Toilet practices and system change : lessons from a transdisciplinary research project

This paper draws on a pilot project in which niche approaches to sanitation have been trialled to learn about and determine the potential for system change. Urine diversion systems (UD), which capture, store and reuse urine in agriculture as a substitute for chemical fertiliser, have been trialled within an institutional setting (UTS, Sydney) over the last two years in collaboration with government, industry and academic partners. The successful adoption of sustainable innovation is a complex process that implicates people and practices. Qualitative social research tools were implemented to capture changing perceptions of users, the domestication process and the range of issues arising in the practical use of UD toilets. Feedback from end-users highlighted the need to modify their own practices, adopt new practices and the need for technology modifications to accommodate established practices, if UD was to be more widely accepted beyond experimental trials. The value of qualitative inquiry was that it provided a way of capturing subjective and speculative knowledge from participants about the social context of the trial and unexpected consequences of trialling innovation in practice. Social practice theory was used to analyse this social data. Much of social practice theory tends to focus on normality (or analysis of established routines) rather than novelty (or facilitation of emerging routines). The unique perspective of this research is that it draws on empirical evidence to focus on emerging routines and the challenges for users changing established practices in the adoption of urine diversion toilets.