Workshop on managing liquid waste held in Accra
Waste experts have expressed concern over the management of liquid waste at homes.
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According to them, the inefficient management of liquid waste resulted in about 80 per cent of water leaving homes as sewage.
They have, therefore, advocated individual or community sewerage systems which use less water sources.
The experts expressed the concern at an international workshop on managing liquid waste in Accra.
Dubbed the Second India Africa Dialogue and Media Briefing Workshop, the workshop was attended by journalists from 15 African countries.
It was on the theme: “Sewerage to Sanitation, Opportunities and Challenges for Sustainable Sanitation Solutions for Future” and was organised by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) in India in partnership with Media for Environment, Science, Health and Agriculture (MESHA) in Kenya and the Science and Technology Communication of Ghana (SATCGO), a Ghana-based association of science journalists.
CSE analysis
A CSE analysis says that in the corresponding period when the world population increased by three times, water consumption increased six times. The ‘modern’ lifestyle and processes require much more water than before, leading to water shortage.
It says currently, around 75 per cent of the world faces water scarcity. It is necessary that wasteful practices are discarded.
Experts at the workshop said large quantities of water, which is a precious natural resource, used in carrying human excreta, was not the best use of water.
a scientist with South Africa’s Water Research Commission, Dr Sudhir Pillay, stated that the number of people defaecating in the open was increasing in sub-Saharan Africa.
In Ghana, only 15 per cent of people used an ‘improved’ sanitation facility and according to him the current technology — using water to flush down excreta and carry it away — was not sustainable.
The solution, he said, was on-site faecal sludge management using modern septic tanks and other technologies so that the excreta did not contaminate water bodies.
Decentralisation of human waste
The Director of the Centre for Science and Environment’s Water Programme, Dr Suresh Rohilla, in a presentation, said, “Centralised wastewater management means excreta is not managed locally but is only transported through pipelines and dumped somewhere else.”
A water and sanitation expert, he advocated Decentralised Wastewater Management Systems (DEWATS) which used advanced systems, including septic tanks, biogas digesters, anaerobic filters and other methods to convert wastewater into clean, usable water.