saniblog.org - a blog on sanitation

new toilet facilities at Muyogoro Primary School, Rwanda

Alexandra from Rwanda Village Concept Project (Rwanda VCP) wrote in the other day to inform us of an ecosan toilet that Rwanda VCP built at Muyogoro primary school in Rwanda earlier this year:

“From our work on malaria education in the village of Mpungwe and Muyogoro Primary School, we have noted that the current level of hygiene constitutes a significant danger to public health. We are providing adequate sanitation facilities for children through ecosan toilet construction at their primary schools after seeing that the existing ones can be a danger to the children health and the environment. (…) On Monday, December 17 2007, the construction started at Muyogoro primary school, located in Huye District, Nyakagezi subsector. This construction has been realised in partnership between RVCP, 2 International Participants and BVDA.”

click here to view the complete gallery

The Rwanda Village Concept Project is an international student-run project in Central Africa. This multidisciplinary development project was initiated in 1998 whereas the fieldwork started in 2002. Its aims are to improve the living standards in a Rwandan community by using simple and low cost methods and to develop the capabilties of students in participatory development work.

Dominik of pong.li was invited to cover the construction process with his camera and created these wonderful videos (full playlist on YouTube):

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“People in this area just came together to build that public infrastructure…”

The ‘Great Stink’ of the 21st Century

INVITATION to a World Water Day 2008 event hosted by Earthscan and The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Join us for a panel discussion to launch The Last Taboo*: Opening the Door on the Global Sanitation Crisis - a new book supported by UNICEF, on the global sanitation crisis

TOPIC: The ‘Great Stink’ of the 21st Century

Why do 1.5 million children die each year from diarrhoeal disease? Because tiny particles of excreta get into their mouths. How? Because 150 years after ‘The Great Stink of London’ brought about a sanitation revolution, 2.6 billion people – 40% of the global population – do not have a decent place to ‘go’ and their bodily wastes are left lying about. Diarrhoeal diseases are not ‘water-related’, they are ‘s**t-related’. Until we call a spade a spade, this scandal will continue.

2008 is the International Year of Sanitation, and now is the time to speak out boldly and open up the excretory frontier. Join the speakers to insist that ways be found to overcome the silence which inhibits the access of millions of people from that basic necessity for public health and human dignity – a toilet.

Speakers: Maggie Black, co-author of The Last Taboo; Professor Sandy Cairncross, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; Girish Menon, International Operations Director at Water Aid, DFID speaker to be confirmed

When: 20th March 2008

Time: 1pm – 2:30pm

Venue: The Lucas Room, London School of Tropical Hygiene and Medicine, London, UK

Location map: www.lshtm.ac.uk/location

*About the book
The Last Taboo: Opening the Door on the Global Sanitation Crisis, by Maggie Black and Ben Fawcett, brings this neglected topic out of the closet. This highly readable book is aimed at all readers interested in the causes and consequences of this global sanitation crisis. Discounted copies will be available at the event. Those who can’t make it to the event can purchase copies online.

job vacancy @ gtz, Germany

Head of the gtz ecosan programme, Germany

The gtz looks for a new senior team leader for its ecosan-programme.
You will be responsible for all programme activities, including human resources management and quality control. You will report on project development to the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), and be available to give policy advice to the ministry and other German sector institutions. You will be responsible to keep the commitments gtz has made towards the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance, which includes running the secretariat of the alliance and contributing to a number of working groups.

You are a civil or environmental engineer with a focus on sanitary engineering. You should have several years of professional experience in a senior position in the fields of waste water management and sanitation with focus on innovative ecosan approaches, plus experience in applied research, capacity development, advocacy and policy advice.

We look for a person with excellent communication skills and with the ability to build relationships at all levels, good leadership skills and the ability to produce excellent results in difficult contexts (e.g. limited time etc.).
Language requirements: Excellent German and English is a must. Good knowledge of French is an asset.
The candidate is expected to start working in April 2008.

