The EcoSanRes Programme for Improved Livelihoods Around the World
There is an urgent need for initiatives that will contribute to meet several of the Millennium Development Goals and the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation. We at EcoSanRes believe that the creation of ecosystem-based sanitation systems offers precisely such an initiative. EcoSanRes addresses a wide range of professionals, academics, teachers/trainers and decision-makers, who work with water provision, agriculture and food security, poverty alleviation, human health, environmental protection, human rights, child perspectives, gender aspects, participatory processes, income generation, financing and human settlements. We aspire to foster a viable worldwide debate on the important services of ecosystem-based sanitation -- ecological sanitation – and the resulting multi-faceted benefits.
Ecological Sanitation in a global perspective
How important is sanitation? Inadequate access to sanitation impacts human health and environmental safety. We also know that proper sanitation positively affects the individual’s nutritional status, disease resistance, income opportunities, self esteem, personal security, etc. Enhanced opportunities for improved livelihoods can be achieved through ecosystem-based sanitation with radical perspectives on gender balance, societal development, agricultural production and sustainability.
Worldwide, over 2.6 billion individuals live without sanitation. Another 2.8 billion individuals have access to some type of sanitation, mostly pit latrines, of which many are unhygienic and contaminate the human and natural environments. About 1.1 billion individuals have water-born sewerage of which 30% are connected to an advanced sewage treatment facility and the remaining 70% are sources of downstream contamination. Clearly, innovative sanitation solutions, firm institutional foundations and locally adapted technologies are required to help meet the MDGs in a sustainable way. Sanitation has now become part of the international development agenda along with water supply and human settlements as it was prioritized by the UN commission on Sustainable Development in 2004 and 2005.
Ecological sanitation for ecosystem-based societies
Ecological Sanitation (ecosan) is an approach that offers many advantages over and above sanitation provision, an otherwise much neglected issue, by closing the nutrient and water cycles. Essential features of ecosan are: containment, sanitization and reuse. Ecosan recommends that human excreta and household organics be sanitized and that the resulting plant nutrients and soil improvements be applied in agricultural production in the proximity of human settlements. The greywater from household showers, baths and kitchens undergoes treatment and is safely recycled or returned to nature. Ecosan proposes a sanitation system that reduces or eliminates the use of water as a means of disposal of faecal material. This is an important advantage since water shortages affect more than 40% of the world’s population, in over 80 countries. Additionally, waterbased sanitation discharges untreated sewage into rivers and other bodies of water and causes severe pollution problems around the world. Ninety percent of towns and cities in developing countries lack sewage treatment. Developed countries face the same problem; only 80 out of 600 large European Union cities have advanced/tertiary treatment. Another acute problem is contaminated sludge from conventional treatment facilities. This sludge is impossible to reuse for its nutrients and soil-improvement properties due to toxins. In summary, ecosan provides opportunities that are affordable and appropriate and aim to use soil as the processing system, not surface or groundwater.
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