International Year of Sanitation

by Nilma Dole

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2008 has been officially declared UN General Assembly as the International Year of Sanitation around the world and to offer relief for those in need of such facilities. So there is hope for those who are in need of basic sanitation facilities.

The Asia-Pacific region highlights that over 1.5 billion people are affected by the lack of sanitation. The good news is that the progress report done for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) states Sri Lanka as an early achiever over most South Asian countries with around 90% of the rural population having access to sanitation.

"However, access to sanitation is very different from sanitation quality and accessibility", states Professor and Chief Microbiologist Thor Axel Stenstrom. Professor Stenstrom works for the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control and is a very knowledgeable expert in the sanitation field."

Basic awareness and a policy on how to use sanitation facilities is very important when providing the rural communities with sanitation", he highlighted at the recently concluded Wastewater Agriculture and Sanitation for Poverty Alleviation workshop.

Such sanitation guidelines have also been emphasized by the World Health Organisation.

Says ICRC representative Constanze Windberg who came to Sri Lanka for sanitation relief work in the rural villages, "The government of Sri Lanka and international agencies have worked together to increase their efforts in developing and implementing more sanitation programmes especially in the rural villages".

Already, the American Red Cross has been offering sanitation relief to the tsunami-affected areas in lieu of the International Sanitation Year while the Community Self-Improvement Organisation (COSI) has also made education and awareness a priority in addition to building basic sanitation facilities.

The future now looks good for a bleak present with technology coupled with tradition becoming a sanitation solution. "In European countries, we have already developed a technology called the 'incenerating commode' that separates human solid waste excreta with the liquid waste urine because human waste is now seen as the world's most natural fertiliser," revealed Professor Stenstrom.

Taking a Swedish farm using such human waste as an example, the excreta was used as fertiliser while urine was used to water the plants. A high content of Phosphorous was present in the solid waste and since urine is Urea, the nitrogen content in the soil was more which resulted in a high yield of crop with both methods in practise.

For years, farmers have been using compost manure for growing their crops but they haven't really thought of their own waste as a solution.

"A sustainable and recyclable solution is always present. However, the catch is that the urine and the excreta shouldn't be mixed together. The future of relief and development for the rural poor who face many difficulties in obtaining the best fertiliser can now look into their lavatories for the answer, which is no joke.