SANITATION
From End Of Poverty
3. SANITATION:
It is hard to see the hygiene practices being followed by the people in the operational area of ASSIST. As they struggle to survive in tiny dwellings, most often with joint families, they lack proper health and sanitary conditions to dream off. Poor hygiene practices in these communities clearly relate to their poor economic conditions. It has become their normal pattern of living as their working places such as tobacco factories, ginning mills, shops, establishments, petty tea shops, etc. do not provide scope to practice proper health and hygienic practices.
As both the urban and rural areas except metropolitan cities are not provided with adequate number of storm water drains, the rainwater and the sullage stagnates at many low lying areas in their dwelling places and becomes a breeding place for mosquitoes thereby causing unhygienic environment in the communities. Due to lack of sufficient open drains and the existing drains not leading to the destination point and the presence of several informal drains the sullage water stagnates causing unhygienic environment in the communities.
When the human excreta and the industrial waste are not properly disposed of, it results in the contamination of surface water, ground water and even the soil causing serious health hazards to the communities. The communities also face high mortality and morbidity rate for children between birth and the 5th year of age. The common diseases transmitted because of the poor quality of water include diarrhoea, cholera, typhoid and certain viral diseases like infectious hepatitis etc.
In ensuring better sanitary improvements for the people and promoting their general health, the proper collection of refuge, its haulage and subsequent disposal with the minimum possible nuisance or risk to the public health is a MUST.
Particularly in urban areas at every stagnant cesspool and at the sullage points a number of pigs enjoy themselves. In addition to the fly breeding and rat breeding causing nuisance to the public, the pig owners also have their share in letting free their pigs on the roads. As such to clear the town from this perennial nuisance these pigs are to be prevented from coming on to the roads. At certain other places some people are utilising the main roads for their cattle sheds causing inconvenience to the neighbours as well as the traffic. They are to be evacuated to improve the sanitary conditions.
While the intensity of the problem is greater due to the particular absence of underground drainage facility in the towns, the impact of health and hygiene education is not clearly visible.
Household Sanitation:
In addition to the provision of shelter, the construction of individual sanitary latrines is also taken up after the people have been sufficiently motivated about the use and maintenance of latrines. The problems encountered in the village due to the open-air defecation are explained in detail to the people through a variety of media till the people feel the necessity of individual sanitary latrines.
Studies carried out in all the proposed villages reveal that only 6.08% families have household latrines and the remaining population use open fields and road margins for defecation. Majority of the families allow their small children to defecate either in or in front of the houses and leave the defecated waste uncared for to be eaten away by the pet animals like dogs, birds, fowls etc or some times swept into the open drains or road sides. Lack of knowledge on environmental hygiene and the disposal of solid and liquid waste and the heaps of garbage and animal waste deposited in the inhabited areas and the pools of drain waste round the bore wells resulted in the most unhygienic living conditions making it a breading place for mosquitoes. Even the limited number the better off are no exception to this practice. They only follow the existing unsanitary traditions which need to be changed by creating awareness among the people. The emphasis on educating the rural folk to realise the about best sanitary practises through various awareness generation activities and extends little support to POs to promote the construction of low-cost household latrines making use of the local material. Dual pit water seal latrine design is used for the provision of individual sanitary latrines.
ECOSAN – Ecological Sanitation
Approximately half of humanity lacks any kind of sanitation. The situation is unlikely to change soon if conventional approaches are continually promoted. With rapid urbanisation, population growth, growing income disparities and increasing water scarcity, conventional approaches are becoming increasingly too costly, too complex, or just plain technically inappropriate. In addition to a changing world affecting sanitation solutions, conventional sanitary approaches are leading to other problems. Underlying the conventional approach to sanitation is an assumption that excreta are a waste suitable only for disposal, and the conventional technologies are designed to dispose of excreta. These linear approaches fail to recycle nutrients, to prevent pollution or to protect health. Thus, surface and ground water become contaminated and the resulting soil infertility leads to costly measures and pollution. Because conventional approaches are not available to half of humanity, high rates of infectious disease and infant mortality rates continue to exist.
