2 Background: Sanitation and
Marketing
In this dissertation, the term of «sanitation» refers
to excreta management, which is one part of environmental sanitation.
Environmental sanitation comprises the safe disposal
of human excreta, wastewater and rainwater, and solid waste
(Cairncross & Feachem,
1993). The excreta management part comprises the following
aspects:
· The safe separation of faeces from the human body,
· The containment of faeces (for instance in a pit),
· The transport of excreta from the containment to a
disposal site,
· The final disposal of excreta, or its reuse and
return to land.
The last point is subject to debate, in order to consider a
sanitation system «ecological»
or not (see Winblad & Simpson-Hébert, 2004). This
literature review develops several aspects of sanitation which are relevant to
the research. First, different approaches of sanitation are considered
(Section 2.1), Section 2.2 presents in more detail the concepts behind
sanitation marketing, and the particular problem of pit emptying in urban
areas
is finally reviewed in Section 2.3.
2.1 Approaches to sanitation
Sanitation has been approached in various ways in the past. The
stress is now put more
on «sustainable sanitation» and «improved
sanitation» as proposed by the MDGs and
the Water and Sanitation Programme (WSP). If «improved
sanitation» is clearly defined
by the WSP (as including sewer / septic tanks / pit latrines,
but excluding bucket, open and public latrines, see WHO-UNICEF, 2000),
«sustainable sanitation» remains a blur concept, for which
definitions are hard to find in literature. An attempt to define it is
presented in Appendix D on page 70, extracted from Jenkins & Sugden
(2006).
For Black (1998), the last 30 years can be divided in several
types of approaches for water and sanitation programmes. The «appropriate
technology» phase from 1978 to
1988 focuses on low-cost technologies, mostly proposed by
engineers from developed countries; the Water and Sanitation decade introduced
then a change from hardware to
software between 1988 and 1994. As the urban sanitary crisis was
growing, policies
have also changed to more demand-responsive approaches and
capacity building.
The following Sections present some of these approaches.
2.1.1 Supply-driven approaches
Latrine construction programmes driven by the supply side are
still frequently found. Mukherjee (2000) claims that many failures in past
sanitation projects come from «myths»: that sanitation coverage
directly has a health impact (while it requires also some be- haviour change),
that demand-responsive approaches do not work for sanitation (while
they seem even more important than for water projects), that
water supply and sanitation should always come as a «package» (but
users perceive it often very differently, and the levels of demand are rarely
similar).
For Klundert & Scheinberg (2006), sanitation is too often the
«poor parent» of water programmes, which adopt «the well-known
rural water and sanitation approach». Jenk-
ins & Sugden (2006) criticise this integration with the
water supply side by noting the differences in timescale, decision-making
processes, time to create demand and skills required between water supply and
sanitation.
The question of subsidy is also criticised (ibid.), as
incorrectly applied subsidies cre-
ate dependency, poor use of public money, absence of replication
and affordability, and often the inability to reach the poor.
2.1.2 Ecological sanitation
Ecological sanitation (or «eco-san») is based on
three principles: preventing pollution rather than trying to control it,
sanitising the excreta, and re-using it for agricultural purposes (Winblad
& Simpson-Hébert, 2004). Several systems exist for this purpose,
all transforming human excreta into compost, such as
double-vault dehydrating toilets, biogas production systems, the Arborloo, etc.
For Morgan (1999), «Ecological sanita- tion is a system that makes use of
human waste and turns it into something useful and valuable with a minimum of
risk of pollution of the environment and with no threat to human
health.»
Supporters of ecological sanitation claim that it can address
many of the issues of urban development, such as water pollution, food
insecurity, low income and of course poor sanitation facilities (Winblad &
Simpson-Hébert, 2004). It is however criticised by Klundert &
Scheinberg (2006) based on experiences in African cities, for three reasons:
ecological sanitation is largely based on the willingness from the users to
handle dry
faeces, which is far from evident in most cities1;
many systems are based on urine
1 Even Winblad & Simpson-Hébert (2004)
acknowledge that «faecophilic societies» are rare and quote
only rural China as being «faecophilic»
separation, yet urine is rarely collected and ends up polluting
the groundwater; other
on-site sanitation systems are often used in parallel with
eco-san, ecological toilets do not fill up and are rarely emptied.
Sugden (2006) classifies ecological latrines in five types. Of
these five types, only two latrines do not imply urine separation (the double
pit composting latrine and the single
pit walking latrine), and only one does not rely on manual
handling of the composted faeces: the single pit walking latrine, also known as
the Arborloo.
The Arborloo
Quoting Sugden (2006):
«This is the simplest type of latrine and the one that
involves the least amount of behaviour change from the conventional pit
latrine. Anybody who has planted a tree in a full latrine pit can be said to
be practising eco- sanitation.
A shallow pit (1.2 m recommended) is dug and a slab and easily
movable superstructure placed on top of it. The family uses the latrine,
adding the mixture of soil and ash after each use, until it is three quarters
full (usually between 4 and 9 months). After this the slab and the
superstructure are moved to another pit. A layer of soil is added to the full
pit and a sapling placed into the soil. The tree grows and utilises the
compost to produce large, succulent fruit. After a few years of latrine
movement the result is
an orchard that is producing fruit with a real economic value.
The super- structure can be made from any locally available materials e.g.
grass, reeds etc.»
See Figure 2.1 below for its representation. The Arborloo can
have the following im- pacts:
· Safe excreta disposal with associated health
improvements
· Improved nutrition due to better food supply
· Improved livelihoods from sale of excess crop
· Mountain slope stabilisation from fruit tree root
· Increased organic matter in soil assisting soil water
retention.
However, it still relies on the presence of urban agriculture,
sufficient space for digging
the pits, and the lack of reluctance from the users to eat food
which has grown using such a fertiliser.
Figure 2.1: The Arborloo
2.1.3 Total sanitation
The Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) is an alternative
developed in India, for rural ar- eas, by the Department of Drinking Water
Supply (DDWS, 2005). Its aim is to eradicate open defecation and improving
sanitation facilities with no or low subsidy, by using par- ticipatory tools
within the community to create change and raise demand for improved sanitation.
Reports claim that this option can achieve 100% coverage in a community
(ibid.), yet it is not clear whether it can be applied to urban sanitation as
well.
2.1.4 Demand-responsive approach
Demand-oriented policies correspond to what Heierli et al. (2004)
call «the new paradigm»,
in reaction to traditional subsidised programmes. They advocate a
greater involvement
of the private sector to provide better solutions and create
demand, along with a stronger public sector to encourage desirable behaviours
and discourage bad ones. One of the ideas of this new paradigm is to use
marketing as a tool to raise demand and provide more suitable sanitation
options; the so-called «sanitation marketing» is described in the
next section.
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