Sanitation Updates

Ghorahi: A dalit [low caste] settlement in Aspari of Dhikapur-6 is becoming a model in the district in terms of sanitation. All the households in the settlement have constructed concrete toilets after the Drinking Water and Sanitation Division Office Dang provided loan assistance to construct toilets.

A local Sita Ram Bika said, “We used to defecate in roads and lanes only in the mornings or night due to financial crisis to construct toilet.” “We got great relief after construction of toilets. Now we can defecate whenever we like,” said Pyari Lal Bika, a local.

Read more: Rajdhani / NGO Forum, May 4, 2008

KENDRAPARA, May 13: Ever heard of theft of a pucca house?

The sarpanch of backward Gangapada gram panchayat has alleged that concrete structured community latrines were stolen from the village.   (…)    “I was shocked to be informed that there is no physical trace of the recently built latrines. Thus I take it for granted that either theft has occurred or central grants spent for the purpose were gobbled up by the then PRI members. (…) “

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Three years ago, residents of coastal and upland villages in San Fernando City polluted their drinking water with their own excreta. Today, they take pains to practice safe hygiene and sanitation. An innocent looking dry toilet (UDDT - urine-diverting dehydration toilet) and an untiring city mayor propelled this shift through a 2-town ecological sanitation pilot project that has evolved into a citywide movement. Can the city carry the momentum forward to the entire province and neighboring towns?

Read more: ADB, Mar 2008

A big housing development project is bringing ecological sanitation toilets that do not require water, to a water-scarce municipality in the northern region of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The largest urban project of its kind in the PRC, the project also boasts of an onsite eco-station complete with greywater treatment and thermal composting of organic materials. Will there be enough takers to ensure the sustainability of this project and the concept of ecotown?

The Erdos Eco-Town Project (EETP) - a collaborative enterprise of the Dongsheng District of the Erdos Municipal government, Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), and a private real estate developer (Daxing Co. Ltd.)- is the world’s first major attempt to build an entire town with onsite ecological sanitation (ecosan).

Read more: ADB, Apr 2008

Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak, founder of Sulabh International Social Service Organisation, India, revealed in an interview published in April 2008 in the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) “Water Champion” series, that his organisation plans to open branches in 50 countries. Sulabh has already constructed and is maintaining public toilets in Afghanistan and Bhutan and has provided training to professionals in 15 African countries, Dr. Pathak said. Other plans include publishing Sulabh literature in all the 22 languages of India, and distributing 5 books each to 600,000 villages.

Sulabh International is well known for pioneering the “Sulabh Shauchalaya”, a self-composting two-pit, pour-flush toilet, and for liberating scavengers or “night soil workers”.

Total sanitation in action:

(…)

How did you provide sanitation coverage for all the 12 villages under your Chakchaka GP? 

It was not easy at all. We made it mandatory for all residents of this GP to ensure that there were sanitary toilets in their dwellings and they use only those. To get any certificate or facilities from the panchayat office they must satisfy us first. We are still following this procedure. We did graffiti on walls and intensive campaigning on sanitation. Sanitary toilet facilities were extended to 17 primary schools, two high schools and 27 Anganwadi centres. We also provide disinfectants to schools. To make the environment clean in Chakchaka Industrial Growth Centre complex we took up a social forestry scheme and planted more than 25,000 trees at Chapaguri. We did all these with our own funds.   (…)

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CHILDREN’S health is under threat from school toilets, according to a report out today that condemns poor education funding.

Many of them are so disgusting the National Assembly’s Enterprise and Learning Committee is calling for urgent action.
…
“We are living in the 21st century, yet many school toilets are like something from the Dark Ages,” said Sharon Mills, of Deri, near Bargoed, whose five-year-old son Mason Jones died after contracting E.coli.

Read More - icWales

Malakal, on the banks of the world’s longest river in Sudan’s Upper Nile State, should have enough water to quench thirst and clean itself; instead the town was grappling with serious challenges as it marked the international week of sanitation in March. With the onset of the rainy season, aid workers worry that cholera could become a significant danger.

The situation is compounded by a serious shortage of toilet facilities. A survey by the NGO Relief International in 2007 found that 80 percent of the residents had no access to latrines or any other toilet facilities. A 2007 household survey in Sudan, conducted by UNICEF, found that only 7.5 percent of the population in Upper Nile practised improved sanitation.

But where latrines have been provided a change had been noticed. A study of be havioural change by the NGO Solidarités in El Luakat and El Mattar suburbs of Malakal found that latrine use went up from 16 percent in 2007 to 26 percent with an increase in facilities from 5 to 35 percent.

Sanitation week, from 17 to 20 March, was intended to scale up hygiene and health information across Upper Nile and in Malakal town. School children were taught songs on hygiene and some parts of the town were cleaned, but aid workers say very little was achieved.

Read more: IRIN, 30 Apr 2008

Kathmandu: Many passers-by walking in the city defecate in the open. Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) stated that over 50 per cent passers by defecate on the footpaths despite having the facility of public toilets. “Four years ago, about 1100 people used to use public toilets every day. Number of toilet users have decreased by half at present,” said Rabin Man Shrestha, Chief of Environment Department at KMC.

The KMC stated that the tendency of random defecation has increased due to lack of awareness on sanitation, high fee for using public toilet and lack of knowledge about public toilets in the people who enter Kathmandu city for the first time from different parts of the country.

Read more: NGO Forum / Kantipur, 19 April 2008

HEALTH and Environment Minister Rudyard Spencer yesterday announced Government’s intention to create a master plan for sewerage as part of efforts to improve Jamaica’s sanitation.

The plan, the minister said, will include the institutional arrangements for the provision of sewerage services in Jamaica.

Read More - Jamaica Observer