Orem firm offers disaster 'relief'

This is a story about poop.

It won't read like the script of a Farrelly brothers comedy, even though it would be easy to poke fun at the portable toilets manufactured by an Orem-based company, with easy cliches such as the executives having "crappy jobs."

But executives of the company, Global Sanitation Solutions Inc., note that about 40 percent of the world's 6.8 billion people do not have access to a bathroom in the morning when they wake up. Fecal matter in the soil and air makes them vulnerable to diarrhea, E. coli, dysentery and dehydration.

"We wanted to solve the disease problems of fecal matter," said Stephen Biesinger, president and chief executive of Global Sanitation Solutions.

Biesinger and other executives with business, sales and management backgrounds formed the company 21/2 years ago. They hired a group of scientists in Utah and other parts of the United States to develop a formula of chemicals and microbiological materials that would safely break down human feces, turning it into odorless humus.

Two years later, that product, ChemiSan, was unveiled.

"The microbes in ChemiSan digest waste and also take care of pathogens," Biesinger said.

"It accelerates the natural decomposition of human waste, and it reduces the pathogens," said Wayne Selph, vice president of marketing.

For insurance reasons, the company doesn't reveal what percentage of pathogens are reduced, Biesinger said.

Then the company developed and patented the GottaGoToilet, which is cardboard and can hold a person weighing up to 275 pounds.

The toilet can be used multiple times, but the biodegradable bags that line it, called GottaGo Waste Bags, need to be changed after about four uses. The ChemiSan is sprinkled into the bag after the first use. It is activated with water, although most people also urinate, which actives the ChemiSan.

The company also developed the Privacy Hut, a green polyester tent, about 6 feet tall with a stainless steel frame, into which the toilet can be placed. People can go inside the tent and not have to worry about being seen by others. The tent folds down in 30 seconds and fits inside a bag light enough for a child to carry.

When disaster hits or when the Angelina Jolie celebrity types visit the developing world, people tend to focus on clean water. But that's only half the solution.

"You can have all the clean water in the world, but if you're not taking care of the sanitation," people will still die, Selph said.