EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Introduction
It is a well documented fact that the combination of safe drinking water and hygienic sanitation facilities is a precondition for health and for success in the fight against poverty, hunger, child deaths and gender inequality. Yet 2.6 billion people – half the developing world – lack even a simple ‘improved’ latrine. One person in six – more than 1 billion of our fellow human beings – has little choice but to use potentially harmful sources of water.
As part of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s), developing countries and donor governments committed to halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015. The results so far are mixed. With the exception of sub-Saharan Africa, the world is well on its way to meeting the drinking water target by 2015, but progress in sanitation is stalled in many developing regions.
The effects of lack of access to water and sanitation have a macroeconomic impact as well. In total, the World Health Organization estimates that 40 billion working hours are spent collecting water each year in Africa - comparable to a year's labor for the entire workforce of France. The benefits of improving access to water and sanitation go beyond any one sector. Meeting the water and sanitation MDG’s would have a total annual economic benefit of $22 billion for the continent. It is estimated that every $1 spent on water and sanitation generates returns of $9 in saved time, increased productivity and reduced health costs.
The Sanitation Challenge
Sanitation, like education and health, is a fundamental building block in the fight against world poverty. Unclean water and a lack of basic sanitation are undermining efforts to end extreme poverty and disease in the world's poorest countries. Sub-Saharan Africa faces some of the worst deficits- 328 million people in the region lack access to clean water and 546 million lack access to proper sanitation facilities. People living in rural areas continue to be disproportionately underserved, as eight out of ten users of unimproved sanitation facilities live in rural areas.
Meeting the need of these woman, men and children for a private clean toilet – something taken for granted in developed countries today – is both possible and imperative. There are four reasons that should lead us forward in these efforts:
- Sanitation is vital for human health;
- Sanitation generates economic benefits;
- Sanitation contributes to dignity and social development; and
- Sanitation protects the environment.
New World Sanitation (NWS)
NWS has developed a self sustainable flush toilet system (SMARTSAN). The principle is that naturally-occurring micro-organisms as opposed to chemical possesses, are selected as a biological additive to the digester tank of the self-sustainable flushable, portable and/or fixed biological water-borne toilet.
The biological process occurring in the digester tank converts raw sewage into re-usable filtered water, ready for re-use to the toilet cistern. The SMARTSAN directly addresses the following sanitation needs:
- Dignity to every man, woman and child;
- Acceptable by the people;
- Totally safe, hygienic and healthy;
- Completely environmental friendly;
- Totally odorless;
- Waterborne flush toilet;
- On site raw sewage treatment facility;
- Safe reusable recycle water;
- Rainwater collecting ability;
- Limited external water usage;
- No external electricity supply;
- Affordability; and
- No dependency on expensive time consuming civil reticulation.
Unit Costs for sanitation facilities
The following are merely a guideline for the cost of sanitation as many external factors can influence the cost, for example the accessibility of the site, topography, soil conditions, number of people etc.
Facility Total cost Unit cost
VIP Latrine (family of 5)
Unlined $250 $50
Single Seater (KVIP) $600 $120
Double Seater $1000 $200
8-Seater (Institutional) $4,800
Water Borne
Septic Tank (Family of 10) $1300 $130
Sewer connection $500 $100
SMARTSAN $2000 $400
Sewer connection does not include trunk mains or treatment plant costs.
Maintenance on the SMARTSAN
As any working biological sewage treatment facility, the SMARTSAN toilet unit does require maintenance on a regular basis however, it is a very basic and inexpensive operation and easy to perform.
There are two types of maintenance namely a minor and major service.
- Minor Service:
- The re-seeding of the digester unit is done once monthly.
- The re-seeding is done by flushing half of the packet of bacteria blend down the toilet pot.
- The other half of the bacteria blend is then poured into the second aerobic tank through the inspection hole.
- Major Service:
- A major service is required once per alternating month up to every six months depending on the number of people using the unit.
- Pump/suck ± 300 liters of sludge mixture out of An-aerobic tank and add 300 liters of raw water to An-aerobic tank.
- Re-seed with NWS Bacteria Blend as per minor service procedure.
Water usage comparison
Conventional water borne toilet:
- Cistern flush capacity: 9 liters per flush
- Average family of 6 people using the toilet 4 times per day: 216 liters per day
- Average flush water per 3 months: 19.4kl per 90 days
NWS SMARTSAN recycle unit:
Major service water replacement: 300 liters per 90 days
This means that every 100 SMARTSAN units can save 7600m³ of water every year.
Application for the SMARTSAN unit
The SMARTSAN system can be installed in any of the following areas:
- Rural areas, because of the difficulty in installing water-borne sewerage due to topographic factors, or to distances between villages;
- Rural schools, which lack infra-structure;
- Farming communities, for the same reason;
- Camp sites, including holiday sites;
- Densely populated informal settlements;
- Special events; and
- Disaster management.
Conclusion
Many people do not realize the health and economic benefits to the individual, the community and to society from improving sanitation. The high cost of improving sanitation is often cited as a barrier to implementing sanitation projects.
The links between a lack of water and sanitation access and development goals are clear, and the solutions to the problem are known and cost-effective. The NWS’s SMARTSAN unit is one of these solutions.