wirseen, has shuttled between Sweden and Kenya overseeing the project's development.

"I came to Nairobi in 2007 and visited UN-Habitat, and was introduced to some community-based organisations in Kibera. We hadn't yet finalised the design or produced any Peepoople toilets. I came to test the idea and Kibera residents really liked it. So we gained confidence to keep going," she says.

The project's community engagement strategy focused on identifying residents to help build support.

Five youth from Silanga village in Kibera helped in distributing the bags, collecting them after use and burying them.

"We talked to families together with the village elders and explained the project and how to use the bags," says Bernard Otieno, one of the five young men.

Opposition

As with every new initiative, the young volunteers faced opposition from the community. Some regarded the project as offensive for cultural reasons.

"The men especially could not wrap their minds around this idea," says Joel Patrick Kiratu, another team member. "Being much older than us, they said we should not be talking to them about faeces, which they viewed as a dirty thing."

Other cultural challenges included the presence of a toilet inside the house, as well as shared toilet space by different genders and generations of family members.

"When they saw the bag, the men took it as an insult for us to suggest they use it. We used to be called watu wa mavi (faeces people) and it took a while for the community to understand the benefits of proper hygiene and sanitation," adds Kiratu.

But in many cases, the women in the families were more receptive.

"Once we were educated on how to use it, it turned out quite well. I liked that it was easy to use and convenient," says Mrs Atieno.

"I placed a small bucket in the corridor of my house to store the used bags and give the boys in the morning. My husband refused to use it," Mrs Atieno recalls, laughing.

A convincing 9 per cent of users felt that the bag was safe and clean to handle.

"One of the most important lessons for me was that the stigma associated with faecal management reduced significantly," says project manager Suraj. "Users would carry the knotted bags comfortably as the boys went around collecting them because there was no smell."

Ultimately, the big selling points for most residents were financial and environmental benefits.

Fifty families, a total of 300 people, participated in the study, and every family member earned a free bag of fertilizer for their effort.

The Peepoople project will officially launch a large-scale phase at the end of this year.

By then, researchers will have made suggested improvements in bag size, collection points and pricing.

"We will involve local partners, youth groups and parents and teachers to mobilise communities and raise awareness in schools. We also have plans of going regional," says Suraj.

It is hoped that such advancements will help developing countries realise the Millennium Development Goals of halving, by 2015, the percentage of the world's population who lack sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.