Portaloo Project

Portaloo operators provide a valuable service to our communities, collecting wastewater from a range of different sites, and transferring this wastewater to centralised wastewater treatment plants (WwTPs) for treatment.

We are undertaking a research project, endorsed by Water New Zealand, to better understand the potential for different products used in portaloos to inhibit WwTP processes. The aim of this research is to allow portaloo operators, and municipal WwTP operators, to make informed decisions when selecting, and accepting, portaloo products and wastes.

This project will include collating information from portaloo operators to understand the types of portaloo products currently being used in New Zealand, and the concentrations of these products in portaloos. Following this, the intention is to undertake respiration-based toxicity testing (RBTT) on the range of portaloo products currently in use in New Zealand. RBTT is a proven method to determine whether a chemical is likely to inhibit a biological treatment process.

If there is a particular portaloo operator and/or portaloo product you would like to see included in this research, please let us know by completing the following form: