Cleaning Up: David Auerbach’s Sanergy

David Auerbach, a recent MBA graduate, has a plan for bringing sanitary bathrooms to slums in Nairobi—and making money off waste removal

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By Patrick Clark

October 13, 2011 at 9:00 PM UTC

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This article is part of the October 17, 2011 issue of businessweek.

In the slums of Nairobi, millions of inhabitants rely on makeshift sanitation facilities. Popular improvisations include the flying toilet and the hanging toilet: The former is a euphemism for a plastic bag, the latter a wood plank hanging over a pit. The World Health Organization estimates that 2.6 billion people worldwide lack access to hygienic toilets, causing the spread of disease.

David Auerbach thinks the private sector can help. Upon graduating from the MIT Sloan School of Management in May, the 30-year-old entrepreneur moved to Nairobi with a team of former classmates and launched Sanergy. The company works on a franchise model. It sells prefabricated concrete toilets to local entrepreneurs for about $500. The operators, who pay cash for the toilet or borrow from a Sanergy-recommended microlender, are responsible for keeping the single-stall facilities provisioned with toilet paper, soap, and water. Operators profit by charging about 5¢ per use.