SANITATION SUSTAINS CLEAN ENVIRONMNT

A healthy living environment depends on adequate sanitation. Without sanitation systems, human waste enters groundwater and surface waters. Faeces deposited during open defecation contaminate the land. Accumulated excrement dumped from buckets or latrines on fields, streams or rivers is an environmental hazard. This is often accompanied by inadequate disposal of sewage via pipes and through seepage from pit latrines.

In the developing world, roughly 90 per cent of sewage is discharged untreated into rivers, lakes and coastal areas,with a widespread negative impact on health. Each year, an estimated 2.5 billion cases of diarrhoea occur among children under age 5. Water and sanitation interventions can reduce diarrhoea child deaths by 88 per cent.

The sanitation crisis is particularly severe in high-density informal settlements across the globe. With no way to safely dispose of either faeces or garbage, around a billion slum dwellers must resort to ‘flying toilets’, plastic bags that are used then thrown away, and to dumping human waste in public spaces.

This situation is not limited to urban settlements and can be found in impoverished suburbs, small market towns, large villages, peri-urban settlements and other places across the developing world. Worldwide,about 1.1 billion people still defecate in the open, eaving their faeces on the ground to contaminate the surrounding environment, enter waterways and, eventually, impact the livelihood and health of entire communities.

Living in a squalid environment harms physical and psychological health. It is stigmatizing, often presents employment challenges and deepens human poverty. Poor sanitation creates a host of health hazards, as well as a bleak and disheartening visual landscape. Roads are full of mud, puddles and piles of garbage and debris, along with disease-carrying insects, microbes and rodents. Odours are often unpleasant, sometimes overpowering.

Ending open defecation is crucial

If open defecation is widely practised, a healthy living environment that supports human dignity and is free of disease-transmitting conditions is impossible. This is one reason countries called for an end to open defecation, in the United Nations resolution that established the Drive to 2015. Related facts include:

Globally, 15 per cent of the population still defecates in the open.

Rates are highest in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, at 44 per cent and 27 per cent, respectively.

Faecal sludge collected in latrines is frequently not taken to treatment plants. Instead, it is dumped into the environment, due to a lack of regulation and enforcement, or inadequate infrastructure.

Sanitation and waste-water treatment support environmental sustainability

If we look beyond the immediate health implications of open defecation, we find significant environmental damage due to large amounts of untreated sewage and faecal sludge discharged untreated into rivers, lakes and coastal areas. Often this practice is associated with the developing world. It is, however, still an issue in other regions, including Eastern Europe, where waste-water treatment plants are currently being developed.

This type of pollution impacts the usability of ground and surface water, and leads to severe disruption of environmental processes and the destruction of ecosystems. Aquatic dead zones, locations with reduced or no oxygen in the water, have grown to cover 245,000 kilometres of marine environment, including in Asia, the Caribbean, Europe and North America. In South-East Asia alone, 13 million metric tons of faeces are released into inland water sources every year – along with 122 million cubic metres of urine and 11 billion cubic metres of grey water.This presents a major health threat to people who depend on open streams and wells for their drinking water, as well as an economic challenge to people whose livelihoods depend on fisheries.

Along rivers, upstream water users usually enjoy better-quality water, whereas downstream users are often faced with diluted ‘sewage sinks’. The impact of poor waste-water systems and non-existent sanitation is costing billions of dollars and degrading ecosystems. It is also hindering achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, sustainable development, jobs, labour productivity, environmental sustainability, as it jeopardizes the health of hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

Water pollution stemming from poor sanitation costs South-East Asia more than US$2 billion per year. In Indonesia and Viet Nam, it creates environmental costs of more than US$200 million annually, primarily from the loss of productive land.

Reusing waste has many benefits

Sanitation involves a range of actions, but for a sustainable environment and community health, the top priority is preventing contact with excreta and its host of biological pathogens.

