Sustainable Sanitation
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Sustainable sanitation is a
sanitation Sanitation refers to public health conditions related to clean drinking water and treatment and disposal of human excreta and sewage. Preventing human contact with feces is part of sanitation, as is hand washing with soap. Sanitation systems ...
system designed to meet certain criteria and to work well over the long-term. Sustainable sanitation systems consider the entire "sanitation value chain", from the experience of the user,
excreta Excretion is elimination of metabolic waste, which is an essential process in all organisms. In vertebrates, this is primarily carried out by the lungs, kidneys, and skin. This is in contrast with secretion, where the substance may have specifi ...
and
wastewater Wastewater (or waste water) is water generated after the use of freshwater, raw water, drinking water or saline water in a variety of deliberate applications or processes. Another definition of wastewater is "Used water from any combination of do ...
collection methods, transportation or conveyance of waste, treatment, and reuse or disposal.Tilley, E., Ulrich, L., Lüthi, C., Reymond, Ph. and Zurbrügg, C. (2014)
Compendium of Sanitation Systems and Technologies. 2nd Revised Edition
Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag), Duebendorf, Switzerland
The
Sustainable Sanitation Alliance The Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA) is a loose network of organizations who are "working along the same lines towards achieving sustainable sanitation". It began its work in 2007, one year before the United Nations International Year o ...
(SuSanA) includes five features (or criteria) in its definition of "sustainable sanitation": Systems need to be economically and socially acceptable, technically and institutionally appropriate and protect the environment and natural resources. The purpose of sustainable sanitation is the same as sanitation in general: to protect
human health Health has a variety of definitions, which have been used for different purposes over time. In general, it refers to physical and emotional well-being, especially that associated with normal functioning of the human body, absent of disease, pain ...
. However, "sustainable sanitation" attends to all processes of the system: This includes methods of collecting, transporting, treating and the disposal (or reuse) of waste. Increasingly, sustainable sanitation also involves the consideration of climate change related impacts on sanitation infrastructure and behaviour and the resilience of technologies and communities.Kohlitz, J. and Iyer, R. (2021)
Rural Sanitation and Climate Change: Putting Ideas into Practice
''Frontiers of Sanitation: Innovations and Insights'' 17, Brighton IDS, DOI: 10.19088/SLH.2021.002


Terminology


Comparison with "improved sanitation"

The
Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation The Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for Water Supply and Sanitation by WHO and UNICEF is the official United Nations mechanism tasked with monitoring progress towards the Sustainable Development Goal Number 6 (SDG 6) since 2016. Previously, u ...
(JMP) of the WHO (
World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Gen ...
) and UNICEF ( United Nations Children's Fund) was responsible for monitoring progress towards the
Millennium Development Goal In the United Nations, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were eight international development goals for the year 2015 created following the Millennium Summit, following the adoption of the United Nations Millennium Declaration. These ...
for drinking water and sanitation. For reasons of simplicity—being able to monitor the sanitation situation with household surveys—the JMP had to find a simple differentiation between "improved" sanitation (toilets that count towards the MDG goals) and "unimproved" sanitation (toilets that do not count towards the MDG goals). According to the JMP definition, improved sanitation facilities include facilities which are: * not shared or
public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...
; and * which are one of the following toilet types: flush or pour-flush to piped sewer system,
septic tank A septic tank is an underground chamber made of concrete, fiberglass, or plastic through which domestic wastewater (sewage) flows for basic sewage treatment. Settling and anaerobic digestion processes reduce solids and organics, but the treatment ...
or
pit latrine A pit latrine, also known as pit toilet, is a type of toilet that collects human waste in a hole in the ground. Urine and feces enter the pit through a drop hole in the floor, which might be connected to a toilet seat or squatting pan for user ...
, ventilated improved pit latrine, pit latrine with slab or a
composting toilet A composting toilet is a type of dry toilet that treats human waste by a biological process called composting. This process leads to the decomposition of organic matter and turns human waste into compost-like material. Composting is carried out b ...
. Unimproved sanitation facilities according to the JMP include: * flush or pour-flush to elsewhere (waste is flushed to the street, yard or plot, open sewer, a ditch, a drainage way or other location) * pit latrine without slab or open pit; *
bucket toilet A bucket toilet is a basic form of a dry toilet whereby a bucket (pail) is used to collect Human waste, excreta. Usually, feces and urine are collected together in the same bucket, leading to odor issues. The bucket may be situated inside a dw ...
; hanging toilet or hanging latrine, or no facilities or bush or field (
open defecation Open defecation is the human practice of defecating outside ("in the open") rather than into a toilet. People may choose fields, bushes, forests, ditches, streets, canals, or other open spaces for defecation. They do so either because they do ...
). In some circumstances "improved" sanitation facilities can be regarded as not sustainable, whereas in other circumstances "unimproved" sanitation facilities can be regarded as sustainable. This is because it depends on the sanitation system, of which the toilet is only one part. For example, a pit latrine with a slab can become unsustainable sanitation if it is polluting the groundwater or if the waste sludge that is removed from the pit latrine is dumped into the environment. A bucket toilet can become sustainable if the collection, treatment and reuse or disposal of waste is taken care of in a safe manner, for example with the urine-diverting dry toilets that SOIL is employing in Haiti.


