Tag: sanitation

No modern public toilets in Frankfurt

The following blog post is a reply (in German) I received the other day from the City of Frankfurt am Main in Germany upon my request for more public toilets.

A short proposal that asked the city to invest in more public toilets that would improve the overall toilet situation in Frankfurt (which is still bad) and that would make use of technologies such as vacuum toilets and/or Urilift urinals. A quickly drafted idea that I shared on Bürgerhaushalt FFM a while ago (which is a website by the city of Frankfurt to pool public participation). You may want to use Google translate if German isn’t your language…

A snapshot of closed urinals in a public toilet / restroom - seen at Frankfurt Airport in Oct. 2013. #fail
A snapshot of closed urinals in a public toilet / restroom – seen at Frankfurt Airport in Oct. 2013. #fail

The idea
Vorschlag und Ergebnis der Bürgerbeteiligung
Vorschlag Nr.: B903
Titel: Förderung öffentlicher Toiletten
Beschreibung:

In der Innenstadt sollte es mehr öffentliche Toiletten geben, gerne auch mit einer Benutzungsgebühr.

Vorteile:
– Sicherstellung der sanitären Grundversorgung (!)
– Gastlichkeit für Besucher der Innenstadt
– Auslagerung der Verantwortung in eine GmbH
– Wassereinsparungen durch wasserlose Urinale
– Betriebskosten für Wasser durch Verwendung von Vakuumtoiletten einsparen
– Nährstoffrecycling mit z.B. Verwendung des org. Düngers in den Grünanlagen der Stadt
– Grauwasserrecycling, z.B. Handwaschbeckenspülwasser aufbereiten für Toilettenspülung
– Aufbesserung des Images des Stadt
– Zusatzangebote wie z.B. Verkauf von Hygieneartikeln, Handyladestation, etc.
Zusätzlich:
– versenkbare Urinale (in den Niederlanden populär) für Vergnügungsviertel, die in der Nacht
aus dem Boden ausgefahren werden
In anderen Städten Europas wurde dies teilweise schon umgesetzt.
Bei richtiger Kalkulation, d.h. Umlage der Betriebskosten, könnte dies sogar rentabel sein, es
müsste aber eine Förderung seitens der Stadt geben.

Their reply

Beschlussempfehlung: Der Vorschlag wird abgelehnt.

Continue reading “No modern public toilets in Frankfurt”

water supply & sanitation map in Africa

During a recent trip to the GTZ office of the “sustainable sanitation – ecosan” program in Eschborn, Germany, I stumbled upon the following interesting map that display various international NGOs working on water supply & sanitation issues in Africa.

gtz-ecosan-01092010-int-ngo-watsan-africa-map.pdf


download this map as a PDF (0.1 MB)

Steffen Blume of GTZ-ecosan, who created this map for his colleagues at work & agreed to share this with us, kindly asks for some feedback in return. So if you’re active or know of an active NGO within the water / sanitation sector that isn’t listed here, please directly send your feedback to Steffen Blume or kindly use the comment form below. Thank you!

DEWATS Service Packages

BORDA announced in their DEWATS newsletter (March 2009) an interesting new tool for decentralised wastewater treatment solutions (DEWATS). According to BORDA, the service packages includes not simply the construction of hardware but a whole set of integrated measures which are combined according to demand. The following topics are covered:

• School Based Sanitation
• Community Based Sanitation
• Emergency Sanitation
• Sanitation for Hospitals & Hotels
• Sanitation for Agro-Industry
• Sanitation for Prisons
• Real Estate Sanitation
• Sludge Treatment Plant
• Health Impact Assessment & Hygiene Education
• Sanitation Mapping
• Capacity Development

new GTZ ecosan newsletter published

gtz-ecosan-nl31As admin and co-editor of the GTZ ecosan newsletter – a quarterly newsletter on ecological and sustainable sanitation – I am pleased to announce the publication of the latest edition no. 31 from April 2009.

The German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) recently introduced a new newsletter mailing tool which enables the ecosan program within GTZ to refocus on the actual content of each newsletter and at the same time highlight some sustainable sanitation projects that are partly funded by the German government and other donors.

The newsletter is available for download as a PDF file (0,4 MB) and may be subscribed to on this page (which also offers other interesting GTZ newsletters). An archive of previous editions is also available on the (relaunched) website of the GTZ ecosan program.

New sanitation planning tools in IYS 2008

The call for better planning and long-term sustainability in sanitation projects is understandable considering still 2.5 billion people unserved with improved sanitation (and probably the same amount with non-sustainable sanitation). The UN International Year of Sanitation 2008 is chosen by several initiatives as the most appropriate time for publishing new guidelines and planning tools for sanitation.

SuSanA fact sheet "Planning for sustainable sanitation"The new fact sheet of the SuSanA working group “Sustainable Sanitation for cities and planning” summarizes the 3 most important planning documents: Sanitation 21 (IWA), HCES – Household Centred Environmental Sanitation (WSSCC/Eawag-Sandec) and SSA – Strategic Sanitation Approach (WSP). The fact sheet can be downloaded here: http://www.susana.org/images/documents/05-working-groups/wg06/final-docs/en-susana-factsheet-WG06-planning-version-1.1.pdf.

The Austrian Development Agency (ADA) in cooperation with the EcoSan Club has published a brochure on planning principles “Solutions in Sanitation – Planning Principles”. The publication is available as download: http://www.entwicklung.at/en/service/publikationen/folder-und-broschueren.html. That link offers also the possibility to order hard copies.

Furthermore NETSSAF also published a participatory planning tool which was distributed at the final conference of the network “Pathways towards Sustainable Sanitation in Africa” in September 2008 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. It will be available soon at the webpage of the network.