Efficiency indicators for waste-based business models: fostering private-sector participation in wastewater and faecal-sludge management

Opportunities for public–private partnerships based on cost recovery from the reuse of human waste remain unexplored. In this paper, the authors present four potential business models involving aquaculture, biogas recovery, compost production and the use of faecal sludge as an industrial fuel, and describe their associated financial flows. The business models are based on efficiency indicators that can provide decision support to local authorities and entrepreneurs in choosing options that are best suited to local conditions and needs. The ultimate target should be that a portion of revenues from reuse can help finance less-profitable sections of the sanitation service chain.