Compost Toilet Trial Report - Ministry of Civil Defence and ...

4 Findings
4.1 Recruitment of participants
Eleven households and workplaces participated in the trial (Table 4.1). The
participating households provided a wide range of ages and backgrounds, although no
teenagers participated.
Table 4.1: Demographics of participants in the emergency compost toilet trial
Participant
Type
No.
People
Age Range (Year)
0 - 4 5 - 15 16 - 34 35 - 64 65+
A Household 1 4 2
B Household 5 1 2 2
C Household 6 4 2
D Workplace 2 5 2 2
E Household 2 2
F Workplace 1 1
G Household 5 5
H Household 3 3
I Household 2 2
J Household 2 2
K Household 1 1
People who already had a relationship with WREMO (through Facebook or as
WREMO volunteers) were much more likely to participate in a WREMO project. The
follow-up posting to the original message did trigger an additional response, and
would be worth using again if identifying volunteers or participants for future trials was
necessary.
The use of a newspaper ad and website (intranet and internet) were not an effective
means of identifying participants. However, they did raise the profile of WREMO and
its projects. Later media interest (section 4.8) in the trial was due to the newsletter
advertisement (Figure 3.4).
When attempting to attract volunteers to a trial or project use a variety of different
methods.
Follow up posts on social media did gain an additional response.
People with a relationship to WREMO are more likely to volunteer for a WREMO
project.
Even if print media does not gain an immediate response it does raise the profile
of WREMO and may lead to later media interest.
4 Initially both household members signed on for trial, but only one ended up participating.
5 Initially all six members of the workplace signed on for trial, but in the end it is estimated that
in fact only two people completed the full trial (see section 4.2.5).
13