What is EcoSan?: Ecological sanitation is an ecosystem approach to waste disposal based on three key principles - that sanitation should be safe from a health perspective; non-polluting; and based on principles of reuse and recycling of the valuable nutrients in human excreta. In other words, ecological sanitation is an approach to human excreta disposal that aims at recycling nutrients back into the environment and into productive systems. Reuse of human excreta has been the norm in most cultures and societies till recently and are widely applied in rural communities in China and Vietnam and in urban areas in Yemen. Because, by failing to return natural fertilizer to the land we are depleting soils of nutrients and ultimately diminishing food supply.
Principles and objectives of EcoSan
Ecological sanitation is based on the following principles:
• Prevent disease by destroying or isolating faecal pathogens; • Protect the environment, prevent pollution and conserve valuable water resources; • Return plant nutrients to the soil; • Culturally acceptable, aesthetically inoffensive and consistent with cultural and social values; • Reliable and easy to construct and robust enough to be easily maintained in a local context; • Convenient and meet the needs of all household members considering gender, age and social status; • Affordable and accessible to all households in the community.
Further, the basic principle of EcoSan is to close the loop between sanitation and agriculture.
The main objectives are to:
• reduce the health risks related to sanitation, • prevent the pollution of surface and ground water by contaminated water and waste water • prevent the degradation of soil fertility • optimise the management of nutrients and water resources
Importance of EcoSan
Ecological sanitation is an attempt to move away from linear solutions of waste disposal towards systems based on a circular flow of nutrients. It considers human excreta a resource and not a waste to be disposed of as far away as possible. Ecological sanitation is environmentally sound - when excreta are recovered, rendered safe, and recycled into soil, no pollution occurs and the environment is protected. Not only is drinking water preserved for drinking, rather than flushing, receiving bodies of water are protected from nutrients and organic matter. The environmental and human health risks are minimized and eliminated.
EcoSan Techniques
There are two basic techniques in ecological sanitation. One is urine-diversion, in which urine and faeces are kept separate. In the second technique urine and faeces are combined and transformed into humus through a composting process. In each type of ecological sanitation it is possible to manage the system with little or no water, and it is also possible to keep the end products out of ground and surface waters. Because the conventional sewage systems, based on flush-toilets, have failed to solve the sanitation needs for developing countries. Over 95% of sewage in developing countries is today discharged untreated, polluting rivers, lakes and coastal areas. The water-based sewage systems were designed and built on the premises that human excreta are a waste suitable only for disposal and that the environment is capable of assimilating this waste. The other conventional sanitation solution for poor people in developing countries, the pit latrine, also has shortcomings especially in densely populated areas where space is limited. Groundwater is almost inevitably polluted thus threatening drinking water supply.
Benefits of EcoSan System
Ecological sanitation systems can make an invaluable contribution to sustainable livelihoods and poverty reduction, including in urban areas, by increasing food security through the return of nutrients from excreta to the soil to increase soil fertility and by reducing pollution and health risks. Such systems also impact positively on food security through better management of scarce water resources and contribute to health through reducing transmission of disease and increasing nutritional intake. The compost produced can be sold or used for household food production. The establishment of home gardens and sale of produce can be facilitated and the resulting increased income can lead to greater nutritional well-being for families. The establishment of an ecological sanitation system can create opportunities for local entrepreneurs to design and build toilets as well as provide training on the building of the toilets and the use of the end product, creating further income generation potential. Ecological sanitation approaches are thus far more feasible than conventional sanitation systems both financially and environmentally offer more from a sustainable livelihood and poverty reduction perspective.
