Sanitation and poverty alleviation

Drs. Chinthaka Batawala and Ruwanthi Abhayagunaratne 

Sanitation is the root cause of any health concern in the globe, which is one of the 21st century’s major challenges, out of question. The writers scan the necessity of a proper sanitation system

Years after the World Summit on Sustainable Development, progress in access to water and sanitation is alarmingly slow, say experts. It would take double the current expenditures of 16 billion dollars a year to halve the population lacking access to clean water by 2015.

About 2.4 billion people - half the developing world - lack even a simple ‘improved’ latrine and 1.1 billion people have no access to any type of improved drinking source of water. No access to sanitation is a polite way of saying that people draw water for drinking, cooking and washing from rivers, lakes, ditches and drains fouled with human and animal excrement. According to the annual report of UN Development Program, lack of access to clean water and basic sanitation killed nearly two million young children every year.

Water is foundational

Diseases from contaminated water are the leading cause of death in the world (amounted to nearly 5,000 deaths per day, most of them preventable, and made diarrhoea the second biggest childhood killer). This is profound enough, but the absence of safe water is not only a health issue; it leads to innumerable devastating problems, from missed educational and employment opportunities to violent conflict.

Access to safe, clean water is critical for proper health care, hygiene, sanitation, food production, education, and economic activity. It is the foundation on which everything else in a community is built.

Drinking water is used for domestic purposes and personal hygiene. Access to drinking water means that the source is less than one kilometre away from its place of use and that it is possible to reliably obtain at least 20 litres for an individual a day.

Safe drinking water is water with microbial, chemical and physical characteristics that meet WHO guidelines or national standards on drinking water quality and access to safe drinking water is the proportion of people using improved drinking water sources: household connection, public standpipe, borehole, protected dug well, protected spring and rainwater.

Basic sanitation is the lowest-cost technology ensuring hygienic excreta disposal and a clean and healthful living environment both at home and in the neighbourhood of users. Access to basic sanitation includes safety and privacy in the use of these services. Coverage is the proportion of people using improved sanitation facilities: public sewer connection, septic system connection, pour-flush latrine, simple pit latrine and ventilated improved pit latrine. Improving access to sanitation is a critical step towards reducing the impact of diseases. It also helps create physical environments that enhance safety, dignity and self-esteem.

Healthcare Challenges

Improving sanitation facilities and promoting hygiene in schools benefits both learning and the health of children. Child-friendly schools that offer private and separate toilets for boys and girls, as well as facilities for hand washing with soap, are better equipped to attract and retain students, especially girls.

In healthcare facilities, safe disposal of human waste of patients, staff and visitors is an essential environmental health measure. This intervention can contribute to the reduction of the transmission of health-care associated infections, which affect from 5 percent to 30 percent of patients. When Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote “water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink,” he did not have the 21st century’s global water situation in mind. But allowing for poetic license, he wasn’t far from correct. It is not that the world does not possess enough water. Globally, water is available in abundance. It is just not always located where it is needed. For example, Canada has plenty of water, far more than its people need, while the Middle East and Northern Africa - to name just two of many - suffer from perpetual shortages. Even within specific countries like Brazil, some regions are awash in fresh water while other regions, afflicted by drought, go wanting. In many instances, political and economic barriers prevent access to water even in areas where it is otherwise available. And in some developing countries, water supplies are contaminated not only by the industries discharging toxic contaminants, but also by arsenic and other naturally occurring poisonous pollutants found in groundwater aquifers.

Adequate supplies

Water for drinking and personal use is only a small part of society’s total water needs - household water usually accounts for less than five percent of total water use. In addition to sanitation, most of the water we use is for agriculture and industry. Of course, water is also needed for ecological processes not directly related to human use. For a healthy, sustainable future for the planet, developing methods of ensuring adequate water supplies pose engineering challenges of the first magnitude.

Of course, by far most of the world’s water is in the oceans, and therefore salty and not usable for most purposes without desalination. About three percent of the planet’s water is fresh, but most of that is in the form of snow or ice. Water contained in many groundwater aquifers was mostly deposited in earlier, wetter times, and the rate of use from some aquifers today exceeds the rate of their replenishment. Experts say overcoming the crisis in water and sanitation is one of the greatest human development challenges of the early 21st century.

Technological Solutions

Technologies are being developed, for instance, to improve recycling of wastewater and sewage treatment so that water can be used for nonpersonal uses such as irrigation or industrial purposes. Recycled water could even resupply aquifers. But very effective purification methods and rigorous safeguards are necessary to preserve the safety of recycled water. Various nanotechnology approaches may be helpful in this regard, such as nanofiltration membranes that can be designed to remove specific pollutants while allowing important nutrients to pass through.

A different technological approach to the water problem involves developing strategies for reducing water use. Agricultural irrigation consumes enormous quantities of water; in developing countries, irrigation often exceeds 80 percent of total water use.

Improved technologies to more efficiently provide crops with water, such as ‘drip irrigation’, can substantially reduce agricultural water demand. Already some countries like Jordan have reduced water use substantially with drip technology, but it is not a perfect solution for plant growth (e.g. it does not provide enough water to cleanse the soil). Water loss in urban supply systems is also a significant problem.

Yet another strategy for improving water availability and safety would be small decentralized distillation units, an especially attractive approach in places where infrastructure and distribution problems are severe. One of the main issues is economical distribution of water to rural and low-income areas.