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Melvin Radlo: “A captivating and formative experience”

Saniforce Solar mission: energy-neutral sanitation in a humanitarian context.
Mission Veoliaforce au Bangladesh, avec l'IOM, de Romain Verchère et Melvin Radlo, autour du Saniforce Solar

At the age of 27, Melvin Radlo had his first experience as a Veoliaforce volunteer abroad. He spent three weeks in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, helping to install a pilot fecal sludge post-treatment system, the Saniforce Solar, for a Rohingya camp.

Mission Veoliaforce au Bangladesh, avec l'IOM, de Romain Verchère et Melvin Radlo, autour du Saniforce Solar
Melvin Radlo, a laboratory technician at VEDIF, spent three weeks in Cox's Bazar, in southeastern Bangladesh. Nearly a million Rohingya refugees have taken refuge in camps run by NGOs and UN agencies.
Mission Veoliaforce au Bangladesh, avec l'IOM, de Romain Verchère et Melvin Radlo, autour du Saniforce Solar
Responsible for the project and providing operational and logistical support, IOM operates the DEWATS decentralized wastewater treatment system, comprising an anaerobic treatment system and an effluent infiltration system.
Mission Veoliaforce au Bangladesh, avec l'IOM, de Romain Verchère et Melvin Radlo, autour du Saniforce Solar
The Veolia Foundation is lending its support by installing a pilot fecal sludge post-treatment system, the Saniforce, here deployed in its solar version.
Mission Veoliaforce au Bangladesh, avec l'IOM, de Romain Verchère et Melvin Radlo, autour du Saniforce Solar
The Saniforce is designed to treat the contents of septic tanks and latrine pits for up to 500 people.
David Poinard, Délégué général de la fondation Veolia, et Federico Soda, Directeur opérations l'OIM
David Poinard, Executive Officer of the Veolia Foundation, and Federico Soda, IOM Director of Operations.

Trained as a Veoliaforce volunteer in 2023, Melvin Radlo is a laboratory technician at VEDIF, the entity in charge of water management in the Ile-de-France region. In Bangladesh, in the town of Cox's Bazar, he became a Veoliaforce volunteer for the Veolia Foundation to work with the IOM, the UN agency dedicated to migration, of which the Veolia Foundation became a stand-by partner (SBP) last May.

3 questions to Melvin Radlo

You spent three weeks working on the installation of Saniforce Solar, a sanitation solution dedicated to humanitarian aid. Did you get a taste of your daily professional life?

Melvin Radlo: More than my daily life, I found a lot of the FSFL training organized by the Foundation and the first Saniforce tests I took part in at the end of 2023. It's not my first subject at VEDIF, but I've taken to it with great interest and curiosity. I wasn't completely convinced by the solar version, having only worked on a biogas version, but it turned out to be much simpler than I thought.

In human terms, what was it like to leave for Bangladesh?

MR: When I arrived, I was a bit disorientated. I had to deal with a long working week, jet lag and, above all, a cyclone on arrival that kept us confined to the hotel. In short, it was a complete change of scenery! The Cox's Bazar camps are a very special place. I was a bit afraid of going there, of being confronted with great misery. It's sad, of course, but there's an amazing solidarity there, marked by real organization.

What do you remember about the mission?

MR:  Technically, the mission required a certain amount of resourcefulness: the Saniforce Solar is a pilot! So you have to keep walking when you hit a stumbling block. I was very lucky to have Romain Verchère, a permanent member of the Foundation, at my side for part of the mission. This saved me time and gave me the confidence to take the lead. IOM's supervision is very reassuring, and also restrictive, but they're two sides of the same coin. We had a lot of support in managing the organization, the need for manpower and the materials, which clearly improved our efficiency. It was a completely new experience for me. It was both exhilarating and formative!

One Veoliaforce expert mission follows another.

After Melvin Radlo at the beginning of the summer, other Veoliaforce volunteers are being asked to continue the work of adapting Saniforce solutions to the humanitarian context. Thomas Schwarz left in September 2024 on a mission to Bangladesh around the Saniforce Solar, again with the IOM.

Read his testimonial.