Innovation in Haiti with Médecins Sans Frontières

The principle is simple: MSF asks the Foundation to provide its research and operational programmes with support fuelled by the technical skills available within the Veolia group; the Foundation then places its volunteer Veoliaforce experts at MSF's disposal to support it in its research and innovation projects dealing with issues related to its activities in the field and in areas close to the Veolia group's business lines (energy, waste, sanitation and drinking water). The objective is to test new operating methods and equipment to allow MSF to better control its environmental footprint and gain autonomy during its humanitarian interventions.

The issue of sanitation is thus the subject of several research and operational programmes, one of which, initiated in 2018, took shape in Haiti, at the Drouillard district hospital in Port-au-Prince.

Hospital wastewater is potentially more toxic than conventional wastewater because of the presence of drug residues and high concentrations of disinfectants. It is also potentially more saturated with pathogens (bacteria, viruses, etc.).

MSF and the Veolia Foundation worked together to find the best solutions to deal with this problem and to design a suitable treatment station. The idea they came up with was to use biodiscs^[1] to treat these hospital effluents. So what does this approach involve? It's a purification process based on an aerobic biological treatment with fixed biomass. The purifying microflora are supported on discs partially immersed in the effluent to be treated and driven in a rotational movement to ensure not only the contact of the bacteria with the effluent, but also their effective oxygenation and mixing in. In the submerged phase of the disc rotation cycle, the fixed biomass takes organic and nitrogenous matter from the wastewater, then digests and degrades it. In the emergent phase of the disc cycle, the bacteria breathe.

The installed unit thus treats the effluents by combining biodiscs, rotary drum filtration^[2] and the UV disinfection of the residual microbial flora. To put the finishing touches to this innovative installation, several Veoliaforce volunteers went to the site to perfect the final details, check that the system was functioning correctly and to train staff in its operation.
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^{[1] Ecodisk biodiscs (Veolia).}

^{[2] Hydrotech model (Veolia).}