Kalindi college

University of delhi
Vac ( Swaach Bharat Assignment)
Topic:-Urban sustainable
sanitation

Prepared by :- 22557028,
22557036

Submitted to :- Abhijeet Mahala

 ABSTRACT
Sustainable urban sanitation presents one of the most significant service
delivery challenges related to poverty alleviation and sustainable
development in the decades to come. To illustrate what putting sustainable
sanitation into practice realistically means is crucial. In the developed world,
the challenge is to initiate a transition from disposal oriented, water-based
infrastructure regimes towards more sustainable, reuse oriented, and
productive sanitation regimes. Decentralised approaches to “productive
sanitation” (including e.g. the production of biogas, fertilizer, water for
irrigation, etc.) with a source-separation focus (separation of flow streams
with different properties) allow for considerable cost and resource savings
and are thereby increasing sustainable. In the developing world, the
sanitation challenge is about leapfrogging dead-end approaches and
technologies as an opportunity, especially for those areas which are
currently without sanitation services, and to overcome the huge service
backlog. This paper gives an initial overview of the current state of urban
sanitation with a North-South perspective, followed by a discussion of the
new role of sustainable sanitation systems in future eco-cities. Planning
innovations for urban sanitation, initial lessons learned and current
challenges faced are addressed. Context specific challenges and
opportunities are illustrated in a variety of urban settings, from non-tenured
low-income settlements (slums) to middle- and high-income inner-city areas,
to stimulate action on the ground.

KEYWORDS: urban, environmental sanitation, infrastructure,

productivity, reuse & recycling
 INTRODUCTION
Today it is widely recognised that sanitation is a core precondition for
development. In the beginning of 2000, over 25% of the developing world’s
urban population lacked adequate sanitation. Approx. 80% of all diseases
and 25% of all deaths in developing countries are caused by polluted water
(United Nations, 1992). In many low-income areas the modern city
inhabitants suffer from ill health, lost income, inconvenience and indignity,
particularly due to the lack of proper toilets. Studies have shown that
investments in sustainable sanitation in developing regions brings a return
in the range of US$5 to US$46 (depending on the intervention) for every
US$1 invested (Hutton, Haller, and Bartram, 2007). In order to address the
most severe problems caused by poor sanitation the focus needs to be in the
fast growing cities of today. In the city of the future “sanitation” will be
intermingled into other infrastructure and management processes in a way
completely different from what we see today. Productive sanitation systems
that produce e.g. renewable energy from biogas, or fertiliser (from the
nutrients contained in excreta and waste water) will be fitted into general
city planning in a mosaic of decentralised and centralised systems - using a
range of technological components. This paper is intended to serve as an
“eye-opener” for innovative approaches to sanitation and is dedicated to
illustrate what putting sustainable sanitation into practice realistically
means. It focuses on sanitation in the urban sphere, but underlines the
relevance of addressing the rural-urban interface and the importance of
avoiding negative downstream consequences. The “sanitation crisis” has to
be addressed in a way that helps to bridge the existing gap between urban
planners and sanitation engineers. Bridging this gap is considered essential
to move the sustainable urban agenda forward. An integrated trans-
disciplinary approach and the development of a language that both
communities can understand and develop ownership for, are therefore
required.
DEFINING SANITATION:
For the purposes of this guide, ‘sanitation’ refers to the safe management
and disposal of human excreta. It is important to understand that this
involves service delivery, not just the installation of infrastructure; both
service providers and users need to act in defined ways. This means that the
success of sanitation investments cannot be measured only in terms of
physical outputs such as the number of toilets built or kilometers of sewer
laid. Instead, the focus of attention should be on outcomes, primarily the
use and maintenance of those facilities.

Dealing effectively with human waste may also require action in related
areas such as water supply, drainage, and solid waste management. Good
coordination between the agencies responsible for these services is,
therefore, important.

WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES?

Broadly speaking, the challenges fall into four categories:

■ Low infrastructure; ■ Service coverage; ■ Low service usage; and ■ Weak

institutional arrangements.

