UK: Innovation agency Innovate UK has awarded rolling stock maintenance equipment supplier GBR-Rail a SMART grant to support the development of its Cleartrak train toilet treatment system which is designed to reduce whole life costs and environmental impact.
Cleartrak recycles waste water for reuse in hand washing and flushing. Solid waste is processed into an inert biochar, solid material produced by thermochemical conversion in an oxygen-limited environment, which can be emptied once every six weeks without the need for specialist infrastructure.
GBR-Rail said a controlled emission toilet discharges 80 tonnes/year of waste into the sewage network, while Cleartrak produces just 0·25 tonnes of biochar a year for safe disposal. It believes the whole life costs of toilet servicing could be halved, with water wastage reduced by 95% and greenhouse gases by 35%.
The SMART grant follows on from First of a Kind funding awarded in 2020.
‘SMART funding will enable us to validate Cleartrak’s design and performance through extensive real world on-train testing’, said Managing Director Tim Brown. Commercialisation is planned for late September 2023.
