Sri Lanka: new partnership tackles fecal sludge management

Septage disposal. Sri Lanka/Nuwara Eliya sanitation project, 2008, Photo: Flickr/USAID.

An international research institute is helping the government of Sri Lanka to improve septage management in the country.

On 8 May 2013, the Colombo-based International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and the Ministry of Water Supply and Drainage signed a Memorandum of Understanding that provides a collaborative framework for sustainable septage management in Sri Lanka.

IWMI will contribute research data for the drafting of a septage management component of the national sanitation policy. The Ministry will lead implementation of the policy through an advisory committee headed by Minister Dinesh Gunawardena.

Only about 3% of Sri Lankans have a sewerage connection while the rest rely on latrines and septic tanks for sanitation. Safe disposal of septage (fecal sludge) is a problem because of a lack of treatment facilities in large parts of the country.

IWMI is studying a new approach in cities around the world, which treats the sludge so that it can be safely reused as agricultural fertiliser. With the rising costs of imported fertiliser, such an approach would not only benefit farmers but also allow better sanitation and environmental protection for all.

Related news:

• The business of the honey-suckers in Bengaluru (India), E-Source, 27 Sep 2012
• WASHplus Weekly: Focus on Fecal Sludge Management, Sanitation Updates, 30 Nov 2012

Related web sites:

• IWMI - Resource Recovery and Re-use
• Ministry of Water Supply and Drainage
• SuSanA - WG 5 – Food security and productive sanitation systems and Library – Fecal sludge management

 Source: IWMI, 8 May 2013

Sanitation as a business – the poor will have to wait

Malawian sanitation entrepreneur Martius using “The Gulper” to empty a pit latrine. Photo: Water for People

Providing toilets to the poorest may be “dear to the hearts of many non-profits, aid agencies and governments” but if you want to involve business you have to start with the better-off families first. So says business woman and sanitation entrepreneur Towera Jalakari who runs a pit emptying service in Blantyre, Malawi.

“We will get to Everyone in Blantyre one day, but the only way to make sure Blantyre actually solves its sanitation problems is to recognize that the market must function.  [...]  As we get better, as we scale city-wide, then costs will come down, services will improve, and pressure will build for all people to have a toilet.  We will get to the poorest, but they are not our first targets.  [...] If we rush too fast [...] then the poor will not have lasting services but rather a lot of useless toilets and nowhere to go to the bathroom.”

Malawi is one the countries in Water for People’s Sanitation as a Business program (2010-2014), which is funded by a US$ 5.6 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Water for People has contracted Tools for Enterprise & Education Consultants (TEECs) to support pit emptying businesses in Lilongwe and Blantyre.

WASHplus Weekly: Focus on Fecal Sludge Management

Issue 80 | November  30, 2012 | Focus on Fecal Sludge Management

This issue focuses on recent information and research about fecal sludge management (FSM). This includes presentations that are now online from the recent Second International Fecal Sludge Management Conference. These provide some of the latest findings on the technical, economic, and other factors that affect the success or failure of FSM initiatives. 

Also included are an FSM research proposal in Bangladesh from the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre and case studies from Cameroon, Burkina Faso, the Philippines, South Africa, and others.

• Link to Weekly

Publication of the Study on Fecal Sludge Management in Africa and Asia

The study presented in October through the blog post: “Fecal Sludge Management: A smelly but fruitful business”, is now available.

The study was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and is entitled “Business analysis of fecal sludge management: emptying and transportation services in Africa and Asia”. The purpose of the study is to analyse the fecal sludge management (FSM) sector and its operating models in 30 cities across 10 countries. 2.1 billion people in urban centres use non-piped sanitation facilities and unavoidably require the emptying of fecal sludge (see picture below). Mismanagement of FSM represents a serious threat to public health and the environment.

The study also aims at filling the important information gaps on this business sector, which is often unregulated and leads to situations where households pay excessive fees for these services or are compelled to undertake emptying manually exposing themselves to serious health hazards.

Chowdhry, S. and Kone, D., 2012. Business analysis of fecal sludge management : emptying and transportation services in Africa and Asia. Seattle, WA, USA: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. 116 p.; 47 fig.; 22 tab. With bibliography  p. 115-116
Available at: <http://www.washdoc.info/docsearch/title/179741>

By Pascal B. Garde, Consultant, WASH Policy and Governance, @GardePascal

Renewed research call for faecal sludge secondary treatment options in Bangladesh

IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre announces a renewed research call for:

Faecal sludge secondary treatment technologies for challenging settings

This call is part of the BRAC WASH II programme in which EUR 1.5 million will be used for innovative research, tendered to consortia of leading European and Bangladeshi research organisations.

The planned duration of the faecal sludge research project will be 18 months.

The anticipated cost of the project is EUR 325,000. In addition there is EUR 50,000 available for piloting. (Separate budget needs to be included for this).

To download the guidelines and application form go to: www.irc.nl/page/73136

The deadline for submission of full proposal application forms is: 11 January 2013.