Low Infrastructure Coverage Low Infrastructure Coverage Low Infrastructure

Coverage Low Infrastructure Coverage Low Infrastructure Coverage

South Asia contains more people without safe sanitation than any other
region in the world. While infrastructure coverage is gradually improving, it
has so far failed to keep pace with the rate of urban growth. In India it is
estimated that 17 percent of the urban population currently has no access
to any sanitary facilities at all, while 50–80 percent of wastewater is
disposed of without any treatment (Draft National Urban Sanitation Policy,
2007).

It may take several decades for sewerage and other sanitation services to
become available to all of urban India. In the meantime, the great majority of
urban residents will remain dependent on on-site sanitation facilities such
as pour flush toilets discharging to leach pits or septic tanks. Municipal
sanitation plans should therefore include measures to improve on-site
sanitation—otherwise they will meet the needs of just a small portion of the
city.

■ Affordability, including the cost of connecting to sewer networks; ■

Uncertainty over land tenure (fear of eviction); ■ Space constraints; and ■
The low priority given to sanitation (people may not appreciate its
importance).

■ There may be a complete lack of facilities. For example, there may be

settlements with no toilets at all, while facilities for the safe emptying of
septic tanks, and the treatment of septage, may be lacking across the entire
town.

■ Sanitation facilities may be available but could be inconvenient,

unpleasant or unhygienic. This may be the result of inappropriate design or
construction, or inadequate management arrangements. Poor management
is often a problem with community toilet blocks.

■ Sanitation facilities may be available, but some people have limited access
to them. For example, people may not be able to afford to connect to an
existing public sewer.

■ Sanitation facilities may be in place but are not operated or maintained

properly. Poor operation and maintenance of a facility shortens its useful life
and could, at worst, result in rapid total failure.

■ There may be no provision for the treatment of wastewater or excreta.

Local drains and sewers may simply relocate waste to another part of town
where it causes local pollution. Households are primarily concerned about
the cleanliness of their immediate surroundings and much less worried
about the wider impact on the environment.
State agencies and municipalities sometimes make very large investments in
sanitation infrastructure, but these do not always deliver their intended
benefits. There can be several reasons for this, for example:

■ The investments are made on an ad hoc basis when funds become

available, without reference to an overarching strategy or plan.

THE STATE OF URBAN SANITATION

The growth of cities and the implications for resource consumption and
climate change will be the single largest influence on development in this
century. The year 2008 marked the first time in history that half of the
world’s population lived in urban areas, a population of over 3.3 billion
urbanites. If the population growth rate continues at this speed the total
urban population will reach 4.9 billion in the next 20 years. Cities are today
the focus of all major economic, social, demographic and environmental
transformations. However, they are also increasingly the focal point for
world poverty as informal settlements and slum areas expand. Since the
majority of urban growth will continue to occur in the cities of the
developing world, what happens there will have real impacts for the rest of
the world, both negatively and positively. Although urbanisation offers
economic opportunities, the increasing human density also corresponds to
increasing quantities of waste. Excessive waste accumulation leads to
environmental degradation, water pollution and a multitude of related
health and livelihood impacts. Increasing the provision of sanitation services
to the urban multitudes is a challenge that urgently needs to be addressed.
While urban sanitation coverage had risen to 79% in 2008, the global
statistics hide large discrepancies between the “haves” and “have-nots”,
regionally as well as within individual cities. It is too early to claim a victory
on urban sanitation coverage and indeed, the increasing complexities and
diversity of cities will make reaching the remaining under-served
populations that much more challenging. Solutions will require recognition
of a variety of typical urban settings and an innovative approach to linking
them to appropriate sanitation systems. Water and sanitation is usually
worse in small urban centres. In world averages, urban centres with less
than 100,000 inhabitants have the lowest proportion of their population
served with piped or well water on premises, with flush toilets and with
sewer systems. On average in these areas less than 40% of the population
have flush toilets while in cities with 1 to 5 million inhabitants the
proportion is more than 70% and in cities with 5 million plus it is more than
80%. (UN-Habitat, 2006) .

