INDUS - an innovative idea from Thetford brand

The ritual of walking with the cassette / tank to the waste discharge point is a duty for most of us, as well as an everyday sight to which we have already got used to. This does not mean, however, that manufacturers of restrooms and sanitary solutions for recreational vehicles are not trying to find alternatives for our convenience and the good of the environment.

The Thetford brand, whose products have been found in the vast majority of motorhomes and caravans for decades, has introduced a solution to the market that was first introduced for the serial production of motorhomes by the Bürstner brand in the Elegance I model in 2020, and other manufacturers are already testing or offering / will soon start offering. During our visit to the Frankia factory, for the first time we saw and heard live what the creators were guided by and how the system should function in practice.

INDUS system assumptions

This is the name Thetford gave to his newest child, which is a product based on a certain philosophy. Some of the assumptions are:

- Next to the tanks for clean and gray water, the motorhome has a factory built-in tank for faeces

- Toilet waste is flushed into the faecal tank with 200 or 500 milliliters of gray water from the tank, respectively (clean water is only used when the gray water tank is empty).

- Then the faeces together with the washings are passed through the grinder and discharged to the faeces tank.

- Special chemicals are added to the gray rinse water

- The system is emptied using a dedicated 2-meter hose accessible through an external service hatch, at the end of which there is a drain "bell". First, the faeces tank is emptied, then the gray water tank (this way the faeces tank is rinsed / cleaned).

In the vehicle, each of the 3 tanks (for clean and gray water and for faeces) is connected to a dispenser of an appropriate chemical preparation (marked by the manufacturer A, B, C). They are added automatically as needed. According to the manufacturer's declaration, the stock is to cost around EUR 30 and will last for 30 days.

The system is equipped with mixers that automatically stir the contents of the tanks several times a day. The frequency and possible breaks can be set using the application.

The heart of the control of the entire solution is an application on a mobile device, indicating the status of treatment fluids, the degree of filling of individual tanks, as well as, based on the location settings, the closest possible discharge locations.

Thetford Indus - the future of sanitary solutions in the industry?

While the number of service points and catchments in Western Europe is considerable, on our side of the Odra River or further east, this infrastructure is not that well developed and it may be difficult for us to make such a "discharge". In addition, standing at the campground without the possibility of moving the vehicle to empty the tanks, we would have a real problem. The vast majority of us may therefore miss the well-known faecal cassette. This is where the newly developed, dedicated cassette on wheels comes in handy, allowing us to pump some of the treated faeces and transport them to the catchment area. Depending on the motorhome model, the capacity of the tanks may differ. In the test Frankia it is respectively 120 liters for gray water and 45 liters for faeces.