Faecal sludge treatment in rural areas: Will urban-rural convergence work?

The 2021 Joint Monitoring Progress Report of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says there has been an improvement in safe sanitation in rural areas across the world -- around 37 per cent of households had disposed of their excreta onsite safely in 2015; in 2020, this number had climbed up to 51 per cent.

What happens to the untreated faecal sludge? It must be treated onsite or offsite, if one is to work towards meeting Sustainable Development Goal 6 on safe sanitation. The best option for rural areas is onsite sanitation, though there are cases where onsite sanitation is either faulty or not sufficient to treat the sludge. Retrofitting of faulty toilets is not always advisable as a solution.

The question is, are rural areas in the Global South prepared to confront these new challenges that face them? Do we understand what kind of treatment technologies would be appropriate in such scenarios? Will these technologies be expensive? These questions tell us that it cannot be a business-as-usual scenario. Mindless construction of faecal sludge treatment plants for and in rural areas cannot be the only solution. We must keep the economics in mind, and at the same time bring communities together for ensuring a better and more sustainable future. How can this synergy be created?

Some interesting examples and solutions are now emerging on urban-rural convergence models which offer a viable way forward – Bangladesh has some learning to offer in this, and so has India. Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) invites you to join its Asia-Africa Online Consultation that will bring experiences from across the globe on one platform for discussing a way ahead to facilitate a synergistic future for ensuring safe sanitation. The aim would be to learn from examples and experiences from across the world, and use them to plan and implement better.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT

SUKANYA NAIR 
The CSE Media Resource Centre,
sukanya.nair@cseindia.org
8816818864