Ventilated improved pit latrine (Blair VIP)
Letrina de pozo ventilada mejorada (Blair VIP)
- Date
- c. 1970 · confidence low
- Place
- Harare, Zimbabwe
- Credited to
- Peter Morgan and the Blair Research Laboratory
- Field
- Tools
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A dry pit latrine with a vent pipe covered by a fly screen: the draught removes odour and the flies drawn to the light are trapped. It needs no water and is built with local materials.
The design is attributed to the Blair Laboratory in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) in the late 1960s and 1970s, with contributions by Peter Morgan; the exact date and authorship are uncertain, and ventilated variants existed in Botswana and elsewhere.
What it led to
- low-cost rural sanitation in Africa and Asia
- reduced diarrhoeal disease
- World Bank latrine programmes of the 1980s