Ending open defecation is an essential first step. Innovative approaches, such as Community-led 

Total Sanitation, help establish defecation-free practices within communities by raising awareness and supporting community-wide responsibilities.

To realize full health, social and economic benefits, additional waste-management techniques must 

be considered, providing sustainable sewage and faecal sludge management in addition to sewage 

treatment. This does not necessarily involve investment in large-scale infrastructure; small, decentralized systems can be even more effective.

Sustainable sanitation offers innovations in productive sanitation by reusing nutrients contained in sewage and sludge. Reuse has a number of advantages. It can be used as a fertilizer in organic agriculture, allowing for the production of more food with less land. The approach can help reduce the use of expensive inorganic fertilizers. Capturing the energy in sludge for biogas production helps alleviate reliance on conventional energy sources and provides an affordable energy source for cooking. Reusing treated waste water for irrigation reduces consumption of drinking water for these purposes. All these practices must be carried out safely and in accordance with standards such as World Health Organization Guidelines for safe reuse of waste water.

Handled properly, good sanitation and productive disposal of human waste can create

employment while boosting public and ecosystem health. Instead of being a problem source, human waste, whether managed at the household level or collected in urban waste-water treatment systems, can be an environmental asset – leading to improved food and energy security, health and economic activity

Take action!

Take action for sanitation by kick-starting your own Sanitation Drive to 2015 campaign. Big or small – sanitation for all!

SANITATION BRINGS DIGNITY,EQUALITY AND SAFETY

It is estimated that 2.5 billion people, nearly 40 per cent of the world’s population, live without proper sanitation. More than 1.1 billion people have no sanitation facilities at all. Instead of using a toilet, they defecate in fields, forests and other open spaces.1 Others resort to buckets or plastic bags that get thrown in ditches, along the roads or in bodies of water. Sanitation will provide them with dignity, equity and safety – and ultimately human rights.

Providing dignity for women and girls

While having a toilet is important for everyone, access to safe, clean toilets brings particular benefits to women and girls. Sexual harassment and rape are a risk for many women who wait until nightfall and seek the privacy of darkness to relieve themselves. Freed from the need to defecate in the open, they no longer have to suffer the indignity of physical and verbal abuse or humiliation. 

Women and girls don’t need toilet facilities just for defecation; they also need privacy and dignity when menstruating. Menstruation, pregnancy and the post-natal period become more problematic if women have nowhere to adequately take care of themselves.

Separate toilets at school mean more girls are likely to attend in the first place, and more girls are likely to stay on after puberty to complete their education. 

Women place a higher value on access to private sanitation facilities than men but often remain unheard.There is a real need for facilities that meet women’s physical and psychological 

demands and preferences, and these can be readily achieved by including women in the design and placement of these facilities.

Protecting people who are disabled, elderly or sick

Some of the poorest and most marginalized people in the world are those with physical disabilities, the elderly, and those with HIV and AIDS or long-term illnesses. These people are also the ones whose needs are often overlooked. 

Disabled people face social hurdles in the form of prejudice, pity or stigma from other members of the community. Because they are frequently unable to negotiate obstacles in the natural or human-made environment, their social isolation can be mirrored by physical isolation. Access to improved sanitation is fundamental to ensuring the dignity, safety and equality of this group of people and to enhance their social inclusion. 

Additionally, sanitation can also play an important role in reducing the risks of associated infections. It can greatly improve quality of life, and make home-based care for people living with HIV and AIDS, and chronic illnesses, easier and more dignified.

The equity imperative

The primary focus of the Sanitation Drive to 2015 is on ending open defecation. Open defecation, the most extreme manifestation of poor sanitation, is an immense problem. It is also a practice where inequalities between different social groups are starkly evident.

The Drive to 2015 urges governments to tackle this inequity by giving priority to the poorest and most marginalized populations including those who are disabled, elderly or sick. It advocates for increased political focus on sanitation, better targeting of funding, coordinated efforts based on proven successes, involvement of communities and individuals in decision making, and efforts to ensure that all people have access to information and services.

