Sustainability

As the world’s largest supplier of portable toilets, we’re committed to promoting a corporate culture that encourages innovation and respect for individuals, society and the environment. Here’s why, and how do we do it:

Plastic soup

There’s a lot of talk about reducing the amount of plastic waste in the world. Especially, when it comes to single-use plastics like bottles and bags that end up in the ocean and wash up on our shores. And the numbers are alarming: on average a full garbage truck is being dumped into the sea every minute, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Plastic toilets

Consequently, many people associate plastic products with pollution which poses challenges to manufacturers like us. But did you know our portable toilet cabins are made of durable plastic and stick around for at least 15 years? That’s longer than the average lifetime of a car. And at the end of its life, it can be completely recycled.

Our toilet cabins are moved around a lot. They travel from one construction site or event to another over an average lifespan of 15 years. In a standard construction site usage, 1 toilet will be used 112,500 times (15 years x 50 weeks x 5 days x 10 workers x 3 times a day).
This means that our cabins need to be as rigid yet lightweight and flexible as possible – and easy to clean! Hence the choice for plastic. Imagine doing this with a wooden toilet…

We manufacture the majority of the toilets’ components in Germany – close to our central logistics hub. This allows us to save on transport cost and CO2 emissions. And because most of our clients self-assemble their units, we can quadruple shipping density in our trucks and containers (thank you!).

Plastic waste

Since 2008, the European waste management policy wields a five-step waste hierarchy. First and foremost, it calls for (plastic) waste prevention, then re-use, recycling and other forms of recovery. Incineration and waste disposal should become an absolute last resort.

At Satellite Industries, we want to be as high up on the hierarchy as possible. How we do this?

• Thanks to the durability of our cabins, a single toilet can be re-used up to 112,500 times;
• We try to encourage re-use by offering 10 years of warranty;
• After 15 years, often our products get a 2nd life in developing regions in Africa or countries like India, among others;
• or they can be 100% recycled.

In order to increase the percentage of cabins being recycled, we’re investigating ways to support and/or facilitate the recycling process for our clients.

What’s more?

When you visit one of our toilets, you produce waste too! Ever wondered what happens next? Well… The operator pumps out your dump from the cabin tank and transports it to a local waste-water treatment plant. This way, it gets processed just like you’d flush the toilet at home.

Here too, we aim to keep our ecological impact at a minimum. And even though people often nick-name our cabins ‘chemical toilet’, this doesn’t mean toxic. All of our cleaning products and sanitary concentrates are bronopol or bio-based.  Bronopol is an active ingredient, like the biocides in gel hand sanitizers, that helps to control bad odors (yes, imagine the smell if we wouldn’t use it!). After 1 week of normal use, the amount of biocides left in the tank is only 0.001%. With Bioneutral-One® technology, we enrich the small concentration of bronopol with bacteria and enzymes to easily break down your #2 and paper butt wipes.

So how come it’s blue? Simply because we want to spare you the unfiltered view of the tank’s content. You’re welcome!