Ecology, gender and poo – oh my! A chat with SOIL founder Sasha Kramer

When I first learned about Dr. Kramer and SOIL, I just kind of thought, “Whoa. That’s cool.” Closed the tab and moved on with my day. 

Except I couldn’t move on. I kept thinking about the relationship between our waste, our human waste (poo), and our waste, like our rubbish waste. How we were, pardon the pun, wasting our own waste and creating more unnecessary waste in the process. Then I just kept saying ‘waste’ in my head and the next thing I knew, it was dark outside. 

SOIL does something pretty incredible. They’re an organisation based in Haiti that helps people who don’t have access to sewer sanitation safely remove waste from their homes and then transforms that waste into fertiliser that benefits the environment and the economy. It’s pretty amazing. 

Also amazing, is SOIL’s Executive Director, Dr. Sasha Kramer. She’s an academic turned human rights activist, and now sanitation expert. In honour of International Women’s Day (or month, if you’re us), we sat down with her to talk about all things poo, leadership and womanhood. 

Let’s start by talking a little bit about the work that Soil does. And who you are, of course.

My name is Sasha Kramer and I'm the co-founder and Executive Director of SOIL. SOIL is an organisation with a mission to address public health and environmental issues by transforming waste into resources. 

We started in 2006 with a rather broad mission to transform waste into resources. Now we focus specifically on trying to address the urban sanitation crisis – so looking at growing cities. We are based in Haiti and we work only here, but what we're looking at is a problem that is happening all over the world as cities grow at a pace faster than infrastructure can keep up. We're trying to design a sanitation service delivery model that works for these rapidly expanding cities, informal settlements, places where sewers don't reach, and finding a way to get dignified sanitation into households, and then get the poop out of the households and transformed into compost and back on to the soil. 

You call this process a “climate positive sanitation solution,” which is really cool. Do you think that this sort of model could be replicated in other places like Australia, the US or UK? 

I think that's a really neat idea. It would take some re-imagining the way that we look at sanitation and recreating what it is that is considered aspirational. Right now, because in many countries where sanitation systems are functioning well and people have the luxury of not really thinking about their toilet very much, it's a flush toilet. So that's the standard, the gold standard as it's seen around the world. 

But I think we should really start thinking about what are some of the positive and negative externalities of that sanitation system. Does flushing our poop down the toilet with water really make sense? Does it make sense now? Will it make sense in the future?

I'm not saying sewers will go away in the future, but I think that it is becoming very clear that we need a menu of sanitation options. There are lots of people experimenting with ways to do ecological sanitation to recycle our waste that can be really nice and comfortable and fit well into the systems they have in their towns. Especially in places that experience serious water shortages, there’s a need to look into dry toilet solutions that are high-performing and comfortable and convenient and can fit into the built infrastructure that already exists in cities.

I'm curious how you first got started interested in sanitation. And what about it did you find activating?

I think this is probably the case for most sanitation entrepreneurs that I know, they didn't really start out thinking about sanitation. It was something that pulled them into it. So most of us were not originally trained in sanitation, but have learned through experience. 

In my case, I'm trained as an ecologist. So my fascination has always been with nutrient cycles. I am especially a big fan of nitrogen, always loved nitrogen, and just thought a lot about in this globalised world. How do we start to close the loop and make these nutrient cycles more local? 

I came to Haiti as a human rights observer, and I had nothing to do with sanitation or ecology. But I think that being in Haiti in that context, it just became very clear to me that the most pervasive human rights abuse is really poverty.

What does exactly it mean to be a human rights observer?

That was my question when I came actually, I didn't know. I had read a book in graduate school called Eyes of the Heart, which was written by the former president of Haiti, and I loved it. And I said, "Oh, when I'm done with graduate school, I'm moving to Haiti, I'm going to work at the Aristide Foundation."

And so I thought this, and then a few years after reading it, President Aristide was overthrown in a coup. And it was pretty clearly a US backed coup and I was interested in understanding the schism between my understanding of social movements and Haiti and what I was reading in the US media. And so I thought, "I want to go to Haiti and I want to try to better understand this on the ground." And I thought human rights observers, they do that. You go, and you just try to understand the situation, but I remember very clearly having this terrible imposter syndrome and feeling of like, "I'm not trained for this. I don't even really know what it means." But I think what it means is exactly that, it's about a passion for social justice and bringing an open mind to a place and just being willing to listen and understand people and, from there, see where it takes you.

And where did it take you? 

