Improving sanitation is now increasingly being recognised as a key factor in ending poverty; providing basic sanitation has been included in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) under target 10 of halving the proportion of people without access to adequate basic sanitation by 2015. Meeting this target will also contribute to the other MDGs, such as hunger and poverty, reducing child mortality, universal primary education and combating HIV/AIDS.

Although the UN-HABITAT Vacutug Project was conceived in 1995, before the United Nations Millennium Declaration and the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, the fundamental principles and lessons learnt through this project are relevant and can be useful in understanding and developing strategies to address the MDGs especially target 10 and 11.

UN-HABITAT Vacutug development project evolved out of the need for a low cost and fully sustainable system for emptying pit latrines in unplanned, peri-urban areas and refugee camps in the developing countries. The options, in these areas, for disposing of latrine waste are many:-

• Transported directly to a sewage treatment facility.
• Discharged to a main sewer which will bring the wastes to the sewage treatment facility.
• By burying at a dumpsite or landfill.
• By burying at a special location with daily covering.
• By discharging into specially constructed evaporation ponds.

However to remove latrine waste from pits and into a disposal point, only two options are available: mechanical or manual emptying. The UN-HABITAT Vacutug provides a solution to mechanical emptying. Its development goes back to nearly twenty years of research, which was set up by IRCWD in Botswana in 1983 resulting to the development of Brevac and consequent developments of Micravac and Mapet systems, which evolved out of experiences gained in the Botswana trials. The various experiences were  evaluated and six critical areas where identified in conceptualising the design of the Vacutug, there were that the:-

1. The system should access latrines in high-density settlements and be manoeuvrable;
2. The capital cost of the technology should be affordable to small-scale entrepreneurs;
3. The machine should be designed for local manufacture, operation and maintenance;
4. Operating costs of the service should be covered by revenue generated;
5. The system should be capable of transporting the waste to an appropriate disposal point; and
6. The system should be able to evacuate compacted sludge from latrines

The basic design of the UN-HABITAT Vacutug Mark I and Mark II

The technology compromises a 0.5 m³ steel vacuum tank connected to a sliding vane vacuum pump capable of a 0.8 bar vacuum. A 4.1 kW petrol engine can be connected to either the vacuum pump or a friction roller to drive the front wheels. On level ground, the vehicle is capable of around 5km/hr. The whole assembly is mounted on a steel chassis with a car axle and wheel assembly to the rear. The overall dimensions of the machine are around 1.5m long by 1m high. The vacuum tank is fitted with 3 inches diameter valves at the top and bottom of the tank and the waste is evacuated from the latrine via a 3-inch diameter PVC vacuum hose. The waste sludge can be discharged under gravity or by slight pressurisation from the pump. The machine is equipped with a throttle, clutch and two brakes.