Take action for sanitation by kick-starting your own Sanitation Drive to 2015 campaign

SANITATION IS A HUMAN RIGHT

Almost 40 per cent of people in the world still lack access to improved sanitation. Currently, 2.5 billion people without a proper toilet are at risk of poor health and enjoy few economic opportunities. They often live in degraded environments and are being denied a basic human right. Access to basic sanitation is not a charitable impulse, it is a legal entitlement. The Sanitation Drive to 2015 urges governments and other stakeholders to make this right a reality. 

Sanitation is a human right

In 2010, the United Nations General Assembly and the Human Rights Council recognized clean 

drinking water and safe sanitation to be a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life and 

all other human rights.

Declaring that access to sanitation and water is a human right constitutes an important step towards making it a reality for everyone. It means that:

1.Access to basic sanitation and safe water is an entitlement, rather than a commodity or a  service provided on a charitable basis.

2.Progress on access to basic sanitation must be accelerated. 

3.Efforts should focus on those least served, including the hardest to reach and most   vulnerable. 

4.Communities and vulnerable groups need to be empowered and engaged in decision-making processes.

5.The means and mechanisms available within the United Nations human rights system should be used to monitor nations’ progress towards realizing the right to water and sanitation, and to hold governments accountable.

Open defecation is the most extreme manifestation of poor sanitation

The Sanitation Drive to 2015 focuses on ending open defecation, defined as defecation in fields, 

forests, bushes, bodies of water or other open spaces.

Today, 1.1 billion people – 15 per cent of the world’s population – have no alternative other than to practice open defecation, the most extreme manifestation of poor sanitation.It disproportionately affects the poorest and most marginalized and is strongly related to the spread of major killer diseases such as diarrhoea.

Why is defecating in the open an affront to human rights? Catarina de Albuquerque, the United 

Nations Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, explains: 

“Dignity closely relates to self-respect, which is difficult to maintain when being forced to squat down in the open, with no respect for privacy, not having the opportunity to clean oneself after defecating and facing the constant threat of assault in such a vulnerable moment.”

Take action!

Concerted action is needed if we are to transform the right to water and sanitation into a reality. 

In 2010, the United Nations called for a redoubling of efforts towards meeting the MDG targets 

and lent its support to a global effort – the Sanitation Drive to 2015. The Drive to 2015 advocates 

for increased political focus on sanitation, better targeting of funding, coordinated efforts based 

on proven successes, involvement of communities and individuals in decision making, and efforts 

to ensure that all people have access to information and services.

Importantly, it focuses on ending open defecation. The Sanitation Drive urges us all to tackle this 

inequity by giving priority to the poorest and most marginalized populations.

Take action for sanitation by kick-starting your own Sanitation Drive to 2015 campaign!

SANITATION

Sanitation generally refers to the provision of facilities and services for the safe disposal of human urine and faeces. Inadequate sanitation is a major cause of disease world-wide and improving sanitation is known to have a significant beneficial impact on health both in households and across communities. The word 'sanitation' also refers to the maintenance of hygienic conditions, through services such as garbage collection and wastewater disposal. (WHO)

Sanitation is the hygienic means of promoting health through prevention of human contact with the hazards of wastes as well as the treatment and proper disposal of sewage wastewater. Hazards can be either physical, microbiological, biological or chemical agents of disease. Wastes that can cause health problems include human and animal feces, solid wastes, domestic wastewater (sewage, sullage, greywater), industrial wastes and agricultural wastes. Hygienic means of prevention can be by using engineering solutions (e.g. sewage and wastewater treatment), simple technologies (e.g. latrines, septic tanks), or even by personal hygiene practices (e.g. simple handwashing with soap). (WIKIPEDIA)

To read full article on SANITATION visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanitation