Ecological Sanitation

There are many initiatives ongoing with regards to ecological sanitation. For who is interested to learn more on the topic, WSSCC would like to refer to the EcoSanRes network.

EcoSanRes
 
The worldwide EcoSanRes network of experts is engaged in policy promotion, capacity building, institutional development, technical innovations, and applied research in developed and developing countries. Ecological Sanitation (ecosan) is an approach that offers many advantages over and above other forms of sanitation provision, the essential features of which are: containment, sanitization and reuse. Ecosan recommends that human excreta and household organics be sanitized and that the resulting plant nutrients and soil improvements be applied in agricultural production in the proximity of human settlements. This is an important advantage since water shortages affect more than 40% of the world’s population, in over 80 countries, and water based sanitation discharges untreated sewage into rivers and other bodies of water and causes severe pollution problems around the world. 

The network believes that the creation of ecosystem-based sanitation systems offers an opportunity to meet several of the Millennium Development Goals and the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation. EcoSanRes addresses a wide range of professionals, academics, teachers/trainers and decision-makers and aspires to foster a viable worldwide debate on the important services of ecosystem-based sanitation.

• To learn more about EcoSanRes please go to www.ecosanres.org
• To participate in the discussion group, please visit: groups.yahoo.com/group/ecosanres

An EcoSanRes Fact Sheet can be found here.

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