Turning fecal sludge into a resource: New approaches required to achieve the rural sanitation SDGs

Safely managed sanitation is a focus of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is central to stunting reduction and early childhood survival, both identified by the World Bank’s Human Capital Index as critical for humans to develop their full potential. It is widely known that 4.5 billion people lacked access to safely managed sanitation in 2015, according to the Joint Monitoring Programme. Less well understood is that hundreds of millions more people in densely populated rural areas are exposed to significant health risk due to unsafely managed sanitation.

In contrast to urban areas, fecal sludge management (FSM) is not yet recognized as a priority for the rural sanitation sector – it is assumed to be less of an issue because rural areas are more sparsely populated. However, some densely populated areas fall under rural administrations, notably in deltas and on the periphery of rapidly growing rural areas. In these areas there is also a need to safely manage fecal waste. Many sanitation systems that, for lack of scrutiny, are assumed to be improved and safe, but due to lack of scrutiny they fail to safely manage fecal sludge.

A new World Bank report-supported by the Global Water Security and Sanitation Program (GWSP) – and six case studies identified specific causes of health risks in locations in Bangladesh, Bolivia, Egypt, India, and Vietnam. They include compromised construction of on-site sanitation solutions, incorrect technology choices, poorly developed FSM markets, predominantly manual emptying practices and indiscriminate dumping of sludge in the immediate environment. They found that environmental regulations and building codes do not address FSM effectively, and enforcement is often weak. Rural administrations typically lack the mandate and institutional capacity to provide and manage FSM services.

Read the full blog by Joep Verhagen and Pippa Scott

Citation

“Verhagen, Joep; Scott, Pippa. 2019. Safely Managed Sanitation in High-Density Rural Areas : Turning Fecal Sludge into a Resource through Innovative Waste Management. World Bank, Washington, DC. © World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/32385 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”

 

Training Program on Implementing and Operationalizing Faecal Sludge Management

In the next five years, it is expected that more than 500 faecal sludge treatment plants (FSTPs) have to be designed, built and operated in India. However, there is a significant gap in understanding of the faecal sludge management opportunities and operations amongst practitioners such as contractors and operators.

To address this gap, the Centre for Advanced Sanitation Solutions (CASS) in partnership with The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, BORDA and the CDD Society is organising a training course + exposure visit on faecal sludge management from 5-8 February 2019 in Bengaluru, India.

For more information go to: www.trainings.cddindia.org

 

IWMI – Market adoption and diffusion of fecal sludge-based fertilizer in developing countries: cross-country analyses

Market adoption and diffusion of fecal sludge-based fertilizer in developing countries: cross-country analyses. IWMI, 2018.

The safe recovery of nutrients from our waste streams allows us to address the challenges of waste management and soil nutrient depletion conjointly.

Commercialization of waste-based organic fertilizers such as FortiferTM (fecal sludge-based co-compost) has the potential to generate significant benefits for developing economies via cost recovery for the sanitation sector and the provision of an alternative agricultural input for smallholder farmers.

To guide future FortiferTM businesses, this report presents examples of detailed market assessments, based on farmers’ perceptions, attitudes and willingness-to-pay (WTP) for a pelletized and non-pelletized FortiferTM co-compost.

The research was conducted in the Greater Accra and Western regions in Ghana, and in and around Kampala (Uganda), Bangalore (India), Hanoi (Vietnam), and Kurunegala (Sri Lanka).

Cross-country analyses helped to understand the effects of market drivers and, where possible, capture lessons learned for knowledge sharing.

Faecal Sludge and Septage Treatment: A guide for low- and middle-income countries

Faecal Sludge and Septage Treatment: A guide for low- and middle-income countries. Practical Action Publishing.

Author: Kevin Tayler | Published: 2018 | Pages: 370

Many middle- and low-income countries are experiencing rapid urbanization, which creates a need for services, including sanitation. 

While some areas in some towns and cities are sewered, most people, especially the urban poor, continue to use various forms of on-site sanitation. These require periodic emptying and the material removed from them must be treated before reuse or discharge to the environment.

