Water Hygiene Convenience (WHC)
Winner of the Management of Technology Award in the category for emerging enterprises.
That hissing means a leaky loo
Countless households have toilets that hiss incessantly after being flushed and they think nothing of it. That’s because there’s a widespread perception that toilets are supposed to make this noise.
Paseka Lesolang, managing director of WHC, has news for you.
There’s nothing normal about that sibilant sound. It actually means the loo has a leak and could be wasting between 30 litres and 700 litres of water a day, which is enough to fill seven bathtubs.
According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Rand Water, the toilet is the single largest water consumer in the home, consuming approximately 29% of overall household consumption.
All told, South Africa is losing over R10 billion in non-revenue water a year and leaking toilets are one of the main culprits.
The problem is the standard inlet valve on the float in a toilet’s cistern. Thanks to the flawed design of the standard valve, leaks are inevitable. Neither households nor the country can afford all this water going to waste.
Paseka’s solution is the WHC Leak-Less-Valve™ , inspired by his grandmother (a story we’ll save for another day as WHC won a whole clutch of tt100 awards for this marvellous invention).
People hearing about the WHC Leak-Less-Valve™, which is retrofitted into the cistern to detect and stop loo leaks in double-quick time, invariably want to know where they can get their hands on one.
Paseka says the value will soon be “coming to a store near you” as plans for retail stocks are under way. But his vision for the valve is bigger than just your neighbourhood. He wants to see the WHC Leak-Less-Valve™ installed in toilets in entire communities, not only in South Africa but around the world.
“The more scalable the solution is, the more water we can save and the more impact we can have on people’s lives.”
Looking for scale and impact
With scale and impact in mind, WHC has come up with a nifty distribution system.
It starts by looking for sponsors who have a water crisis or are keen to save water. The beverages industry, for instance, uses huge volumes of water for soft drinks and is always on the lookout for ways to save it.
Similarly, many municipalities are in hot water (no pun intended) over wastage and they too are desperate to plug the leaks.
These partners provide the funding and access to the loos where they want the WHC Leak-Less-Valve™ installed, and WHC does the installations, using plumbers it has trained itself (more about that another time as well).
Sponsors who have teamed up with Paseka and his plumbers so far include the City of Tshwane, University of Johannesburg, Sasol, Technology Innovation Agency and the German development agency GIZ, to name a few.
Sasol for instance, has sponsored a manufacturing facility for WHC, while GIZ is opening doors in water-scarce Botswana. Plans are in the pipeline to install the WHC Leak-Less-Valve™ in all water-flushed toilets in Gaborone.
The days of leaking loos and water down the drain are numbered.
Mr Paseka Lesolang
CEO of W.H.C
