Ecological sanitation

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Ecological Sanitation

One person produces about 500 litres of urine and only 50 litres of faeces per year. If collected with low dilution this small amount can be sanitized and converted to fertilizer and in many cases to energy (biogas) in addition. The same person, having access to tap water, produces in a range of 20.000 to over 100.000 litres of wastewater, depending on the local situation. This flow could be a good resource for reuse after treatment. If both fractions are mixed, they turn to a dangerous, difficult to treat and worthless flow of waste. We call this mixture wastewater, and it contributes to spreading pathogens to the water resources with devastating effects for public health - wastewater treatment lacks in many parts of the world. Well organized countries have managed to treat at the end of the pipe with little reuse options at relatively high costs, fixing the problem created by mixing excreta with the rest of the wastewater instead of finding new concepts. There is a lock-in situation for the conventional sanitation systems, when there is a sewerage system already other systems are difficult to finance. However, where there is a lack of services or new construction, there are alternatives that are designed to reuse of water fertilizer and soil conditioner: ecological sanitation. Systems typically work with dry-urine-diverting toilets (often with soil-'flush'), flush-urine-diversion toilets and blackwater systems for example based on the vacuum toilets connected to a biogas plant. For more info: www.ecosan.org, www.gtz.de/ecosan and www.ecosanres.org

Ecological sanitation

See also