Re-emergence of dry toilets and fecal nutrient reuse in M'zab cities

In the M'zab valley, dry toilets represent an ancestral dry sanitation system, serving as a source of fertilizer thanks to human excrement valorization. However, in the 20th century, local populations began to shun these systems. The objective of this article is to illustrate the importance of dry toilets on agricultural and environmental scales in ancient M'Zab, and the renewal of these systems in response to sanitation problems in the oasis after their decline. The hypothesis put forward is that dry toilets can act as a complementary system to conventional sanitation systems. Data were collected through interviews with the local population. Our results show that the use of dry toilets, and the resulting use of human excrement as fertilizer, has gone through three phases. First, a phase of strong recycling dynamics, followed by a second phase of decline in dry toilet use which is linked to the discovery of the Albian aquifer and flush toilet adoption. The third phase is characterized by dry toilet reuse in response to oasis degradation caused by sanitation and environmental problems. Some oasesians have taken the initiative to revert to dry toilets to ensure oasis system sustainability and to revive the practice of recycling human waste.

Intervention mapping as a framework for planning the implementation of urine diversion toilets and Ecosan education in a community school in Kavre, Nepal

Use of human excreta as fertilizer is not a new concept. However, with the use of the modern water-flush toilet, human excreta becomes mixed with water and causes environmental pollution. To reemphasize the nutritional value of human urine in the field, a urine diversion toilet was constructed in a community school situated in Kavre, Nepal. The purpose of establishing the urine diversion toilet is to improve hygiene outcomes through promoting proper sanitation and transforming the school community’s regular practice and attitudes towards urine as a resource. To ensure effective implementation of the urine diversion toilets, intervention mapping was used as a guiding framework. The aim of this paper is to document how the urine diversion toilet was planned and implemented in the school and how the urine diversion toilet was connected with the curriculum to address concerns regarding water, sanitation, and hygiene with a focus on sustainability through intervention mapping. This study highlights the benefits of intervention mapping as a systematic and step-by-step process for the planning and implementation of the urine diversion toilet. This study also highlights the benefits of connecting urine diversion toilets with school gardening, and engaging with local government and other stakeholders about the value of the approach.

Prevalence, socio-demographic and environmental determinants of asthma in 4621 Ghanaian adults: Evidence from Wave 2 of the World Health Organization’s study on global AGEing and adult health

Background A previous multi-site study involving lower- and middle-income countries demonstrated that asthma in older adults is associated with long-term exposure to particulate matter, male gender and smoking. However, variations may occur within individual countries, which are relevant to inform health promoting policies as populations live longer. The present study estimates asthma prevalence and examines the sociodemographic characteristics and environmental determinants associated with asthma in older adults in Ghana. Methods This study utilised data from the nationally representative World Health Organization Study on global AGEing and adult health (SAGE) Ghana Wave 2. A final sample of 4621 individuals residing in 3970 households was used in analytical modelling. Factors associated with asthma were investigated using single level and multilevel binary logistic regression models. Results Asthma was reported by 102 (2.2%) respondents. Factors associated with asthma in the univariate model were: those aged 60–69 (OR = 5.22, 95% CI: 1.24, 21.95) and 70 or more (OR = 5.56, 95% CI: 1.33, 23.26) years, Ga-Adangbe dialect group (OR = 1.65, 95% CI: 1.01, 2.71), no religion (OR = 3.59, 95% CI: 1.77, 7.28), having moderate (OR = 1.76, 95% CI: 1.13, 2.75) and bad/very bad (OR = 2.75, 95% CI: 1.58, 4.80) health state, and severe/extreme difficulty with self-care (OR = 3.49, 95% CI: 1.23, 9.88) and non-flush toilet facility (OR = 0.62, 95% CI: 0.39, 0.99). Factors independently associated with asthma in the adjusted models were: those aged 60–69 (OR = 4.49, 95% CI: 1.03, 19.55) years, father with primary education or less (OR = 0.40, 95% CI: 0.17, 0.94), no religion (OR = 2.52, 95% CI: 1.18, 5.41), and households with non-flush toilet facility (OR = 0.58, 95% CI: 0.35, 0.96). Significant residual household-level variation in asthma was observed. Over 40% of variance in asthma episodes could be attributable to residual household-level variations. Conclusion Individual as well as household factors were seen to influence the prevalence of asthma in this national survey. Clinical management of these patients in health facilities should consider household factors in addition to individual level factors.

A MANUAL SUCTION TOILET FOR SEWAGE REDUCTION

In Ecuador, 46.4% of households lack access to a sewerage system, where as a result much wastewater is discharged from sewerage into the environment untreated. This paper presents the results of a research project aimed at the development of prototypes that retrofit existing toilets into a manual suction ultra-low flush toilet. These prototypes use around one liter of water, and therefore the amount of sewage produced is substantially reduced. The strategy covered two areas. First, the prototype design is developed with the active participation from users using sociological study tools such as workshops, focus groups and interviews, which enabled to polish or re-define design aspects aimed at improving levels of end-user acceptance. Second, dissemination of results and designed products is implemented through web platforms to enable replicability, allowing potential participation from external collaborators. The main approach of this research is to act at a small scale (houses, departments, buildings) in order to amend the amount of metric tons of wastewater within a larger urban scale.