PLANNING FOR SUSTAINABLE

SANITATION IN CITIES
Planning for sustainable sanitation in cities needs to bridge the gap between
different practice communities such as architects, urban designers,
planners, and sanitation engineers. Shifting trends in planning theory and
the spill-over of that thought process into other disciplines means
incorporating new principles into the way sanitation planning is done. When
planning for example the complex realities of the one billion people currently
living in informal urban settlements worldwide, some radical rethinking is
required. While it is certainly true that “...there is little evidence that any
overarching approach has had any significant impact in the complex
situations faced by the urban poor and those charged with delivering
sanitation services to them” (Tayler, 2008), this paper attempts to map out
briefly the key issues that need to be addressed if there is to be progress in
replicating good practice and moving to scale. Due to many factors, such as
the current status and heterogeneity within the urbanised area, the
challenges of delivering sanitation services are markedly different between
cities as well as areas within the city itself. Despite this diversity there are
common guiding principles available. Some key issues and pointers for
adopting successful planning approaches are discussed below.

Understand power relations A thorough stakeholder assessment is the first

and most important step in understanding the complexity of urban and
societal dynamics. This should include making different interests
transparent at an early stage. Other issues of great significance when
dealing with urban development are corruption and clientelistic relations.
While it will not always be possible to deal with the intricacies of local level
politics and deeply rooted vested interests, people-centered and transparent
planning approaches can provide guidance by promoting the greatest
possible transparency in planning decisions.

Build partnerships - reaching consensus Good partnerships and

participatory programmes begin when actors come together to achieve a
common goal based on agreed priorities. Of great importance is developing
local champions at community and/or municipal level which can drive
forward the process. Wherever possible, one should utilise participatory
action planning methods to converge the interests of stakeholders and pool
resources. This should start with a realistic and thorough assessment of
different stakeholder perspectives to make diverging interests and claims
transparent. It should be noted however, that partnerships are not always
easy and it takes considerable effort and time to maintain them and to keep
them going over time.

Aim for closed-loop solutions In line with the concept of ecological and
economical sustainability, waste should be considered as a resource and its
reuse should be encouraged from the very start of any planning process.
When introducing closed-loop options to the planning agenda it is important
to consider the policy and user implications of these systems. Specific
sanitation policy may not be written to include innovative and closed-loop
designs, but there is an increasing body of environmental legislations (e.g.
EU Water Framework Directive, renewable energy initiatives, and
environmental pollution laws) that can be used to justify systems that will
recycle water, nutrients, or energy. In addition, since closed-loop solutions
often mean introducing new technologies, experience shows that education
and the implementation of case studies can be the first step for building
awareness and in convincing stakeholders and actors (such as users and
the legislature) about safety, advantages and convenience.

