Urban sanitation.

What are the challenges of urban ecological sanitation?

9 Answers

1. I think ecological sanitation is always on back burner for the governments. But I agree to people here and their point of views.

2. The question was about the challenge of urban ecological sanitation and not only sanitation. This question is connected with greening the cities, roof garden,transition town, and so on. Urban ecological sanitation is a different way of thinking, using diversity of situation to create an adapted sanitation process as http://www.wsafrica.org/welcome/ is doing. toilets are the best way to isolate human from dejections after this operation I think it would be interesting to have some "creative" insight. Like doing directly aquaponie, earthworm compost, and so on. What is the ecological cycle for human waste?

3. Challenges of Urban Sanitation
   
   

   I will like to state here that urban Sanitation is a bit more complicated and capital intensive than the rural sanitation we have been promoting. Perhaps the reason why the urban sanitation situation has become so deplorable is the fact that it has been ignored over time and emphasis seem to be on the rural sector. My comment however will be restricted to the Nigerian experience.

   Urban Sanitation involves both solid and liquid waste disposal as well as environmental sanitation; these three in the context of the urban setting are capital intensive and government officials often time play a lot of pranks and politics with this system which is primarily responsible for the gross ineffectiveness that is predorminant in this sector.

   But the greatest challenge with sanitation generally lies in the attitude of the people, that is why a change programme has to written for it and adhered to strictly. In urban slums for example, you find people still defecating in the open, refuse being dropped carelessly in drains and so many other environmental hazards like sound pollution. For those residing in decent areas with modern sanitation facilities, the challenge sometime lie in inadequate water supply to take care of WC latrine and other household sanitation practices.

   To ameliorate this situation, Government will have to live up to their moral obligation and the inhabitants too will have to realize the importance of sanitation and be ready to participate in the process as the government alone cannot do all of that.

4. Water and sanitation is an expense many communities can not afford, but if the basic infrastructure of water supply first, then sanitation, treated economically to stop illnesses, then to crops you could help in breaking the cycle. If you have water, there is no need for bad sanitation.

5. The challenge in developing countries is to deal with climate. The principle is simple your goal is reusing all the water and the waste material. To do so sanitation will directly depending on the use you plan to do. This is in my sense ecological sanitation Climate is the first challenge dry or wet, hot, with moisturised or dry soil and so on. by the way water availability is controlling how you could use (and waste) it; Secondly depending on the season the organism that are going to digest organic matter could be different. Thirdly the type of habitation, collective or individual. Individual habitation sanitation could be obtained by drying under the sunshine, (wet season) but liquid are lost. perhaps could it be useful to use biochar to catch the water and urine, using a sand or fibre filter to retain solid particle. During the wet season, contamination could happen. but it is also the season for earthworms and fungal development worm composter could be an answer. For collective habitation it seems that water is needed to drain the solid waste from the different floor to the ground. Micro-algae could be grown during the going down for the cleanest water . For the solid compound the longer the way the best fragmentation you have. with the hot temperature you can sterilize in part the compound if a black pipe is exposed to the sun. In that case, it's necessary to store temporary the solids during the night and let them go slowly during the day. This could be useful to alternate thermic and mesophillic phases to enhance biogas production http://www.escet.urjc.es/biodiversos/espa/docencia/micro/biogas6.pdf and this biogas could then be used in a fuel cell or for cooking, cooling The challenge is to change our mind with waste water. dirty BUT useful , contaminated with potential disease BUT not responsible of human hygiene. At this time we are accustomed to live with numerous waste like smog, plastic bags, nuclear pollutants and we are not able to find the best way to recycle our natural waste production? Whatever the issue, the truly challenge is to avoid the risk presented by all the chemical compound that are limiting biological process for example detergent, disinfectant and so on. urban ecological sanitation need "clean" waste water this mean without artificial pollutants. Building wall could be used to find new ways of sanitation processing using new kind of organisms botanical or zoological one. Sanitation is connected with ecological niche that could be enhanced artificially.

6. Maybe paying a small amount for urine and excrement could help. Valuable products can be extracted from centrally collected human waste products such as the fertilizer magnesium-ammonia-phosphate (struvite) from urine.

7. The Challenges of Urban ecological Sanitation
   
   

   One of selling points for ecological sanitation is the fertilizer value of the toilet. So as mentioned by others, land tenure and space issues limit motivation for ecological sanitation in urban areas. Yet poor sanitation in urban areas is found within peri-urban informal settlements.

   The operation requirements of ecological sanitation is higher than other conventional sanitation options. So ownership issues and elements of sharing complicate maintenance of ecological sanitation.

8. WHO has estimates that 2.6 billion people don't have proper sanitation facilities, which results in diseases such as cholera, dysentery, typhoid, hepatitis A and severe diarrhoea, which alone are responsible for 1.5 million deaths every year, mostly among children under five living in developing countries. Grass roots movements are needed to build a demand for cleanliness, hygiene and proper sanitation in low-income urban communities. The value of investing just small amounts in cleaning, especially for toilets, is often not fully understood.

9. Municipal planners should recognize that the worst sanitary conditions tend to be found in poor areas. Construction of a toilet is generally regarded as the householder’s responsibility but, for poor households, investments in sanitation are often constrained by issues relating to: â–  Affordability, including the cost of connecting to sewer networks; â–  Uncertainty over land tenure ; â–  Space constraints; and â–  The low priority given to sanitation (people may not appreciate its importance). Special measures may therefore be needed to support service improvements for the poorest sections of the community. This does not just mean subsidies and awareness campaigns; technology options are also needed that suit the physical conditions in poor communities.