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| Author: |
Steven A. Esrey, Ingvar Andersson, Astrid Hillers and Ron Sawyer, 2001-12
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| Title: |
Closing The Loop: Ecological Sanitation for Food Security |
| Publisher: |
UNDP, SIDA, Water and Sanitation Programme, Thrasher Research Fund and PAHO, 107 pages
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| Type: |
Books
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| Country / Region: |
Global
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| Categories: |
Food Security,
Solid Waste Management,
Water & Sanitation
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| Themes/Issues: |
Food
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| Date Posted: |
2005-02-02 |
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This publication presents a shift in the way people think about and act upon human excreta. A different paradigm, based on an ecosystem approach, is evolving. Nutrients and organic matter in human excreta are considered a resource —food for a healthy ecology of beneficial soil organisms that produce food or other benefits for people. Sanitation practitioners must link with others in public health, agriculture and nutrition to close the nutrient loop in a safe, non-polluting way. What is perceived as human waste must be managed in the future as an important resource to be recovered and recycled.
In the alternative approach to sanitation —ecological sanitation— excreta are processed on site, and if so required off site, until completely free from pathogens and inoffensive. The faeces
are sanitised (composted or dehydrated) close to the place of excretion, and the composted organic matter is applied to the soil to improve its structure, water-holding capacity and
fertility. Valuable nutrients contained in excreta, mostly in urine, are returned to the soil for healthy plant growth.
It is a different way of thinking: a “closed-loop-approach” to sanitation, in which the nutrients in excreta are returned to soil instead of water or deep pits. Ecological sanitation is not
merely a new latrine design. The closed-loop approach is also a zero-discharge approach, keeping fresh and marine water bodies free of pathogens and nutrients.
Ecological sanitation is applicable in the North and the South, for rural and urban areas, and for rich and poor alike.
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