Ecological sanitation system enables the recovery of organics, nutrients, trace elements and energy contained in household wastewater and organic waste and their subsequent reuse in agriculture. In order not to compromise health, the EcoSan approaches focus more on appropriate treatment and handling. By making the organics, nutrients and trace elements available to agriculture, soil fertility is preserved and long-term food security is safeguarded. In practice the commonly applied EcoSan strategy of separately collecting and treating faeces, urine and grey water minimises the consumption of valuable drinking water and enables treatment of the separate wastewater flows at low cost for subsequent reuse in soil amelioration, as fertilizer, as service or irrigation water or for ground water recharge. Rainwater harvesting and the treatment of animal manure may also be integrated into EcoSan concepts. EcoSan can therefore greatly help in saving limited resources and this is particularly urgent with regard to fresh water and mineral resources. (For design details refer Annex: 1)
While both the government and ASSIST provide only the technical guidance and supply of all the required building material with the help of field staff, the actual work is done by the villagers. The villagers provide their contribution towards unskilled labour and also meagre cash contribution as well.
School Sanitation:
School sanitation is a crucial element in improving the sanitary conditions in a particular village. While the old generation has passed through the traditional habits for ages, it is difficult to change the habits of these people. However, it is easy to convince the children and use them as agents of change for the family and for the whole community eventually. Hence, ASSIST gives greater emphasis on the provision of sanitary installations in the schools and ensures that the children use them compulsorily so that they could propagate the same concept at home. Classes are also taken on hygiene practices in the school by the Cluster In-charges with the help of teachers.
Drainage:
Improper drainage system in the rural areas and urban slums is the major hurdle for promoting better environmental sanitation. As the people still do not feel it is a necessity ASSIST concentrates more on bringing necessary attitudinal change in their mindset and tries to create some concrete models to improve their localities. It is being done in several ways depending on the appropriate solution in that particular community to improve the environmental sanitary condition subsequently. It could be done by developing a proper waste water disposal system without any stagnation based on the levels and water flowing directions. Wherever necessary, a permanent drainage might have to be constructed to take away the water from the dwelling place and leave it ultimately in a pit.
In one of the projects, it is proposed to dispose the sewage through the sewers into the nearby natural drains which are not used for drinking purposes. This will promote clean and healthy villages. These natural drains have the outlets into the rivulets. All the rain water and the regenerated water from the Nagarjunasagar Project Ayacut area reach these rivulets ultimately leading to the Bay of Bengal. Naturally, huge quantity of water thus flows into these rivulets. It is also estimated that the flow rate of these rivulets is sufficient to dispose the sewage safely. The dilution factor of the sewage should be above 500 to dispose the sewage safely into the rivulets. Here, in this case, the dilution factor is estimated around 1,000 – 1,500, which is more than the required factor. So, it was felt to be convenient to dispose the sewage by dilution method. The B.O.D. (Biological Oxygen Demand) of the sewage is met by the D.O. (Dissolved Oxygen) in the flowing water of the rivulets. Generally, the water in the rivulets is not used for drinking purpose. In these two villages, the water in the rivulets, where the sewage is expected to be disposed of, is not used for drinking purpose. This water is used for irrigating the land in some places after a minimum flow of 3 kms. The organic matter in the sewage is oxidised by self purification process take place in the rivulets. The stable compounds formed after the oxidation settle down at the bottom of the rivulets by sedimentation process.
Urban Sanitary Complexes:
Municipal Administration of Chilakaluripet has been requesting ASSIST for the establishment of Sanitary Complex near the market premises and other central locations. Though the municipality has 100,000 populations, it has almost the number of floating population coming from the villages around the town as it happens to be the service centre for many villages. With all the people floating into the town, unsanitary and unhygienic conditions are prevailing in the main centres. In order to improve the situation and to inculcate the habit of using sanitary installations, it is proposed to establish three sanitary complexes over a project period of three years, where the Municipality is willing to provide the land. ASSIST plans to involve the federation of SHGs for the proper usage and maintenance of this complex once it is constructed. With the nominal charges, the federation of SHGs could maintain them clean. Rs. 250,000- is proposed for each complex. Land cost could be estimated at Rs. 100,000-, which will be provided as local contribution by the Municipality. Design and cost estimate is enclosed.
