Ecosanres: Re:fw: Challenges Of Ecosan In India -- Need For Professional Exchange

Q: I think this type of discussion will follow us more and more and that is a positive sign because UDDT get more and more into the view for mainstream sanitation. Some weeks ago there was a somewhat similar aspect about Bolivia. The point is to differentiate between: lack of information/sanitation education, wrong use, wrong design and wrong construction, that is very difficult buat will be more important each day. As pointed out before we have to think how to address in the most professional way this aspect. We should not point always to the wrong use or lack of education. When we talk about private toilets the reasons lay in other areas (my opinion). A well designed (dry sanitation) bathroom for family use will not be an ugly place, a wrong designed (in terms of esthetics) UDDT will be seen (and treated) as a latrine. I think in this direction we have to look in a lot of cases. (Public toilets are a completely other chapter) Our experience is "ceramic tiles make the difference in perception" between bathroom and "latrine". Madeleine pointed out the importance of guidelines. Should we make an effort in SUSANA to try for a UDDT guideline as a base for country guidelines? Or did I just oversee a guideline type document? It might be an interesting experience because I?m sure when it comes down to details, we will differ a lot in what we find indispensable and what we consider less important (chamber size, double or single vault, ventilation pipe size, area of application, necessity of post treatment, urine use or infiltration, minimum design quality, operational models, need for education). I would participate in such a group if there is interest. I imagine this group putting up a draft for guideline as if it were for a certain country guideline.

A: We all know how energy intensive and imparactical centralised sewerage and sewage treatment is. We all know urine separation, dry composting is awesome. We all realise the opportunities for re-use of nutrients (particularly phosphorus). Here is another nail for the coffin of centralised sewage treatment: http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/sewage-plants-could-b... Reading the "super bacteria from sewage treatment" I feel like initating a huge global movement, not for or against or of any technique, but awarness creation on what we have and what human beings and nature are risking. This kind of information should reach every body in the world so that they can have an informed choice. Or what else should we do after hearing this shocking news??. Continue to watch it in passivity?? If I already did not have chosen the UDDT and recycling in my house I would have dismantled my WC today. I am sure there are risks even with recycling in my own environment. But at least it is limited to my own are if I do it as careful as possible. Thanks for the alarming information I will try to distribute it as much I can. I do not think there is any Development organization who will not support us to start a movement to create awareness on the water and sanitation. Most techniques are good or better than nothing for their time. There is always a room for improvement and that is where we should start. If five people will register for this movement we will start one. Comparing centralised sewage systems with on site systems is not a fair comparison. Where on site treatment is not possible and all the fractions (greywater, urine and faeces) need to be transported off site for centralised treatment is a fair comparison. I cannot see any alternative to a piped system for removing greywater. On my own consumption figures I would need one 20m3 tanker a month if I could not dispose of it on site. How much energy would that involve trucking it out? I think it would make a piped system with a centralised plant look positively green by comparison. Has anyone got the figures? Why does not GTZ and EcoSanRes fund this type of research so we at least know if we are correct or not. A very good point Richard, comparing centralised systems with on-site is definitely not a fair comparison and I think it also misses the point that there is a place for a mix of centralised and decentralised systems in developed countries that already have an established centralised santiation system (even if they are aging and degraded). There is an alternative to piping greywater, advances in membrane technology allows treatment of greywater onsite and if you remove blackwater from the waste stream as well or perhaps seperate it at the source (maybe through EcoSan technologies, such as UD for example), nutrients can also be reused onsite or reused elsewhere. This is still an expensive technology for individual household users but has the potential for treating greywater (and blackwater) on the scale of 100's rather than million of residents and is particularly viable for urban areas (who knows whats going to be possible in the future). Of course the technology is too expensive for developing countries but Ro was talking about centralised sanitation systems and these are generally in developed countries. I tend to think the potential of technological innovation such as membrane technology could very well be combined with ecosan options to provide culturally acceptable alternatives to centralised systems in urban areas like Sydney. I am concerned about the tranferrance of centralised systems to the third world and that developing countries have aspirations for what 'we've got' but companies like SKM and GHD are also working on alternative decentralised systems too! GHD in particular has done a feasibility study of composting toilets in an apartment block in a peri-urban area in Victoria funded by the state Government and recently set up a UD composting toilet demonstration project at Maryborough high school in Victoria (details in the latest edition of WATER by the Australian Water Association) Things are changing slowly and I think there's a place for a mix of decentralised and centralised systems (at least until we run the centralised system to failure :) and more importantly we need to provide examples of sustainable sanitation systems for developing countries to aspire to We are in the process of trying to set up a UD system to trial at our university in Sydney, one of the first in Australia (apart form Currumbin Eco-village in QLD & dry UD in Victoria) and it just hasnt been culturally acceptable for the university to even think about installing dry UD toilets, but they will accept installing UD flushing toilets (after lobbying them for over 18 months!) and I see this as making incremental steps towards more radical forms of alternative sanitation in the future, one step at time is needed for a stable transition toward sustainable sanitation especially in places like Australia which has had over a century of embedded habits of practice in using the flush toilet, not to mention rigid institutional arrangements and enormous capital investment in water borne sanitation systems. To take a very simplistic view and say centralised to bad and on-site is good just doesnt work in reality in countries with well established centralised systems, there needs to be a series of cumulative changes toward on-site systems till we get to the point of societal acceptance of radically different sanitation systems.

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