A life-saving solar-powered toilet has been developed for a UN-backed project to improve global sanitation.

Engineers have unveiled eSOS – the emergency Sanitation Operation System.

The concept provides a sustainable, holistic and affordable sanitation solution during the aftermath of a disaster.

eSOS is a big boost for mobile toilet and treatment facilities, and it can bring cost savings to the entire sanitation management chain.

Poor sanitation is a serious killer.

It often claims as many lives in disaster-zones as the disaster itself, and becomes a particular issue when people become tightly-packed in temporary camps.

But the UN’s Institute for Water Education says its prototype eSOS smart toilet will cut the death toll by minimising threats to public health for the most vulnerable members of society.

The emergency toilets feature a robust and light-weight structure, making them easily deployable in disaster areas.

The smart toilet includes unique features that may change the way toilets are used in emergencies.

The future-loo includes remote-sensing and monitoring, an energy supply unit, GSM/GPS sensor/card, occupancy sensors, urine/faeces accumulation sensor, an S.O.S. button, and a communication system that allows for data collection and transfer for emergency coordination centre on or off site.

The data resulting from the use of the toilets will allow the toilets and the entire sanitation management chain to be improved.

The eSOS toilet will be tested in a refugee camp in the Philippines in September, with a full suite of experimental testing planned in cooperation with relief agencies on the ground.