Maps cannot tell the whole story: Interpreting the shitscape with a mixed methods approach

This article describes the participatory methods used for mapping the expectations and understandings of Kampala city and its shitscape. I defined the shitscape as the collective sanitary apparatus that the city’s inhabitants utilise, and the relationships that mediate these infrastructures and practices. Analysis of Kampala’s shitscape therefore encounters flush toilets and latrines, septic tanks and sewage pipes, and extends to plastic bags and bottles and the wastewater channels that are used to dispose of them. The analysis examines what assumptions are made about particular toileting performances and engages with knowledge(s) of the city and its sanitation infrastructures and practices. Interviews, observations and participatory mapping were conducted in numerous places throughout the city and I utilised the city’s main drainage-channel-cum-river, the Nakivubo Channel, as a transect – observing, interviewing, and conducting participatory mapping with the city’s inhabitants I met along the Nakivubo’s course. Whilst the participatory mapping methods illustrate clear distinctions in the imagination of the city as un/sanitary, un/civilised and un/modern, the qualitative research contradicts this representation. This research suggests, then, that maps – whether archival or participatory – cannot and do not tell the whole story of a city. The ethnographic and in-depth qualitative research shows that different sanitary performances, such as using a flush toilet and using a plastic bag to shit in, are in fact bound by the same moralities of waste disposal and minimising smell. Flying toilets are not, then, a symbol of disgusting and uncivil behaviour, but rather as effective toileting solutions in highly restricted circumstances.

Evaluasi Penerapan Program Penghematan Air Bersih di Gedung Perkantoran (Studi Kasus Penghematan Air Bersih di Gedung Perkantoran PT TEPI)

Kebutuhan dan pemakaian air bersih terus meningkat setiap tahunnya, seiring dengan pertumbuhan penduduk, jumlah industri dan gedung-gedung perkantoran. PT TEPI sebagai salah satu perusahaan di Balikpapan, berpacu untuk turut serta melakukan upaya penghematan air demi masa depan yang lebih baik, sejalan dengan penerapan Sistem Manajemen Lingkungan ISO 14001 diperusahaan tersebut. Tujuan dari penulisan paper ini adalah untuk melakukan identifikasi upaya-upaya dalam melaksanakan kegiatan penghematan air di gedung perkantoran dan mengevaluasi penerapan program penghematan penggunaan air bersih yang telah dilakukan. Metodologi penelitian ini dilakukan dengan mengumpulkan data sekunder, melakukan survei dan obervasi lapangan, mengevaluasi penggunaan air bersih dengan menghitung berapa penghematan yang dapat dilakukan sebelum dan sesudah dilakukan beberapa perbaikan. Program penghematan air yang telah dilakukan diantaranya adalah komitmen dari manajemen puncak untuk mendukung secara penuh pada gerakan penghematan air, pembentukan tim komite hemat energi dan air, melakukan sosialisasi peningkatan kesadaran karyawan, deteksi kebocoran air, memperbaiki kran bocor dan meter air yang rusak, mengganti kran manual menjadi kran autostop, pemakaian dual flush toilet, dan sprinkler untuk menyiram tanaman. Melalui gerakan ini, PT TEPI telah melakukan penurunan pemakaian air sebesar 34,18% terhitung mulai dari tahun 2009- 2017, dan rata-rata pemakaian air perkapita adalah sebesar 312,44 L/orang/hari.

Cholera’s Frontiers

Sewage as we know it—the everyday miracle of feces disappearing down the toilet, pushed by a never-ending flow of clean water—is a recent invention. The flush toilet itself has been created, and then forgotten, many times down through the ages. But the grand scheme that we all take for granted—an endless supply of clean water piped in and limitless amounts of dirty water piped out—was thought up by Edwin Chadwick, a British lawyer turned public health crusader, in the 1840s. Back then the cities of the Old World were awash in human waste. Even the most elegant homes had privies that emptied into cesspits, where decades of accumulated filth sat rotting beneath the parlor floor. The poor lived in tenements where dozens of people might have to share one privy. Chadwick supervised a survey of sanitary conditions in English cities that came up with some amazing statistics. In parts of Manchester there was one privy to every 215 people. Some houses had yards covered six inches deep in “human ordure,” which the inhabitants crossed by stepping on bricks. “Sir Henry De La Beche was obliged at Bristol to stand up at the end of alleys and vomit while Dr. Playfair was investigating overflowing privies,” Chadwick wrote of one of his colleagues. “Sir Henry was obliged to give it up.” London had sewers, of a sort: They were open ditches that sloped toward the Thames, and were meant to drain stormwater out of the streets. But by Chadwick’s day, the gunk from thousands of overflowing cesspits emptied into these sewers, then oozed its way into the river. Parliament’s windows on the riverfront had not been opened in years because of the stench. The Chelsea Water Company, which provided drinking water to many Londoners, still had its intake a few feet from the outfall of the Ranelagh sewer. An editorial in The Spectator pointed out that city residents paid the water companies “340,000 pounds per annum for a more or less concentrated solution of native guano.”