SANITATION
Waterless sanitation– when will it take on? “No innovation in the past 200 years has done more to save lives and improve health than the sanitation revolution triggered by the invention of the toilet. But it did not go far enough. It only reached one third of the world.” – Sylvia Mathews Burwell
By Mille Poulsen Jensen, Teodora Damian and Jørgen Erik Larsen
S
anitation rated as safe for people has only increased by 3% worldwide over the last few years and around 2 billion people still do not have access to basic sanitation facilities. Additionally, it is well established that waterborne sanitation in many areas is not the solution.
Mille Poulsen Jensen
Jørgen Erik Larsen
Looking at the South African landscape, a survey conducted in 2018 revealed that the percentage of households across the country with access to improved sanitation increased from 62.3% in 2002 to 89% in 2018. However, there are still large variations between rural and urban areas when it comes to access to sanitation facilities; 5.6% of rural and 1.1% of urban households still lack sanitation services. Furthermore, there are still 100 000 South Africans that only have the option of open defecation. What can be said is that there is a need for new solutions, ideally in the realm of waterless sanitation solutions, also known as dry sanitation. Communities living in dispersed rural areas rarely have the infrastructure necessary to support the well-known flush systems, yet they still deserve to be provided with dignified sanitation systems. Over the last 50 years, a lot of effort and significant funding have been put into innovating waterless sanitation alternatives. Many solutions have been developed, but the reality is that the majority of people outside the serviced areas are relying on simple yet nonsustainable pit latrines. The question is: why have the new innovative solutions not taken off at any scale?
Dry sanitation systems
The available types of dry sanitation systems today are classified as: selfcontained, single- or multilayered chamber tank, mixing device, urine-separating, electric or solar, and completely waterless or with low water usage. As an example, solarpowered, with a multilayer chamber
16
NOV /DE C 2021
Teodora Damian