SANITATION SYSTEMS
Sanitation systems - contrary to sanitation technologies - consider all
components required for the adequate management of human waste. Each
system represents a configuration of different technologies that carry out
different functions on specific waste inputs or waste products. The sequence
of function specific technologies through which a product passes is called a
flowstream. Each system is therefore a combination of product and function
specific technologies designed to address each flowstream from origin to
reuse or adequate and safe disposal. Technology components exist at
different spatial levels, each with specific management, operation and
maintenance conditions as well as potential implications for a range of
stakeholders. Starting at the household level with waste generation, a
system can include storage and potentially also treatment and reuse of all
products such as urine, excreta, greywater, and rainwater, organic solid
waste from the household, and agricultural activities or manure from cattle
at or near the source of waste generation. However, problems can often not
be solved at the household level alone. The household “exports” waste to the
neighbourhood, town, or downstream population. In such cases, it is crucial
that the sanitation system boundary is extended to include these larger
spatial sections, and that take into account technology components for
storage, collection, transportation, treatment, discharge or reuse at these
levels. Sanitation systems can be distinguished as being water-reliant (“wet”)
or non-water reliant (“dry”) with regard to the transport of excreta. This
systematic distinction is used in characterising sanitation systems (e.g.
NETSSAF, 2006; Water and Sanitation Program, 2005; The World Bank,
Water and Sanitation Program-South Asia & Government of India, Ministry
of Urban Development, 2008). Next to water-reliant or non-water reliant
another distinction can be made in the various degrees of separation of
incoming wastes, such as urine diverting sanitation systems, which keeps
urine separate from faeces from the very beginning. On the other hand
sewered sanitation systems mix faeces, urine, flushing water, and greywater
as well as wet or dry anal cleansing materials, and in many cases even
rainwater, resulting in a waste product classically called wastewater. It is
important to note that, depending on the degree of waste mixing or
separation, various “flowstreams” can be distinguished which consequently
must be accounted for in the subsequent functions of the sanitation system.
It is also important to note the similarity in naming convention between
products and flowstreams. For example, blackwater is a product, but the
entire process of collecting, treating and disposing of blackwater is referred
to as the blackwater flowstream. Similarly, greywater can be managed
separately as an independent product, but when it is combined and treated
along with blackwater, the flowstream is referred to as the “blackwater
mixed with greywater” flowstream. The classifications “wet” and “dry” give
only a limited indication of how wet or dry the collected waste materials will
be. Although flushing water might not be used (and would not therefore
qualify as a “dry system”) a system may nevertheless contain anal cleansing
water or even greywater. Also, wet systems are characterised by the
production of a parallel product: faecal sludge. In wet systems then, the
faecal sludge flowstream must be taken into account and treated
accordingly with its own set of process and product specific technologies
until the point of reuse or ultimate disposal. As an example for a set of
sanitation systems with a promising combination of different technologies,
the following categorisation is given (based on (NETSSAF, 2006) and (Tilley,
et al., 2008) • Wet mixed blackwater and greywater system with
decentralised treatment • Wet blackwater system • Wet urine diversion
system • Dry excreta and greywater separate system • Dry urine, faeces and
greywater diversion system • Dry excreta and greywater mixed system .

THE WAY FORWARD

It is suggested that each city starts now to introduce productive sanitation
systems using the entry points indicated above and the principles
summarised below. To learn already today how the general idea of
“sustainable sanitation” can best be applied and adapted to the individual
local conditions is a good investment in monetary and social terms. Urban
complexity is part of the reason why sanitation today still belongs to the
world’s most imminent, least well-resourced problems. However, in the
holistic approach towards sustainable sanitation outlined in this paper, the
complexity of the urban context provides not only problems, but also
distinct opportunities. The chances of successful sanitation provision lie in
exploring linkages to more sectors than solely water supply and sanitation.
Some possible opportunities for the way forward are summarised below.

Economic and business opportunities It is now accepted that sanitation

brings a higher rate of return than initial investment, and not only in terms
of health impact (Hutton, Haller, and Bartram, 2007). Urban sanitation
systems comprise a range of processes that represent potential business
opportunities. These may include small-scale service provision for
construction of appropriate system components, collection, transport,
storage and processing/recovery of products from sanitation systems (e.g.
biogas, fertiliser, soil conditioner or irrigation water). Other opportunities
exist in: • Resources management (dealing with resources that are scarce in
the local context and evaluating how a sanitation system can reduce
resource pressure) • Surveys, analyses, and impact evaluation (e.g. market
surveys, institutional analysis, impact evaluation of previous sanitation
strategies, and sustainability assessments) The promotion, development,
and implementation of sustainable sanitation systems in an urban context
need to be based on three pillars: (a) local demand, (b) appropriate local
supply, and (c) an enabling environment (policy, regulation, legislation, etc).
Addressing these pillars increases effectiveness as discussed in the following
section.

Create local demand Merely supply driven sanitation programmes have not
proven effective - often the supplied facilities are not accepted and
deteriorate quickly. Creating ownership, by contrast, proves to be a major
success factor. Thus, sanitation provision must be more demand oriented.
Tools for creating local demand include: • Community led behavioral change
campaigns (e.g. Community-led Total Sanitation (CLTS) in India) • Social
marketing approaches • Awareness raising campaigns • Hygiene promotion
In the process of demand creation, no special sanitation option should be
imposed onto users. However, only if sufficient information on sustainable
sanitation options is available for a given context can a truly informed
choice be made. Demonstration projects may play an important role here, as
they allow .

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Thanks are going to the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA) meta-
network as a whole – who inspired and contributed to this publication.
SuSanA is digitally available at: http://www.susana.org/
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