How Wasted* Is Bringing Sustainability To The Portable Sanitation Industry

Posted by: Shyam - The Porta Potty Guy // Wasted*

Believe it or not, there’s a lot of waste in the portable waste industry, and we’re not just talking about human waste.  From route optimizations, to what kind of toilet paper is used, to where the actual human waste ends up, there is room to elevate the overall sustainability of this industry. That is where Wasted* comes in. Through sustainable business practices, use of eco-friendly and sustainable products, and pushing the cutting edge of R&D to transform “waste” into something beneficial for the Earth… Wasted* has become an innovation leader in the portable sanitation industry.

By renting with Wasted*, our customers are participating in a collaborative initiative to bring sustainable practices to the portable sanitation industry.

Here’s a glimpse into some of our sustainable initiatives:

Route & Unit Optimizations: Here at Wasted* the majority of our standard portable toilets are collapsible and stackable. What this means, is that we are able to load up to 24 of our units onto our truck. Such an increase in unit capacity allows us to decrease time driving, and emissions by 400% when delivering units for large events. This also allows us to decrease the amount of trucks needed to run routes, as one truck can do the servicing, pickup, and delivery of an entire route opposed to needing one truck for delivery & pickup and one for servicing of units. 

Urine Diversion Technology: At the core of our Burlington operations is urine diversion. Over 30% of our fleet of portables, and 100% of our trailers, are outfitted with urine diversion technology. Doing so allows us to capture the urine collected in our units, bring the waste back to our hub, process it, and turn it into commercial-grade fertilizer to be used by non-food farms. To date, Wasted* has produced over 3,000 gallons of fertilizer to be used by our offtake partners. We are continuing to find ways to outfit our portables with urine diversion technology, this also includes adding urinals to our fleet for large events. 

Nutrient Recovery R&D: Burlington, Vermont is our platform for collaborative research and development — exploring the most effective methods to recover valuable resources from human waste. Through internal product development and collaborations with external technologists and thought leaders, we are optimizing our treatment system for safety, energy efficiency, and — ultimately — value of the resources we are recovering. We are collaborating with regulators and permitters in our new markets as we prepare to export our treatment system.

Sustainable & Eco-Friendly Products: Wasted* prides itself on using eco-friendly and sustainability-focused products within our units. Starting with our toilet paper, Wasted* Wipes, is 100% bamboo. Bamboo toilet paper saves roughly 0.015 trees per roll. Now, that doesn’t seem like a lot, but during peak season we use over 900 rolls of toilet paper a week, across Burlington and Boston. During peak months, we save over 54 trees a month. Similarly, bamboo only uses a 3rd of the water needed for a traditional tree that gets turned into toilet paper. Those 900 rolls we use a week saves about 1,980 gallons of water- which is pretty awesome. Unlike other portable sanitation providers, our ‘blue goo’ inside our portable toilets doesn’t contain any harsh chemicals. Our goo is an enzyme-based product, not full of chemicals like formaldehyde.

Interested in learning more about what Wasted is doing to transform the portable sanitation industry? Contact us today!