Pricing water for sustainable development

Pricing water for sustainable developmen

Comments on leachpit pourflush latrines

The strategy for leach pit pourflush latrines has been conceived to provide on-site low-cost sanitation systems for the poor to improve their quality of life and control water-borne diseases. Human excreta is a reservoir of pathogens and viruses. Indiscriminate and open defecation is a serious pollution source affecting human health and has thus become a great concern in the field of environmental sanitation and public health worldwide. With time, the gap between the growth of population and provision of sanitary latrines appears to be divergent amongst the economically weaker sections. Concerted efforts are being made to close this gap, but the peoples’ response is found to be not as strong as predicted. In the absence of low cost solutions, both in construction and maintenance, the sanitation approach to the community will be ineffective. Thus the choice of leachpit latrines needs to be popularized, with remedial measures for its short-comings, as contemplated and presented in this text

Hydrophytes in municipal wastewater treatment and limitation

Off-site wastewater treatment at low cost is a burning issue in developing countries. Use of water hyacinth and duckweed have been tried world wide and the findings of its efficiency have been found promising. The concept has become old but the work with duckweed is still continuing at different levels. Time has come to arrive at a conclusive policy/decision to the extent this water hyacinth (Eichhorina crassipes) or duckweed (Lemna) may be utilised. The guidelines in respect of the design parameter and Operation – Maintenance schedule should be available to the community. For the strategy of wide scale success of such system the involvement of NGO’s and community participantion should be inducted from the initial stage. Different aspects have been discussed in the text to arrive at a conclusion upto what extent and at what level the system of hydrophyte based waste-water treatment will have wider use by the community