RESOURCE PRODUCED BY CSIR BUILDING AND CONSTRUCTION TECHNOLOGY & CSIR ROADS AND TRANSPORT TECHNOLOGY
RESOURCE PRODUCED BY CSIR BUILDING AND CONSTRUCTION TECHNOLOGY & CSIR ROADS AND TRANSPORT TECHNOLOGY |
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Office space planning and management toolkit Family Health/Skills Training Centres for Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality Project in Jamaica assists in creating safer living environments for the poor CSIR researcher presents paper on Africa's development future Sports stadia from the perspective of the FIFA World Cup World conference tackles sanitation issues Forensic fire investigation update E N Q U I R I E S |
Delegates from 27 countries attended the conference, which took place from 23 to 26 May 2005 at the International Convention Centre in Durban. Local stakeholders supporting the event included the Water Research Commission, the South African Institution of Civil Engineering, Rand Water, eThekwini Municipality (Durban), the Water Institute of South Africa and the Department of Science and Technology. The Millennium Development Goals were agreed to in 2000 when all United Nations member states pledged to reduce by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water by 2015. At the WSSD in 2002, it was further agreed to reduce by half the proportion of people without basic sanitation by 2015. The development of appropriate technical options and implementation methods plays a pivotal role in meeting these objectives. The conference considered how ecological sanitation (EcoSan) can assist in meeting these objectives. EcoSan approach EcoSan can be viewed as a three-step process: containment, sanitation and recycling of human excreta. The objective is to protect human health and the environment while reducing the use of water in sanitation systems and recycling nutrients to help reduce the need for artificial fertilisers in agriculture. EcoSan represents a conceptual shift in the relationship between people and the environment, and is built on the necessary link between people and soil. The EcoSan approach to sanitation promotes a cycle, or 'closed' system, where human excreta are treated as a resource. Excreta are processed on site and then, if necessary, further processed off site until they are completely free of disease organisms. The nutrients contained in the excreta are then recycled by using them as fertiliser in agriculture. Ecological sanitation is being used by vast numbers of people across the world. The ecological sanitation philosophy encompasses an alternative approach to sanitation that is aimed at protecting the environment. In Sweden and Germany great strides have been made in the implementation of ecological sanitation. In countries such as Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Mexico, El Salvador and China, hundreds of thousands of people are serviced by ecological sanitation systems at very little cost to the environment. Download the following paper in pdf format:
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