Job description (online)

Apply before 15 Feb 2008

Contact: Anne Ramp, anne.ramp (a) gtz.de

Sanitation NOW magazine, special edition

The Stockholm Environment Institute and EcoSanRes Programme published this special edition of the “Sanitation NOW” magazine for the UN International Year of Sanitation 2008 on the global sanitation crisis:

“Climate change will transform the way we look at sanitation. It’s not just a poverty issue. In a world of more frequent floods, even wealthy nations have to revise their sanitary solutions.” Gunhild Arby, Editor

This interesting publication with lots of facts, case studies and experienced experts talking about the global sanitation crisis is available in Portable Document Format (PDF) from the EcoSanRes website in a low- (1.34 mb) and high-resolution (2.37 mb).

use a toilet and get paid

Have you ever used a toilet and got paid afterwards?

A Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in India has just claimed to be doing this. From January 15th 2008 onwards, users of a local toilet system based on ecological sanitation (ecosan) principles will be paid the sum of 10 paise* for each visit.

By doing this, the Society for Community Organization and Peoples Education (SCOPE) wants to create an awareness for the value of human waste: “urine and faeces are so rich in nutrients for farm production that they are worth buying”.

The first Ecosan Community Compost Toilet in the country in Saliyar Street is functioning for the past 18 months. Every fortnight on an average 250 liters of urine is collected, the same is used for farming purposes. Already the Tamilnadu Agricultural University is studying the use of urine as liquid fertilizer for the past one year, under an MoU signed by SCOPE with the University. WASTE of Netherlands has funded, Rs. 4 lakhs for the two-year research project. (src)

Apparently, this really is the first time anywhere in the world that toilet users are being paid. What a smart approach!

* 100 paise = 1 Indian rupee = 0,01774 EUR

just a short note…

…to let you know of the ABOUT and HELP pages which I’ve modified to inform you on:

1. what a blog is…

2. how to post entries on this blog!

Enjoy!

UNSGAB chair talks about reuse-oriented sanitation

Dear all,

in his speech for the launch of the UN International Year of Sanitation 2008 the UNSGAB-chair Prince Willem-Alexander from the Netherlands pointed out the importance of reaching the water supply and sanitation MDGs in a sustainable way. Reuse of excreta and wastewater is promoted and the agricultural and energetical value of excreta and wastewater is stressed.

From the educational point of view he named the community-led total sanitation campaign in India as a good approach (well, there are pros and cons about that one - would be interesting to hear your opinion on the total sanitation campaign). From a technological point of view, Urine-Diversion toilets are named as a new innovation (considering that more than a million are installed in China it is not really something novel but good that it was mentioned). Other appropriate systems to reach the MDGs are given with “small-bore sewerage systems, pit emptying facilities, low-cost septic tank sludge treatment methods and the development and marketing of biogas technologies” - addressing bigger problems of low-cost decentralized conventional treatment systems… thinking of climate change, it would make more sense for me to invest into upgrading septic tanks to anaerobic digesters and pit latrines into Urine Diversion Dehydration toilets - then we also fight Methane-emissions… but just some thoughts…

The whole speach can be found at: http://esa.un.org/iys/iys_launch.shtml

Cheers,

sbr

Did you know…

Did you know that globally some 2.6 billion people are without access to any kind of improved sanitation?

Did you know that more than 2.2 million people, mostly in developing countries, die each year from diseases associated with poor water and sanitation conditions?

Did you know that the most affected group is the one of children under the age of 5?

Did you know that sanitation rarely receives the required attention and priority by politicians and civil society alike despite its key importance on many other sectors and for achieving most of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)?

People often do not want to talk about sanitation, and when asked about their wishes, you’ll often hear answers like “a new tv set, a vcr, a car..” etc. instead. So how come sanitation - as a basic human need - has become such a neglected request?

And please beware: just because the above mentioned facts mainly cover developing countries, it doesn’t imply that industrialized nations are having much better sanitation systems! Just think of the public toilet system in your town and ask yourself: would you want to use these toilets (if any) for your next nature’s call?

See?

With this small blog on the internet, we’ll try to display various approaches to an improved sanitation, cover some good and bad technologies and hopefully help to put sanitation on your agenda.

Because change will only happen if people really want it.

Welcome to saniblog!

Welcome to saniblog - the world’s first blog on sanitation!

With the launch of the up-coming International Year of Sanitation 2008 on Wednesday, November 21st 2007, and the World Toilet Day on November 19th, I am very pleased to launch the first blog dedicated to sanitation.

As this blog has just been created, please subscribe to this site and stay tuned for more updates within the next few days.