Well, when I started talking to people about some of the biggest issues they face, certainly food security always came up as one of the top ones, and that was not surprising, but I think I was surprised that so many people mentioned sanitation and not having access to a toilet. For me, it just triggered this thought of, "Oh, why as an ecologist, all these years of training and we never talked about human poop?"

We talked about cow poop, we probably talked about whale poop. Everybody else's poop was interesting. Ecologists never talk about human poop. And I thought, "This is the missing link if you want to close nutrient cycles. You have got to get the nutrients from human waste back onto the fields that grew the food." And that's a really interesting way to use ecological systems to bring together human rights and ecology.

And then you started an organisation.

Yup, and here I still am 15 years later.

What was that process like? Was there a moment where you were like, "Well, you know what? I'm just going to roll up my sleeves and start doing something? 

You know, I feel very lucky that it all worked out. I knew I wanted to move to Haiti, to engage in social change, but I didn't have anything in mind. And I think that was actually really good because it allowed me the freedom to get to know amazing community leaders. Through my relationships with them, I was able to develop an understanding of what the problems were and what some interesting ways to address them might be. 

We started really small, with a few toilets for a couple of years, and really tried to figure out how to make the compost thing work. From there, forming an organisation just naturally fell into place.

We said, "We should start an organisation, try to raise money, build some more toilets and learn more about how this works."

A lot of your work lives at this intersection of humanness and scienceness, While these two things are not necessarily contradictory, they're not always aligned. How do you navigate that?

Sanitation sits at the intersection of so many things. But in my mind of human rights and ecology, I think you're right. Sometimes things that might be best for the larger ecosystem are not going to be what is most dignified and accessible to the people living within that ecosystem. So it is this constant balance of needing to design a service that meets people's social needs and their basic human dignity needs. And at the same time, try to do it in a way that will be never negative, sometimes neutral, and hopefully positive for the environment.

That's a really interesting way to look at it. This is a left field question, but I've noticed that in the nonprofit sector, leadership is disproportionately female. And I think that's really fascinating. I'm wondering why you think that is.

I have also noticed this, and I certainly notice it within our organisation. What is it that draws women to nonprofits? I wonder if it is related to the fact that women, having had to fight against sexism in our own lives, are more attuned to the importance of fighting for the rights of others?

You don't want to say that women are just more caring about the world, but there is this phenomenon that is hard to ignore if you are a woman in the field. Because it expands across issues as well. 

Yeah, well now I just want to turn the question around on you. What do you think?

What do I think?

I'm so curious now. You've intrigued me.

It's really hard. It's hard to answer this question without pulling out a very wide brush. And if I were to get really theoretical, I would say that it has something to do with... I'm going to sound nuts.

Oh no, this is good. You put me on the spot with it. I want to hear now.

I always thought that it had something to do with our reproductive systems being very internal. I should note this is also not the official Who Gives A Crap stance. 

But I do think biologically, and then socially, we're taught to care for the internal. And it spawns more empathy about the internal lives of others, which I think is what makes women drawn to bettering the world and caregiving in some sense. There is an increased understanding of what it means to care for an ecosystem that is your body.

That was fantastic. That didn't sound nuts at all. I hope you don’t mind if I borrow from your theory the next time someone asks me that question.

Haha, you got it. Ok, last question. If there were a young person, a young girl specifically, who wanted to make an impact like you have, what would be your advice?

My advice would be sometimes you just have to spend some time putting your tools in your tool belt. 

You may need to spend years getting a degree that at points, you'll say, "Why am I doing this? This is not what I want to be doing with my life. I'm taking all these classes." But in the end, that degree is a tool in your tool belt. People will listen to you, and for better or for worse, people will listen to you in a different way if you have the opportunity to build up that degree.

Anything that you can do to make it easier to be heard, because what you have to say deserves to be listened to, do it.  And sometimes people need some red flashing lights and some cameras and things to make them listen. So I would say get those tools. If you have the chance, you pick up every tool you can, and then you use them and you get to work.

Yes! So good. And I lied, there’s one more question. How can people support your work?

People can check out our website, oursoil.org. And get the word out! Certainly, if people are able, financial contributions are always appreciated and well used. But, it’s also helpful to learn and share as much as you can. Not just about SOIL, but the amazing, innovative human rights and sanitation initiative around the world. And I think having cool toilet paper really helps too.

Thanks for the plug, Dr. Kramer, and for your time. It’s been so fun chatting with you.

Thank you! It’s been a pleasure.