The last time we talked about 3D printed toilets, it was two years ago. These toilets have been 3D printed to solve sanitation issue in India. Today, social enterprise To.org and Dutch filament producer Reflow bring back the topic on the table as they collaborated for the development of a 3D printed uniquely-lavish portable toilet.
It’s quite funny because the toilet made by To.org and Reflow is called “The Throne”, which is exactly the name we used to give to the “toilet” when we were younger. We called it this way to avoid using the “unsexy real name” of toilet.
‘It was last October when we broke ground here on a new project,’ says To.org co-founder and CEO Nachson Mimran of The Throne’s genesis. ‘As I arrived on the construction site, I needed the loo and walked into one of the portable toilets that we’re used to seeing in these types of places. I didn’t enjoy my few minutes in this cubicle, and came out wondering if we could do something different.’
Anyway, the new portable toilet has been installed amid the picturesque landscape of Gstaad. It features a shape similar to the one of a rocket (tapered at the top and bottom, bulging at the core and with a slightly truncated base).
Made from recycled plastics, the portable and public toilet has been fabricated using an ABB 3D printer. It aims to be a response to sanitation issues for those living or working in remote areas. Reflow leveraged discarded single-use plastics from medical facilities for the 3D printing production of the bulk of the design.
It took three days to 3D print the main components (the body, door, and a bucket for solid waste; the base and some smaller accessories were either injection-moulded or ordered) of the Throne using the seven-axis robotic 3D printer from ABB.
The Throne currently exists as an edition of one, but rather than treating it as a display piece, Mimran has put it to work on the same construction site where he had come up with the idea for its creation, and made it accessible to everyone.
‘A public toilet is a public toilet. If our team at the construction site enjoy this moment, as much as I enjoyed testing it, they would probably be in a better mood to perform the work that they do’, he said.
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