The Daily IIJ

Ecological Sanitation (Ecosan) is a holistic approach to sanitation and water management based on the systematic closure of local material flow-cycles. It introduces the concept of sustainability to sanitation by its basic principle of closing the (nutrient) loop between sanitation and agriculture.
With ecosan toilets one will be able to reduce the health risks related to sanitation, contaminated water and waste, to prevent the pollution of surface and ground water, prevent the degradation of soil fertility, optimize the management of nutrients and water resources.
Ecosan toilets can be a sanitation solution in locations with difficult geological conditions; Katwe area has a high percentage of water logged areas, a high percentage of households in areas with land limitations for residential plots. These toilets have no bad smells, hygienic, they are affordable in the long run, easy to maintain, no fly breeding, no digging needed, permanent construction, can generate income, can be built in or as part of the main house, products can act as fertilizers and soil conditioners, adoptable to difficult soils of ground water conditions and no water needed except for mopping and hand washing.
A total of 10 Ecosan toilets will be constructed at house holds levels 2 each year. A total of 50 masons will be trained to equip them with knowledge and skills as regards to basics construction of Ecosan toilets. The training of the masons will target the youth who are unemployed. This training will provide them with job opportunity.
Following this project, the habit of flying toilets in Katwe slums which was long rooted behaviour, will soon be a thing of the past.
The Katwe Ecological Sanitation Management  project is implemented in the Nkere and Nabisalu zones/villages of the greater Katwe slums Kibuye I parish of Makindye division which is two kilometers away from city of Kampala.
The project  which is funded by Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), through a regional NGO OSIENALA from Kenya is implemented by Rural Development Media communication (RUDMEC).
Despite the existence of MDGs and in particular goal 7 which aims at ensuring environmental sustainability and Target 11 of the same proposes that by 2020 to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers worldwide. This seem to be far from the reality as urban slums continue to experience environmental problems like malaria, typhoid, worm infestations, diarrhoea and cholera epidemics are common in these areas.
According to World Health Organisation report of 2006, the top ten causes of death for people of all ages in Uganda, diarrhoea disease is listed with 8 percent at the 4th place, causing 30,000 deaths per year.
The Ugandan Health Sector Strategic Plan pointed to convincing evidence that over 75 percent of Uganda’s heavy disease burden is considered preventable as it is primarily caused by poor personal and domestic hygiene and inadequate sanitation facilities and practices.
The sullage drains are underdeveloped, poorly maintained resulting into stagnant waste water, they are the source of smell, poor aesthetic and a breeding ground for malaria, people ease themselves in polythene and plastic containers which they throw away at night.
There is low level of community participation in efforts to improve the environmental sanitation and abject poverty continues to affect urban dwellers (MDGs, Uganda’s progress report 2007).
Inadequate sanitation and lack of clean water are basic indicators of urban poverty which have a bearing on health and human dignity. This condition characterizes the lifestyle of residents of Nkere and Nabisalu zones of Katwe slums. The residents of these areas lack access to improved sanitation facilities exposing them to sanitation-related diseases, polluted water sources which often have devastating social, economic, and environmental effects. This has necessitated implementation of an integrated environmental project which is envisaged that it will play a crucial role in contributing to the realization of better livelihoods for the Nabisalu and Nkere communities.
Majority of the households in the area do not use water-borne sanitation. As a result, most of the sullage water is directly disposed of into the environment via sullage drains and open spaces, due to the high water table and dense settlement; sullage management in the area is largely inadequate. Tertiary and secondary drains are haphazardly constructed between houses and have poor gradients which inhibit flow. The drainage channels are strewn with polythene bags as toilets (flying toilets), banana peels and other domestic solid wastes, that block these drainage channels. It can be observed that a lot of storm water collects and stagnates in the area in these drains carrying with it a lot of pollutants whose impacts are severe to the communities.
The aim of the project is to contribute to realizing of a fundamental objective of mobilizing, sensitising and empowering urban communities with information on good practices on hygiene ecological sanitation and sustainable environmental conservation.
The project whose components are water and sanitation, energy conservation, wetlands conservation, waste management, income generation and development of Information Education and Communication materials.
Under sanitation the project has so far completed three ecological sanitation demonstration toilets unit one at a community level and two at house hold level. These toilets have been more successful at household level than community because, they require special care and attention which is more offered at household level.
The slums are presently home to an estimated population of over 300,000 people according to the last national population census 2005 by the Kampala City Council Authorities (KCC).
The ecosan toilets, which are an environmental friendly toilets, cost between 700,000 to 3,000,000 Ugandan shillings. This type of toilet has a life span of 15 to 30 years depending on how the technological, design and materials used and number of people using it.
Speaking with this reporter an Ecosan Technician in Katwe, Teefe Musisii said, the project is looking at restore the environment of Lake Victoria, which its water is being misused by people.
He said people of Katwe were depositing their human waste into drainage system which link up to the Lake, thus contaminating it. “Project was introduced in the place as an alternative to the traditional toilets which were existing in the area,”
Speaking as to why Katwe was chosen to be in the project, General Secretary of RUDMEC, Sarah Kisolo, said it was because the area is situated in wetlands, thus the name Nabisalu a Luganda name for wetland and Nkere is another Luganda name for frogs. So frogs like to live in wetlands.
He said another reason is that, Katwe has highly populated area with no government or NGOs intervention, by the time the project was put into a place. This area was also suffering from severe environmental problems, like blocked channels, people were drawing water from contaminated sources, and awareness level of people towards this was very low.
She added that, the five year project, will be implemented annually and will concentrate on environment issues.
The community where this project is being implemented, people are happy of this new technology of ecosan toilets which is environmental friendly. Since they had never seen such toilets as they were only using traditional which were posing healthy hazards to them.
“ We were using latrines within our residences and when filled up we could  dispose our waste in the drainage channels and in return, this pollutes the environment and water sources,” they said.
They also said that toilets are used for several other purposes which include disposing of other waste matter like waste water from their kitchens and solid wastes like old clothes.
In a recent survey that was conducted by the RUDMEC indicated that with some sensitization willingness by community members to adopt and use the toilet if they are well sensitized and educated to over-come the cultural barriers.
The first step in the construction of the Ecosan toilet ordinarily involves the creation of two rectangular-shaped chambers made of bricks and cemented inside and covered by a concrete slab on top. On the same top there is an open squatting pad fixed on the slab each with a hole and each empties into the square compartments. It on these pads to relieve themselves.
The entire structure is completed on the upper side with two walls made of bricks and roofed with iron sheets and a door. One of the two chambers above is used each at a time and it is in this that the human waste matter is collected. The waste is stored in this chambers and it is estimated that it can take up to six months to fill up. Ashes from wood is poured into the hole every time one defecates to kill the disease causing mechanisms protect it from decomposition and make it dry up. This type of toilet has two holes one is for urine and the other one is for feaces. When one is using it is not allow to mix urine and feaces in one hole like in the VIP toilets.
When the two are mixed in one hole, the chambers get full fast, the toilet starts smelling and it is costly to separate the two, because this waste later is used as organic manure for farmlands.
After filling up it is covered and left to dry up for about 5-6 months then it is removed from the chambers and in this case is would be hard dry and loose then it is poured on farmlands as organic manure.
Human waste by-products have been proved to be very rich in minerals for farming. Research in this area has been conducted in such countries as Sweden and China where they have been using the same for such a long time.
The urine is collected separately in jerricans and can be stored for a period of two weeks after which it can be poured on a farmland. Unlike the stool, the urine is not treated.