Faecal Sludge and Septage Treatment confronts the urgent need to treat increasing volumes of faecal sludge and septage in the rapidly expanding towns and cities of the global south. It discusses the urban contexts that influence treatment requirements and overall septage treatment processes.

It examines the options and design approaches at each stage of treatment, from reception, through preliminary treatment, solids – liquid separation, anaerobic and aerobic treatment of the separated liquid and solid fractions to systems to render treated products suitable for reuse in either agriculture or as a fuel.

Faecal Sludge and Septage Treatment provides straightforward guidance on the options for faecal sludge treatment and the choices between those options. All concepts and approaches are clearly explained so as to make Faecal Sludge and Septage Treatment accessible to a non-specialist readership.

Faecal sludge management – a critical pathway to safely managed sanitation

Faecal sludge management – a critical pathway to safely managed sanitation. WASHmatters, July 2018. 

Most people in South Asian towns and cities rely on toilets that are not connected to sewers. With the global urban population set to double by 2050, the need to ensure safe disposal of waste is growing ever more urgent. Jaison Thomas, WaterAid’s Regional Funding Manager for South Asia, reflects on the faecal sludge discourse in the region, taking reference to deliberations at the South Asian Conference on Sanitation (SACOSAN) VII at Islamabad.

Eliminating open defecation is just the first step in ensuring everyone has safely managed sanitation services, as outlined in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6. In South Asia, where most people use on-site toilets and sewerage coverage is limited, faecal sludge management (FSM, which involves everything from emptying pits of faecal matter and transporting the sludge to treatment and disposal) is central to ensuring safely managed services.

Read the complete article.

Fecal Sludge Management – Water Currents

Fecal Sludge Management – Water Currents, January 17, 2018.

Worldwide, 2.7 billion people rely on on-site sanitation, but many lack the means to manage fecal sludge—the muddy mix of fecal matter that accumulates over time in septage or pit latrines, which can have significant health and environmental implications. As a result, fecal sludge management (FSM) has become a key component of providing universal sanitation access. 

This issue of Water Currents contains studies from 2017 that focus on FSM, including research that discusses the health-related aspects, technological aspects, and related economic/financing issues. Also included are links to upcoming courses, announcements, and websites.

We are always looking for ideas and suggestions to make Water Currents more useful and relevant, so we would appreciate your responses to this brief survey.

Courses 
Introduction to Faecal Sludge Management. This introductory course by the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne teaches how to apply concepts of sustainable FSM on a citywide scale. It started on January 8, 2018, but enrollment is still open. This course is one of four in the series “Sanitation, Water and Solid Waste for Development.” This is an online course and there is no charge for participating.

Announcements
Field Test Innovative Sludge Management Tools in Malawi. Mzuzu University Centre of Excellence in Water and Sanitation in Malawi invites self-funded graduate students or experienced researchers to field test their innovative tools and techniques for the emptying, transport, and treatment of pit latrine or septic tank sludge. The site is well suited for conducting field testing on local pit latrines or septic tanks for a period of several weeks to months. Visit the centre’s website or contact Dr. Rochelle Holm for further information.

FSM and Health
Designing a Mixed-Methods Approach for Collaborative Local Water Security: Findings from a Kenyan Case Study. Exposure and Health, July 2017. The purpose of this research was to develop and pilot a mixed-methods-coupled systems (human and physical) approach to understand strengths, challenges, and health impacts associated with WASH in a rural Kenyan community. Both quantitative and qualitative data were used for the analysis.

Read the complete article.

WSUP – A guide to strengthening the enabling environment for faecal sludge management: experience from Bangladesh, Kenya and Zambia

A guide to strengthening the enabling environment for faecal sludge management: experience from Bangladesh, Kenya and Zambia. WSUP, November 2017. 

This Guide presents an introduction to conceptualising and strengthening the enabling environment for faecal sludge management (FSM) services in low-income urban areas.

It is based on WSUP’s experience working with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop market-based solutions for on-site sanitation services in the cities of Dhaka and Chittagong (Bangladesh), Kisumu (Kenya) and Lusaka (Zambia).

Why is FSM so important?

