Every year in the month of November and on the 19th day, the United Nations General Assembly celebrates World Toilet Day with the aim of urging changes in both behaviour and policy on issues ranging from enhancing water management to ending open-air defecation.
Worldwide studies reveal that 2.5 billion people lack access to improved sanitation resulting in about 1 billion people opting for open-air defecation. In sub-saharan African, about 69 per cent of the population does not have access to improved sanitation, making the 2015 Millennium Development Goal-MDG target on sanitation the most vulnerable of all the MDGs. Contrary to the above, while a vast majority of the world population have access to mobile phones, one third of humanity do not have access to proper sanitation, including toilets.
Though improving excreta management is a major component of the Human Settlement and Infrastructure component of the Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda(2010 – 2013), many Ghanaians live in communities with inadequate sanitation arrangement and a poor infrastructure for preventing water borne diseases.
Open-air defecation or “free range” as it is commonly known in Ghana is a major concern for many city authorities mindful of the fact that it is associated with the transmission of various water-borne diseases such as cholera, dysentery, not forgetting the recent cholera outbreaks in Ghana which has been regarded as the worst in the history of the country in terms of the number of people affected, as well as the resultant mortalities.
A survey conducted in Ghana a couple of years back rated Upper West region with 78.7 per cent as the region with the highest rate of open-air defecation followed by Northern region with 72.9 per cent and Ashanti region with 3.4 per cent as the least.
Information on sanitation technologies
Guided by the World Health Organisation definition of improved sanitation as facilities that hygienically separate human excreta from human contact, it is an acknowledged fact that abundant information exist about sanitation technologies but are scattered throughout books, reports, proceedings and journals.
Toilet facilities, as part of sanitation technologies, can basically be categorised into the components of user interface and collection and storage/treatment units. While user interface describes the type of toilet, pedestal, pan or urinal that the users come in contact with, the collection and storage/treatment describes the ways of collecting, storing and sometimes treating the products that are generated at the user interface.
Dwelling on collection and storage/treatment technologies in Ghana, one can mention water-based or water-less units such as septic tanks, bucket latrines, pit latrines, Kumasi Ventilated Improved Pit (KVIP) etc.
In sub-saharan Africa, including Ghana, the factors militating against access to improved sanitation are numerous. For example, it is unfortunate to note that due to the relaxation of the bye-law on provision of toilet facilities in homes, some landlords have converted spaces earmarked for user interfaces into rooms while others who also lack available space outside their buildings are unable to make provision for collection and storage facilities. With the above scenario or circumstances, public toilets came into play with its associated problems. Public toilets, as the name implies, are supposed to be meant for visitors, but for many genuine and/or ungenuine reasons, residents of deprived and not well-resourced communities, as well as compound houses without enough toilet facilities become regular users as they attend to nature’s call. Again, where the facility is initially designed for a specific size of population and is not expanded, it is outgrown and is characterised by long queues outside the building at peak hours.
The lack of proper back-up schedules for operation, management and maintenance of these facilities constitutes another major concern in densely populated communities where the facilities get filled up quickly but are hardly emptied, making both the inside and outside environment unfriendly. This situation is usually not appealing, and associated with obnoxious odour forcing users to sometimes replace their original dresses with cloth provided by the attendants or in the case of men, enter the facility without their shirts to attend to the call of nature in an attempt to avoid their dresses being polluted or soaked with the foul scent emanating from the poorly managed and operated facilities.
On-site faecal sludge management system
The CSIR-Institute of Industrial Research has and remains a key player in the development and promotion of different models of water-based and/or water-less collection, storage and treatment facilities, including the recently modified version of an on-site faecal sludge management system, labelled the CSIR-IIR-ABR(Anaerobic Baffled Reactor). This model bears the external features of a normal septic tank, while the internal features are configured with multiple stage chambers which receive and through a series of biochemical processes, including the anaerobic process, transform both soluble and insoluble organic excreta materials into valuable stabilised by-products such as biogas and bio-fertiliser which can be used as supplementary sources of energy and a source of organic fertiliser for soil enrichment respectively.
The CSIR-IIR-ABR system operates by gravity flow and exhibits the distinguished attributes of in situ treatment and self-emptying after treatment. It also advertises immediate outcomes of improving the aesthetic appeal of its environment by drastically reducing the nasty odour, avoids dislodgement, transportation and marine discharge of the faecal sludge without treatment in the absence of inadequate centralised faecal sludge management systems and due to the complex series of conditions and reactions in the bio-reactor segments, destroys disease-causing microorganisms responsible for cholera, dysentery etc. before disposal and/or use.
On the occasion of this year’s World Toilet Day, and as part of future National Sanitation Days in Ghana, it should be the dream of all Ghanaians led by our Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development with support from the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies(MMDAs) to co-operate and contribute in achieving our dream of enjoying decent domestic toilet facilities firstly in our homes. Secondly, in our effort to avert the practice of “flying toilet” where some residents use plastic bags as containers for excrement and end-up throwing them into drains or garbage containers, adequately, well managed and operated public toilet facilities within the vicinities and at strategic points such as restaurants, airports, filling stations, shops, markets, highways, internet cafes, markets, schools, barracks, slum areas etc. should be critically encouraged. This is with the aim of having adequate, well-managed and operated public toilet facilities with sound environments like it exists in developed countries where the top three toilet habits of users are reading(49 per cent ); texting(31 per cent ) and talking(20 per cent ) hence, underlying the fact that toilet facilities play an important role in our lives and should be given the necessary attention.
The writer is with the CSIR-Institute of Industrial Research.