Future research calls will focus on low-cost water supply technologies; Geo-referenced database for monitoring; menstrual hygiene management; and saline intrusion.

Please do not send requests for information or applications to the Sanitation Updates blog.

Conference explores faecal sludge management, a key link to up-scaling sanitation

Getting ready to access the pit for emptying, eThekwini , South Africa. Photo: Elisabeth von Muench, SuSanA

Since many experts believe that flush toilets and sewerage are unaffordable for the large majority urban and rural communities, faecal sludge management (FSM) is seen as a key link to up-scaling sanitation.

But do we need to reinvent the toilet or invent a sanitation industry? That was the concluding thought of Water for People’s Steven Sugden, one of the 100 or so presenters at the Second International Faecal Sludge Management conference (FSM2). Looking at all the presentations, the impression you get is that we need both better technologies and better business models.

FSM2 ook place in Durban, South Africa from 29-31 October 2012. The conference was structured around the following themes:

• On-site Sanitation as a Business
• Socio-political Aspects of On-site Sanitation
• Understanding On-site Sanitation
• Toilet Design for FSM Optimisation
• Pit Emptying – What are the Options?
• The How of Faecal Sludge Treatment
• Waste Not Want Not – Beneficial Use of Faecal Sludges
• Technology and Innovation
• Health Aspects of Faecal Sludges

All the presentations are available on the SuSanA website.

Fecal Sludge Management: A smelly but fruitful business!

Today, 2.1 billion people in urban areas use non-sewered (or on-site) sanitation facilities. While much of the work in rural areas is focused on creating and sustaining open defecation free communities and generating demand for communities to construct toilets, the downstream activities of collecting and transporting fecal sludge present a unique challenge for urban residents. These services are mostly provided by private operators, and are generally uncontrolled and unregulated. The inadequate disposal of fecal sludge in the environment represents a direct threat to public health and negates the positive outcomes from behavioral change and improvements in sanitation access.

The urban population in developing countries, and in particular the poor, rely on fecal sludge collection and transportation services that are often not affordable.  In addition, pit emptying is often done by hand, exposing the operators to serious health risks (see figure below). Often mechanical emptiers, using vacuum trucks, charge excessive fees to customers but do not pay taxes or comply with laws and standards due to a general lack of regulation for these services. This makes it a highly profitable business. For example an emptying service provider in Abuja makes US$ 15,000 per month.

Manual emptier in Senegal, also called Baay Pelles

The business of the honey-suckers in Bengaluru (India) – new IRC publication

A new IRC paper explores some contributions being made by honey-sucker tanker operators — that renders a small-scale sanitation service informally and within the private sector — on waste (faecal) extraction and, in some cases, reuse. Operating outside the legal framework of waste management, this paper provides preliminary insight into the limitations and potentials of the ‘honey-sucker business’ as a sanitation service model, based on selected experiences in Bengaluru (India).

Living without sanitary sewers in Latin America

Rojas, F. (2012). Living without sanitary sewers in Latin America – The business of collecting fecal sludge in four Latin American cities. World Bank, Water and Sanitation Program (WSP), Latin America and the Caribbean.

• Full text

The present report spotlights the major challenges and the opportunities that lie ahead in fecal sludge management and summarizes the findings from four case studies that describe the current and potential market for sludge removal, collection, and disposal in peri-urban areas. These areas,
inhabited by a variety of ethnic, religious, and cultural groups,
typically struggle with high population density, insufficient land use planning, high citizen insecurity, and low coverage with basic services.

The report demonstrates how technical, financial, environmental, social, regulatory, political, and institutional factors interact to create supply and demand in four markets where coverage with sanitary sewerage services is below the regional average, namely: Santa Cruz (Bolivia), Guatemala City (Guatemala), Tegucigalpa (Honduras), and Managua
(Nicaragua).

Even though households in the four areas studied have onsite sanitation systems (latrines and toilets), fecal sludge and excreta often drain into the streets, and there is no control or treatment of the sludge, posing a risk for public health and the environment.

IRC research calls on BRAC WASH II Programme – extended to 31 Aug 2012

IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre is happy to announce two research calls in the field of sanitation:

1. Low-cost sanitation technologies for areas with high groundwater tables
2. Faecal sludge secondary treatment options

These calls are part of the BRAC WASH II programme in which EUR 1.5 million will be used for innovative research, tendered to consortia of leading European and Bangladeshi research organisations. The other action research calls will focus on low-cost water supply technologies; Geo-referenced database for monitoring; menstrual hygiene management; and saline intrusion.

1. Guidelines for research call on low-cost sanitation technologies for areas with high groundwater tables

• Application form for low-cost sanitation technologies

2. Guidelines for secondary treatment options for faecal sludge

• Application form for secondary treatment options for faecal sludge

Extended deadline for submission of full proposal application forms: 31 August 2012

Please do not send requests for information or applications to the Sanitation Updates blog.