QUESTION
Need experience and examples in implementing ecological sanitation in Chennai, Tamil Nadu

From S. Janakarajan, Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS) Chennai
Posted 5 June 2007

I work with the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS) in Chennai.

In recent years, there is a growing emphasis on promoting Ecological Sanitation (ecosan) due to a number of factors:

  1. Wider realisation that modern sewage-based sanitation uses up a tremendous amount of drinking water quality water for flushing, and requires large costly plants for treatment.
  2. Mixing of faeces and urine makes treatment difficult, as both these need different treatments.
  3. Wastage of urine and faeces, which could be a rich source of fertiliser. Proper management of these will reduce treatment as well as fertilizer costs.

A number of practices have been identified for Ecological sanitation such as Urine separation,composting toilets, waste water gardens, etc. The three-step process for dealing with human excreta on the basis of Ecosan are : (1) Containment, (2) Sanitization,(3) Recycling. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_sanitation and other Eco-san websites for details.

Thus, Eco-San appears to be a good concept, and is being used in a few villages in India.However, the failure rates of implementing eco-san are reported to be very high.

In this context, I would be interested to know from members :

  • Members experiences in implementing Eco-san toilets.
  • Examples and learnings from places where eco-san toilets have been in sustained use, say for more than two years any where in India?

Members’ inputs will help all of us in understanding the issues involved in wider replication of Eco-san toilets, and would be greatly appreciated.

Please see attachment below for the responses.

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5 June 2007