FSM is the process by which faecal sludge is contained, collected, transported, treated and then safely disposed of or reused. 2.7 billion (38%) people around the world are dependent on on-site sanitation facilities like pit latrines and septic tanks, which contain and partially treat faecal sludge on-site (as opposed to centralised systems like sewers that remove waste from households and transport it to treatment facilities).

Read the complete report.

The new economy of excrement. Nature, September 13, 2017

The new economy of excrement. Nature, September 13, 2017

Entrepreneurs are finding profits turning human waste into fertiliser, fuel and even food.

On the outskirts of Kigali, Rwanda, septic trucks full of human excrement bump and slosh their way up orange dirt roads to their final destination: the Nduba landfill. Until recently, the trucks would spill their contents into giant open pits.

Will Swanson for Nature. Semi-dried sludge on its way to becoming fuel at the Pivot plant in Rwanda.

But since 2015, workers in green jumpsuits have greeted them outside a row of sheds and plastic-roofed greenhouses, ready to process the faecal sludge into a dry, powdery fuel.

The facility is called Pivot, and its founder is Ashley Muspratt, a sanitation engineer who lived in Ghana, Kenya and Rwanda for more than seven years before moving back to the United States last year. Muspratt insists that Pivot is not a treatment plant.

It’s a business. Its product powers local industries such as cement and brick plants. “I describe us as dual sanitation and renewable-fuel company,” Muspratt says. “Our model really is to build factories.”

Muspratt is part of a growing band of entrepreneurs trying to address one of the biggest challenges in public health — poor sanitation — and to turn a profit doing it. According to a report published by the World Health Organization and United Nations children’s charity Unicef in July, 2.8 billion people — 38% of the world’s population — have no access to sewers and deposit their waste in tanks and pit latrines (see ‘Sanitation across nations’).

Read the complete article.

How Public Private Partnerships are Making a Crappy Market Safe Across Bangladesh

How Public Private Partnerships are Making a Crappy Market Safe Across Bangladesh. August 30, 2017. By Sarah Miers – Skoll Foundation, By Lucien Chan – Skoll Foundation.

In Bangladesh, nearly half of 55 million urban residents lack the sanitation infrastructure to properly process human waste. The result: massive amounts of raw waste is unsafely dumped, fouling the environment and posing major public health risks. There’s an urgent need to find safe and affordable ways for waste to be collected and treated. 

Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP) works alongside local providers, enabling them to develop their own services, build infrastructure, and attract the funding needed to reach low-income communities. Since its inception in 2005, WSUP has helped nearly 14 million people access clean water and sanitation services across six countries. Earlier this summer, we spent a week investigating WSUP’s SWEEP program, a public-private partnership (PPP) for fecal sludge management (FSM), which resulted in a $2 million investment from the Skoll Foundation to expand across 4 cities and serve 6.8 million people by 2021.

Dhaka is the only city in the country with any sewage infrastructure (just 20 percent coverage), and nearly all non-sewered households rely on manual sweepers–workers who remove the waste at high risk and with little equipment–to empty their on-site pit latrines or septic tanks. More hygienic, mechanical emptying options are limited. Due to failures across the sanitation value chain (containment, emptying, transport, and treatment), nearly all waste is not effectively treated or safely disposed, most often being dumped directly into storm water drains or the environment.

Read the complete article.

Tender: Sanitation solutions for underserved communities in Jordan

The project, initiated by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), focuses on rethinking sanitation systems, by improving existing Wastewater Treatment Plants (WWTP) and exploring the development of small scale Waste Water Treatment (WWT) and Faecal Sludge Treatment (FST) solutions. The goal of these improvements and developments is to increase WWT efficiency and sanitation coverage, and turn waste streams into physical and financial resource streams by ensuring and promoting safe reuse of the treated wastewater and faecal sludge. The focus is on Jordanian host communities as a whole, with a particular attention to be paid to unserved, vulnerable communities, as they are more and more impacted by the lack of adequate sanitation systems. The project will be subdivided into two distinct phases – the inception phase and the main phase.

Project ID 157868|Notice no. 975947

Deadline for submission of the complete bid: 28 August 2017

View the full notice at:
www.simap.ch/shabforms/COMMON/search/searchresult.jsf