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Ecological sanitation

Introduction

Ecological sanitation can be viewed as a three-step process dealing with human excreta: (1) Containment, (2) Sanitisation, (3) Recycling. The objective is to protect human health and the environment while limiting the use of water in sanitation systems for hand (and anal) washing only and recycling nutrients to help reduce the need for artificial fertilisers in agriculture. An essential step in the process of sanitation is the containment of pathogens that can cause disease. Without containment and sanitisation, a vicious circle develops where the pathogens in excreta are released back into the environment, re-infect people through consumption of contaminated water or food, and are then excreted again, only to begin the cycle over. Ecological sanitation systems are designed around true containment and provide two ways to render human excreta innocuous: dehydration and decomposition. The Ecosan concept is based on following principles:

• Prevent diseases (must be capable of destroying or isolating faecal pathogens)
• Protect the environment (must prevent pollution and conserve valuable water resources)
• Return nutrients (must return plant nutrients to the soil)
• Culturally acceptable (must be aesthetically inoffensive and consistent with cultural and social values)
• Reliable (must be easy to construct and robust enough to be easily maintained in a local context)
• Convenient (must meet the needs of all household members considering gender, age and social status)
• Affordable (must be affordable and accessible)

Ecological sanitation is an alternative to the linear approaches to carry waste (excreta, soapy water, etc.) to water bodies. It is based on an ecosystem approach. The nutrients and organic matter contained in human excreta must be considered as a resource and properly treated for its contribution to food production systems. Systems typically work with urine-diverting dehydration toilets (often with soil-'flush'), flush-urine-diversion toilets and black water systems for example based on the vacuum toilets connected to a biogas plant.

Figure 1 illustrates a possible scenario for closing the nutrients cycles and simultaneously preserving fresh water from pollution. This scenario can be achieved with the application of ecological sanitation, base on ecological principal.