Loowatt provides waterless flush toilet and sanitation solutions to UK events and in countries where water is scarce. Their system offers flush toilet without the water, hygienically and odourlessly replacing traditional chemical toilets and avoiding the environmental pollution and financial costs due to transport and waste disposal. Loowatt then takes toilet waste to treatment centres to recover valuable nutrients used for fertiliser and to create energy through anaerobic digestion.

In 2019 they worked with 6 events, including Port Eliot, Wilderness and Black Deer Festival, saving 52,200 litres of water, collecting 28.3 tonnes of waste to be processed and creating 1,078 KWh of energy – enough to power 22,000 smartphones!

As well as replacing the chemical toilets they environmentally outperform other traditional festival toilets: vacuum flush toilets, which require an onsite electricity generation, water delivery, and daily pump-outs, meaning heavy vehicle access is needed throughout the event. Similarly, compost toilets can leave human feces exposed to air, increasing the risk of disease and causing problems with odour and insects – and they require heavy vehicle access to pump out urine from the site.  

Loowatt has worked with Wilderness Music festival for the last 4 years. Below are the headline statistics from their partnership in 2019

• The 34-toilet fleet served approximately 19 thousand visits, collecting over 5 tons of human waste from site.
• Transport and disposal costs were reduced by 65% compared to existing alternatives.
• An estimated 6 m3 of chemically dosed sewage was eliminated
• 9,500L water was saved compared to 34 vacuum, low-water flush toilets during the 3-day event.

The waste collected provided an energy generating potential up to 195 kWh equating to 13,000 hours of lighting or 32,500 smartphone charges.Because Loowatt requires no vehicle movement except for load in and load out – the risk of vehicle accidents was greatly reduced

During the festival Loowatt rose awareness of the toilet social issues through posters the back of each Loowatt toilet door.