The Janicki Omniprocessor pilot project in Dakar, Senegal, successfully built a public-private partnership among the national sewage company and local businesses to establish a privately owned truck fleet to collect fecal sludge for processing in the Janicki Omniprocessor. The Omniprocessor reprocesses the sludge into inputs for agriculture and construction while also yielding energy and clean water.

Dakar’s urban population is exploding with an annual growth rate of 2.5% and urbanisation rate of 97.2%. This massive urban expansion leads to overpopulation and construction in restricted areas, creating illegal slums without planned infrastructure including proper drainage and sewage systems. Currently, 2.5 million people are without sufficient sanitation services and infrastructure cannot keep up with the population.

In an effort to relieve these pressures, ONAS, the National Sewerage Company, is improving faecal sludge management (FSM) services in urban and peri-urban areas by restructuring the delivery of sanitation services. One big success so far has been a pilot projec, supported by the Gates Foundation, that successfully developed a public private partnership between ONAS and local businesses to establish a privately owned truck fleet to collect faecal sludge for its processing in the Janicki Omniprocessor. The omniprocessor is an alternative to traditional sewerage management, yielding by-products from faecal sludge, including electricity, clean water, and ash that can be used as fertilizer for agriculture or in the manufacturing of breeze blocks for construction.

The program covers approximately 120,000 households in suburban areas of Pikine – Guediawaye, 52% of whom currently use manual emptying. The next step is upscaling beyond these 2 neighborhoods. This measure has been so successful that other African cities have approached ONAS to learn from their method.

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