Dear Lylian Rodriguez,

Greetings from Nepal !

With reference to your email 14 April 2000, following are the responses to your questions:

>Q.1 How far are the houses of people from the latrine-biogas system?

The houses of the local people are located at a distance of about 100m from the site of latrine-cum-biodigester.

>Q.2 Do refugees do any farming?

All of the refugee families are provided with a small piece of land where they grow  vegetables such as tomato, beans, ladies finger, chilies, lettuce, mustard leaves etc for nourishment.

>Q.3 Have you measured the DM and Nitrogen content of the effluent
>and also the ammonia content?

Analysis of DM, nitrogen, ammonia content as well as other nutrients (Phosphorus, Potash, micro-nutrients) in the faeces as well as slurry still remains to be done.

>Q.4 What is the amount of water added to the digester/day?
>How much effluent do you get/day?

Assuming that on an average 300 people visit the latrine every day and they use 0.5 litre water for anal cleaning, it would amount to 150 litre of water per day. However, some amount of additional water is required for the general cleaning of the latrine which is estimated to be about 30 litres. Thus, about 180 litre of water is added daily to the digester.

About 250 litre of effluent (slurry) is expected to be produced per day from the digester.

>Q.5 Is there any research going on in the quality of effluent from
>biodigesters fed with human excreta and those fed with animal
>excreta and on the way that the Nitrogen is present? ammonia?

This is very nice question. As yet, no research has been done to assess the quality of effluent from biodigester fed with human and animal excreta with respect to the N or ammonium content. But there is a plan to conduct such research in the immediate future.

>Q.6. I am also interested in knowing more about the pathogens in the
>effluent and the levels of infestation that we can get in the aquatic
>plants, vegetables or whatever crop that we fertilize with it, so if
>you have any information or references on it we welcome them.

Result of analysis of water test of the bacteriology for ova, cysts, parasites and coliforms carried out about two years ago revealed following results:

v No ova, cyst and parasites seen
v 2 to 7 E.coli/100ml
v Categorized as : 'B"
v The tested water is acceptable for drinking.

We will be able to send you some information/reference about the pathogens (perhaps Chinese experiences) you soon. Please wait!

Thank you for your comments and the interest.

Best regards
Amrit & Upendra