Functionality analysis of ecosan latrines in rural areas of Bangladesh based on environment and health aspects

Abstract

Government of Bangladesh and other development organization are promoting the cheapest and easiest solution for sanitation, which is pit latrine and one of the main intentions is to increase sanitation coverage. As a country of flooding and high ground water table, pit latrines form a great threat for environment. It could be the best as the starting point to shift from open defecation but while considering long-term sustainability, improved technologies are essential depending on hydro-geological situation. To attain environmental and technological sustainability, concerns of developing appropriate context specific technologies and alignment of GOB’s, around forty research institutions, INGO and NGO piloted more than 1293 EcoSan toilets of various models have been constructed to achieve the solution of above problem at a limited scale.

This study aimed to evaluate the suitability and potentiality of scaling up of Ecosan toilet in Bangladesh through focusing on the following aspects: (1) Socio-cultural and institutional (2) Financial and economic (3) Technology and operation (4) Environmental and health. The study carried out literature review, field observation, questionnaires interview from ecosan-user and non user, data collection, discussion with sanitation experts and finally data analysis. To evaluate the functioning performance of ecosan toilet in nine different geo-hydrological areas through a checklist was used to incorporate the ideas.

According to ecosan-user more than 88% and non ecosan user more than 78% of the respondents said, “using sanitised human excreta as fertilizer is a good idea”. The same group believe that respectively 32% and 66% people of their area don’t like eco-san toilet due to religious barrier and similarly 37% and 31% people of their area believe that eco-san is not acceptable with their culture respectively. In the case of non ecoSan user 98% know about the potentiality of urine and faeces as fertilizer and 33% having a practice of using in the field. Among them only 21% don’t feel comfort of using these kind of organic fertilizer. In reality 32% female and 7% male doing the empting faeces vault job and whenever they get time both male and female (59%) of the respondents do the work regularly. There is a focus on environmental sanitation in National Sanitation Strategy (GoB, 2005) and Department of Public Health Engineering and Local Government endorsed this sanitation system and trying to replicate all over country by providing fund to local government and incorporation in government project but country don’t have yet any guideline for utilizing human urine and faeces.

Within every 6 months 42%, 12 month 31% and more than 24 month 20% have to desludging to keep the latrine functional. To avoid the desludging costly work 6% household construct new latrine. Both user and non-user 97 percent agreed that eco-san toilet should be available in all household. Considering the affordability 55% user want the same option at 4000-5000BDT and 50% nonuser claim the same at the amount of 4000BDT. 16% user respondent informed that their neighbor not interested to construct ecosan toilet. More than 50% of both user and non user respondent want to buy faeces organic fertilizer with BDT 5/kg and for the case of urine fertilizer 5BDT/litre. The ‘Pay Back period’ for investment in an ecosan toilet comes to 5.09 years, i.e. the investor in the ecosan toilet gets back all his investments (BDT 11,000) within a period of just over five years but without cost sharing it will take 10.5 years. The calculated FIRR is 8.11%. The investment is worth since the present average interest rate for a commercial bank home construction loan is 7.50%. This means that the family who construct an ecosan toilet from a bank loan will be able to pay the loan if the family sells urine and soil conditioner at market value.

According to both type of respondent (76%) skilled mason is locally available and around (56%) agreed that except the pan (in case of fibre glass made pan) all construction materials also locally available. Considering both management and function issue out of nine study area Chapai N.gonj (2380,1900) and Sreepur (1950, 1800) have combatively best and worst situation where as ideal situation (2000,2600). But considering the duration of using toilet Comilla Sadar has achieved the best position among all study area.

In different sample the moisture content of composted faeces was found high and some specimens were found to be wet. The composted excreta of Eco-Toilets had pathogenic burden of with parasite specially that of Ascaris lumbricoides and Trichuris trichiura. Bacteriological examination revealed no pathogenic organism. Parasitological examination revealed at least one type of parasite in each of the specimens. Cyst of Entamoeba was found in all specimens with varying number. All the Entamoeba found in the specimens were not pathogenic. Ova of Ascaris were found in almost all specimens but Trichuris was found in one case. Though many of the ova were not found to be viable based on physical characteristics, but still some of them even in the dried specimen seemed to be capable of infection. It was common in both the cases of Practical Action Bangladesh and JADE that properly sun dried faeces after one month of preservation in airtight containers no parasite or few distorted parasite found. 73% respondent believes that EcoSan toilet help to reduce the diarrheal diseases and 90% people have to spend less than 100BDT/month for it but before using ecosan toilet 30% have to spend more than 400BDT/month.

Different laboratory result says that the contents of heavy metals and other contaminants such as pesticide residues are generally low or very low in excreta and it is found that the presence is below or within WHO and Bangladesh standard. Mean N (0.38%), P (0.04%), and K (0.1%) found in nine urine samples and in case of faeces mean N (0.35%), P (0.48%), K (2.75%) and Organic Matter (3.20%) is found which are important elements for soil nutrient and increase the water holding capacity of soil. There is very less scope of water pollution during disaster and subsurface and underground water layer. Post latrine handling without safety gear is a common practice of the user and this keeps them under health risk. In Bangladesh context (climate, food practice, toilet types, etc), it is not yet determined the way of sanitizing properly before use of human excreta to the farm land.