Recently, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been a recognition in SA of the importance of access to water and sanitation for people living in informal settlements. However, the solutions adopted have been reactive, contradict stated government policy and are not sustainable.
These water and sanitation solutions make use of fixed water tanks that are filled by tankers and provide sanitation using communal chemical toilets.
Ironically, though bucket toilets provided by the public sector are regarded as an unacceptable sanitation option, these chemical toilets - which are also a container-based solution (read bucket system), and usually provided by the private sector - are being rolled out at scale.
And bucket toilets are usually used by only one household, but chemical toilets are often shared by as many as 100 households.
Meanwhile, water is supplied by tanker-trucks and either collected directly by households, who usually join crowded queues in the road, or from plastic tanks, which draw similar crowds when they are filled.
These supplies often cost up to 20 times more than water from a piped network and rarely manage to deliver the minimum basic supply of 25l per person per day. Worse, the use of water tankers is often tainted by corruption, and also acts of vandalism by the entrenched tanker mafia in some settlements.
In many of the communities, there is actually water supply infrastructure close by, but communities are either not connected or the supplies no longer work.
There are better solutions.
Container-based sanitation is being recognised internationally as a sustainable solution for communities that are too dense for piped infrastructure to be installed or that are remote from existing infrastructure.
Modern approaches to this technology are very different from the old bucket system. Container-based solutions also facilitate the efficient processing of faecal sludge to recover the valuable nutrients and energy it contains - the so-called sanitation circular economy. (In the case of chemical toilets, the chemicals used as a deodorant and disinfectant make conventional sewage treatment impractical.)
The toilet that is used today is little different from the first flush toilets invented in the 1860s. With the financial support of organisations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, significant advances are being made in the reinvention of the toilet. The eThekwini metro and the pollution research group at the University of KwaZulu-Natal have been research and testing partners with the foundation on this exciting project since 2010.
Key to the success of new systems is the involvement of the people who will use them. Without a consultative process, with real community participation in decision-making and with agreed outcomes, the implementation of sustainable infrastructure solutions will be virtually impossible.
If a water solution is introduced without thought being given to the disposal of the "grey" wash water, public health problems will inevitably result. Chemical toilets only cater for so-called "black water" (water contaminated by human excrement) and are not a solution to the disposal of water that has been used for other purposes.
Informal settlements are most often unplanned and usually result when individuals or groups of people are able to act more quickly than those responsible for development control. This is unlike some cities in Brazil, where informal settlements are developed through a process that involves communities and municipal leadership working collaboratively to agree on the planning and layout of settlements.
If a water solution is introduced without thought being given to the disposal of the "grey" wash water, public health problems will inevitably result.
This makes it possible to retain access pathways or road corridors, along which piped services and other infrastructure can be installed cost-effectively, and where each family is then able to gain access to safe water and sanitation in their home.
What is needed to address water and sanitation needs in informal settlements is, in the short term:
• Keep existing piped water systems working properly, fix them quickly when there are problems and expand them to link to informal settlements. Do not truck in water except in emergency situations as a temporary measure; and
• Where communal sanitation provision is essential, use well-designed and constructed facilities and ensure that there are arrangements - and funding - to manage them properly.
In the longer term:
• Adopt a creative approach to planning that is proactive and not reactive, with clear benefits to all stakeholders, and with real community involvement in decision-making;
• Use affordable and sustainable infrastructure solutions. Spending millions or even billions of rands on operating costs could more effectively be geared to fund capital investments; and
• Make sure that the level of service selected for the provision of water is complemented by sanitation systems capable of safely disposing of the effluent that results. Delivering water into communities by the tanker load without providing for its safe disposal has resulted in cholera epidemics in the past.
• Macleod is a member of the technical committee of the Water Institute of Southern Africa
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.