Comparison with ecosan

Sustainable sanitation, defined with the five sustainability measures, may or may not have an focus on
reuse of excreta Reuse of human excreta is the safe, beneficial use of treated human waste, human excreta after applying suitable treatment steps and risk management approaches that are customized for the intended reuse application. Beneficial uses of the treated ...
, because the criterion of "protecting the natural resources" is only one of several that need to be aimed towards. In comparison, ecological sanitation (ecosan) has a strong focus on the reuse of waste. The term is widely used since about 2009.


Sustainability criteria

The main objective of a sanitation system is to protect and promote human health by providing a clean environment and breaking the cycle of disease. In order to be sustainable a sanitation system has to be not only economically viable, socially acceptable, and technically and institutionally appropriate, but it should also protect the environment and the
natural resources Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest, and cultural value. ...
. According to the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance, when improving an existing and/or designing a new sanitation system,
sustainability Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long period of time. Definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Sustainability usually has three dimensions (or pillars): env ...
criteria related to the following aspects should be considered:SuSanA (2008)
Towards more sustainable sanitation solutions - SuSanA Vision Document
Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA)


Health

Health aspects include the risk of exposure to
pathogens In biology, a pathogen (, "suffering", "passion" and , "producer of"), in the oldest and broadest sense, is any organism or agent that can produce disease. A pathogen may also be referred to as an infectious agent, or simply a germ. The term ...
and hazardous substances that could affect public health at all points of the sanitation system from the toilet via the collection and treatment system to the point of reuse or disposal. The topic also covers aspects such as
hygiene Hygiene is a set of practices performed to preserve health. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "Hygiene refers to conditions and practices that help to maintain health and prevent the spread of diseases." Personal hygiene refer ...
,
nutrition Nutrition is the biochemistry, biochemical and physiology, physiological process by which an organism uses food and water to support its life. The intake of these substances provides organisms with nutrients (divided into Macronutrient, macro- ...
and the improvement of livelihood achieved by the application of a certain sanitation system, as well as downstream effects.


Environment and natural resources

Environment and
natural resource Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest, and cultural value. ...
s aspects involve the required energy, water and other natural resources for construction, operation and maintenance of the system, as well as the potential emissions to the environment resulting from use. It also includes the degree of recycling and
reuse of excreta Reuse of human excreta is the safe, beneficial use of treated human waste, human excreta after applying suitable treatment steps and risk management approaches that are customized for the intended reuse application. Beneficial uses of the treated ...
practiced and the effects of these, for example reusing the
wastewater Wastewater (or waste water) is water generated after the use of freshwater, raw water, drinking water or saline water in a variety of deliberate applications or processes. Another definition of wastewater is "Used water from any combination of do ...
, returning nutrients and organic material to agriculture, and the protecting of other non-renewable resources, for example through the production of
renewable energy Renewable energy (also called green energy) is energy made from renewable resource, renewable natural resources that are replenished on a human lifetime, human timescale. The most widely used renewable energy types are solar energy, wind pow ...
(e.g.
biogas Biogas is a gaseous renewable energy source produced from raw materials such as agricultural waste, manure, municipal waste, plant material, sewage, green waste, Wastewater treatment, wastewater, and food waste. Biogas is produced by anaerobic ...
or fuel wood).


Technology and operation

Technology and operation aspects incorporate the functionality and the ease with which the system can be constructed, operated and monitored using the available human resources (e.g. the local community, technical team of the local utility etc.). It also concerns the suitability to achieve an efficient substance flow management from a technical point of view. Furthermore, it evaluates the robustness of the system, its vulnerability towards disasters, and the flexibility and adaptability of its technical elements to the existing infrastructure, to demographic and socio-economic developments and
climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...
.


Finance and economics

Financial and economic issues relate to the capacity of households and communities to pay for sanitation, including the construction, maintenance and depreciation of the system. Besides the evaluation of investment, operation and maintenance costs, the topic also takes into account the economic benefits that can be obtained in "productive" sanitation systems, including benefits from the production of the recyclables (soil conditioner,
fertiliser A fertilizer or fertiliser is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrition, plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from Liming (soil), liming materials or other non- ...
, energy and
reclaimed water Water reclamation is the process of converting Sewage, municipal wastewater or sewage and Industrial wastewater treatment, industrial wastewater into water that can be reused for a variety of purposes. It is also called wastewater reuse, water re ...
), employment creation, increased
productivity Productivity is the efficiency of production of goods or services expressed by some measure. Measurements of productivity are often expressed as a ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input used in a production proce ...
through improved health and the reduction of environmental and public health costs.


