DRINKING WATER AND SANITATION

By Suchismita Mukherjee Ekta Nanda Debasmita Lenka Nayanika Chatterjee Soundarya Karamcheti

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

PERFOMANCE OBJECTIVES:

1

• To analyze the sanitation situation in urban, urban slums, rural and tribal parts of India

2 • To discuss the problems leading to poor sanitation

3 • To offer solutions for the problems

1

• Practicing critical thinking and situation analysis of a health problem

2 • Problem solving

What is Wrong??

Take it easy policy-as long as there is no immediate danger, we take everything very light.

Postponing things - we always try to postpone the things which are not of immediate

benefit or danger

Never serious unless something drastic happens- only when epidemics occur we usually

will be serious.

Heroism at the beginning , no follow up, escapism in politicians and callousness in

program managers

CRUX OF THE PROBLEM

• 1000 million population and difficult terrain • 500million illiterates and unaware of faeco-oral transmission of the

diseases • Limited resources of the country coupled with mismanagement and

wrong policies • Faith, superstitions and customs potentiating the problem • Less contribution by public health • Misuse of water resources • Poor political commitment and implementation of legislations • Too much democracy claiming only rights but not sharing the

responsibilities and poor civic sense

POVERTY + ILLITERACY + IGNORANCE = POVERTY COMPLEX IS THE MAIN CAUSE

Why Water, Sanitation,

Hygiene? 1.7 million (22% of world total) of the Under-5 children that died in 2010 were Indian Diarrhea in one among the largest killer diseases (13% deaths) Worldwide over 80% of diarrheal deaths are due to unsafe water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene

Global Child Mortality: Estimates of

Levels and Causes for 2000-2010

(preliminary results)-Bloomberg School of

Public Health, Johns Hopkins University

USE OF WETLAND FOR WASTE WATER TREATMENT

STEP 1

STEP 2

STEP 3

STEP 4

Constructed wetlands use assisted, natural processes for wastewater treatment in a marsh-like environment. They work great in settings where there is a surplus of land and natural rain but lack funds for multiple heavy tank systems such as activated sludge systems

There are four components to these systems: a septic tank with grease traps, gravel bed hydroponic section (GBH), a level control chamber, and finally a series of open ponds. The septic tank with grease traps is required for the initial breakdown of the solids

Then, the liquid sludge is piped into the GBH where an ecosystem is cultivated. Specific waste-resistant plants are chosen for oxygenating the water which allows organisms that intake oxygen

and clean waste to grow.

The effluent then enters a control chamber, which uses a simple weir system to ensure that neither the GBH or pond series overflows. The series of ponds uses a similar concept as the GBH, but at this point in the process, the wastewater is much cleaner, so a different ecosystem thrives here. If the ecosystems are cultivated correctly, a system of checks and balances will clean the water while preventing algae blooms or the creation of a breeding pit for mosquitoes

ECONOMIC ADVANTAGES

The greatest advantage to constructed wetlands is that they can be designed to be completely gravity driven which means no electricity is required

All of the processes are natural, biological processes that do not require any potentially harmful chemicals

A single person could run the system because his only job would be preventing blockages and ensuring the ecosystems don’t get thrown out of balance.

Water, temperature and land is not a problem for many poor, tropical areas through the world, and with minimum maintenance cost, these systems would be ideal.

WATERLESS TOILET SYSTEM STEP 1

STEP 2

STEP 3

STEP 4

A single toilet is connected by a short pipe to an enclosed evaporation container located behind and outside the facility. The container has a pipe vertically protruding from the top: closely resembling a smoke stack. Inside the container, a screen splits the inside space in two. This allows for the urine to pass through to the bottom while keeping the solid waste at the screen: effectively splitting the two wastes. The container is made from a black material which turns sunlight into heat more efficiently.

The heated air evaporates the urine and dries the feces while having the added effect of causing this

recently saturated air to rise through the smoke stack. The escaping, saturated air causes a negative

pressure to occur in the vessel which then causes fresh air to be sucked into the system through the

toilet and a vent on the side of the container

The fresh air has two effects: one, it allows the odors to continue to rise out of the smoke stack and high into the air where they cannot be detected, and two, it allows for aerobic bacteria to

thrive, Aerobic bacteria needs a steady supply of oxygen to effectively clean the waste from

harmful pathogens.

This means that when the process is done, all that is left is a form of dried

feces that is not harmful and is 5% of its previous volume.

ADVANTAGES

Since 1993, it has been installed in 39 different countries; including Kenya, Afghanistan, and Haiti

2

3

4

5

Microbial Fuel Cells

1 The solid wastes like excreta can be used to produce electricity by using microbial fuel cells.

Microbes can be used for the anaerobic digestion of the waste in bio-digesters placed underground.

The end product of this digestion is hydrogen which is a clean fuel for vehicles.

This process is environment-friendly as the excreta is being prevented from percolating into the ground-water

It is also cost-effective as the only investments are done in the bio-digester, the microbes and in distribution of the products and by-products.

REFERENCES

• http://cameronkoizumi.wordpress.com/

• http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/134

741-the-fuel-cell-that-turns-poop-into-

power