Socio-cultural and institutional aspects

Socio-cultural and institutional aspects take into account the socio-cultural acceptance and appropriateness of the system, convenience, system perceptions,
gender Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...
issues and impacts on human dignity, the contribution to
subsistence A subsistence economy is an economy directed to basic subsistence (the provision of food, clothing and shelter) rather than to the market. Definition "Subsistence" is understood as supporting oneself and family at a minimum level. Basic subsiste ...
economies and food security, and legal and institutional aspects.


Planning for sustainable sanitation

Most sanitation systems have been designed with the five aspects in mind, but in practice they are failing far too often because some of the criteria are not met. Since there is no one-for-all sanitation solution which fulfils the sustainability criteria, evaluation will depend on the local framework and will have to take into consideration the existing environmental, technical, socio-cultural and economic conditions. Some basic principles to be observed when planning and implementing a sustainable sanitation system were endorsed by the members of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (the "Bellagio Principles for Sustainable Sanitation") during its 5th Global Forum in November 2000: # Human dignity, quality of life and environmental security at household level should be at the centre of any sanitation approach. # In line with good governance principles, decision-making should involve participation of all stakeholders, especially the consumers and providers of services. #
Waste Waste are unwanted or unusable materials. Waste is any substance discarded after primary use, or is worthless, defective and of no use. A by-product, by contrast is a joint product of relatively minor Value (economics), economic value. A wast ...
should be considered a resource, and its management should be holistic and form part of integrated water resource, nutrient flow and waste management processes. # The domain in which environmental sanitation problems are resolved should be kept to the minimum practicable size (household, community, town, district, catchment, city). These planning guidelines have been revised further and are now used in various training courses for urban planners.


Optimization of resource recovery

Sustainable sanitation that allows for resource recovery has the potential to contribute to circular economies and green cities, sustainable food chains,
renewable energy Renewable energy (also called green energy) is energy made from renewable resource, renewable natural resources that are replenished on a human lifetime, human timescale. The most widely used renewable energy types are solar energy, wind pow ...
, and new business models for private sector involvement. Text was copied from this source, which is available under
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Five recommendations were made in 2020 for the optimization of resource recovery: (i) prioritize short systems that close the loop at the lowest possible level; (ii) separate waste streams as much as possible, because this allows for higher recovery potentials; (iii) use storage and treatment technologies that contain the products as much as possible, avoid leaching technologies (e.g. single pits) and technologies with high risk of volatilization (e.g. drying beds); (iv) design sinks to optimize recovery and avoid disposal sinks; and (v) combine various reuse options for different side streams (e.g. urine diversion systems that combine reuse of urine and production of biofuel from feces).


Examples

Some examples for improving present sanitation practices in the short-term, purely from a ''technology perspective,'' are listed below: * Pit latrines could be modified to be soil-composting latrines ( Arborloos), thus requiring some wall reinforcement, made shallow (max 1–1.5 m) and maintained using daily soil additions: the pits would be periodically closed and covered with soil in order to allow for sanitization and composting prior to emptying and reuse in agriculture. * Simple urinals with separate collector systems could be installed instead of using toilets and pit latrines for urination * Flush toilets could be modified to use less water or reuse greywater. *
Greywater Greywater (or grey water, sullage, also spelled gray water in the United States) refers to domestic wastewater generated in households or office buildings from streams without fecal contamination, i.e., all streams except for the wastewater fro ...
could be source-separated from the blackwater from toilets thus simplifying its treatment and providing opportunities for reuse. * Blackwater from toilets could be held in conservancy tanks instead of open septic tanks and cess pits and then emptied and transported to biogas reactors; alternatively the toilets could be connected to biogas reactors. * Cess (or drainage) pits e.g. from pour-flush toilets could be equipped with a safety zone of additional filter material to prevent contamination of ground water. * Above ground dry toilets with urine diversion could be installed in dry areas lacking water, rocky areas where pits are expensive to dig and areas with high water tables and flooding. With respect to the other sustainability factors, key areas of attention include: * the creation of an enabling environment * market development * capacity development * lasting behaviour change * monitoring sustainability * tackling slippage * equality, non-discrimination and leaving no one behind * climate change impacts * mechanisms for learningHouse, S. (2020)
Learning in the Sanitation and Hygiene Sector
''SLH Learning Paper'' 10, The Sanitation Learning Hub, Brighton: IDS


See also

*
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation The Gates Foundation is an American private foundation founded by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates. Based in Seattle, Washington, it was launched in 2000 and is reported to be List of wealthiest charitable foundations, the third largest char ...
- active in the area of sustainable sanitation research and implementation * World Toilet Day - the theme in 2020 was "sustainable sanitation and climate change"


References


External links


Sustainable Sanitation Alliance
{{Sustainability Hygiene Sanitation
Sanitation Sanitation refers to public health conditions related to clean drinking water and treatment and disposal of human excreta and sewage. Preventing human contact with feces is part of sanitation, as is hand washing with soap. Sanitation systems ...