August 2009 2009 | Abel Terefe Terefe Kestävä Tulevaisus ry, August
C O NC L US I VE R E PO R T O N S A NI T AT I ON OF PUBLIC AND GROUP TOILETS IN FOUR SELECTED KEBELES IN THE CITY OF BAHIR DAR INTRODUCTION This report is based on a study conducted by Sustainable future association association (KeTu ry) as part of of a three year pilot project in four selected Kebeles in the area of sanitation, energy and water. The study was made by physically observing the sites and making simple questionnaires to the people using the toilets. The kebeles namely Belay Zeleke, Sefene Selam, Fasilo and Gishabay Gishabay are some of the most populated parts of the city.
TOILETS TOILET S DISTRIBUTION DISTRIBUTION AND AVAILABILITY AVAILABILITY The study shows that there is a serious shortage of toilets and toilet space in the areas. With over 20000 people living in each kebele, the distribution of toilets compared to the number of people is unparalleled. This is mainly because a lot of people live in a small piece of land where the land land isn’t legally issued to them or by illegally expanding their block of land and with the lacking supervision of the concerned organ from the kebele administration, every every open space has been inhabited. This in turn created a serious accessibility problem to the inner areas of the blocks and also made no space for toilets. In most cases, a single toilet room was used by around 5-6households where every every household has around 4-6 family members. In the entire project area, there are around 70 toilets that were built over a long period of time ranging from 25years 25years to 2 years. About 10 of these toilets are public toilets and 2 of the public toilets were closed over a year ago. The currently operating toilets were built by NGO’s such as the Amhara Development association in collaboration with the Japanese Embassy, JeCDo (an NGO working in the area of children development) and the government.
CONDITION OF EXISTING TOILETS About 90% of the toilets are in extremely bad sanitation condition. All of the toilets don’t have water tubs for hand washing after defecation and most of them aren’t clean. The floors are littered and unclean and the interior has a pungent and stinking smell due to the unavailability of air ventilation pipes. Besides, the surrounding of the toilets is filled with garbage. Often times, children are playing around the toilets. Sometimes the toilets were also built very very close to the houses in
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Kestävä Tulevaisus ry, August August 2009 2009 | Abel Teref Terefe e
which case children could contract gastro intestinal diseases very easily from the unclean conditions. On top of that, due to the poor quality of the construction materials, the buildings are in
Current condition of toilets
10.1% 8.7%
Closed toilets 81.2%
In extermely bad condition Functioning toilets
FIGURE 1SHOWS THE CURRENT CONDITION OF BOTH GROUP AND PUBLIC TOILETS
bad state. In most cases, the floor slabs, supporting frames and columns, roofs and doors are deteriorating. This happens even to the youngest buildings buildings in the area. Despite the fact that some toilets are very old and in bad condition, they are still in use. The public toilets have been outsourced to a small private company called Mesfin Gulilat Sanitation plc in which the users pay 20 cents per use. However, some of the locals complain they cannot afford to pay for such service since their family size is big and they have no solid income. Most of the group toilets are emptied emptied in 3-4months 3-4months on average whereas the public toilets are emptied every 15 days. The users pay for the emptying of the septic tanks. A single carriage of a vacuum sewage truck costs about 120Birr. Therefore the payment is done by equally dividing the number of carriages with the number of households using the toilet without taking into account the number of family members in the household. On the other hand, the septic tanks of some toilets have never been emptied for a long time or even after construction construction regardless of when they were built. The people told that the tanks are full during the rainy season due to flood and empty during the dry season since the water trickles down to the ground. This could be a concern as the sewage may have percolated to ground water depending on the underlying geology.
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August 2009 2009 | Abel Terefe Terefe Kestävä Tulevaisus ry, August
KEY FACTORS AFFECTING SANITATION
ABSENCE OF WATER: All of the group toilets didn’t have water. This is one of the reasons
that the toilet floors are unclean and fouling. Meanwhile, some of the public toilets have water for cleaning the floor and for a hand wash and they were better than those that didn’t have water. PROXIMITY TO LIVING AREAS : Some of the group toilets are built so close to the living houses. We witnessed that some were were even as close as 1m from the houses which caused a health concern in some of the neighborhoods. For instance, in kebele Gishabay we came across with one family whose mother and son were HIV positive and complained that the toilet was built against their good will and said it negatively affected their life. ACCESSIBILITY ACCESSIBILITY PROBLEMS PROBLEMS: This is another serious problem that affects sanitation. Often times the areas were tightly built that it is utterly utterly impossible for the vacuum sewage truck to empty the toilets. There is also a case where a toilet was closed because there was no way of emptying the septic tank. FLOODING : The city of Bahir dar is one of the flood prone areas in Ethiopia. During the rainy season the septic tanks are filled with flood water and there is a chance where the sewage overflows to the outside increasing the risk risk of health dangers. On the other hand, in some areas during the dry season the tanks are empty empty suggesting that the water trickles trickles down to the ground which could be dangerous depending on the geology of the area. LACK OF SEWAGE NETWORK IN THE CITY : In spite of the fact, the Bahir dar city population is over 200 000, the city has no sewage network. This in turn has caused a major sanitation problem to the city. Some hotels and industries are simply discharging the waste water to the lake and the river through the open drainage canals. TOPOGRAPHY : Bahir dar is known for its flat terrain. This is regarded as a complication to its planned sewage network system since the waste water needs to be pumped to get to the target place as opposed to flow by gravity. AWARENESS PROBLEM : One of the prominent problems is lack of awareness. Most of the locals in the studied area aren’t educated or doesn’t have enough knowledge about how to maintain a clean and safe environment with regard to toilets and sanitation. This is particularly the case with low income people, old people and children. This gap of information has created a big hole in the issue of sanitation which has to be addressed accordingly by teaching teaching the locals.
PUBLIC PARTICIPATION Public participation is a key component of community development. In the studied areas, we have witnessed that there has been to a certain degree public participation. In few areas the public raised money to dig the septic tanks and sometimes by physically doing the job they took part in the construction of the toilets. There was also a case where the users had set up a schedule to clean the toilets. Some of these endeavors had been successful successful ever so little.
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August 2009 2009 | Abel Terefe Terefe Kestävä Tulevaisus ry, August
CONCLUSION Institutions, NGOs, civil societies and governmental organs must work to raise awareness in the area of sanitation. Very little could be achieved with out the awareness of the local users and only then could sustainable sanitation be achieved. On the other hand, actions must be taken on illegal settlers and local authorities need to make sure that access roads are always open and unoccupied. Meanwhile, when allocating space for building new toilets, one must take into account the interest of the local people. Constructions made without proper surveying of public opinion will end up being hated by the locals and wouldn’t wouldn’t be useful. To cause the users to keep the existing toilets clean by taking stricter actions could be another alternative. In addition, making making a committee that looks after the state of the toilets is also a good way of control. The committee may work in making making sure that the toilets are clean and and safe, the surrounding is safe to children and the rules are followed. People found going against the rules may get fines. Shifting to sustainable waste management techniques such as production of energy from human manure is useful in many ways. The toilet sewage if managed properly could be used to produce gas through a simple biogas plant and as a fertilizer afterwards. This must be taken seriously. Apart from the safe disposal of the waste, the system could generate income to people in the areas thereby reduce unemployment. Outsourcing public toilets to private private plcs and providing education on entrepreneurship entrepreneurship and sanitation may help small size local companies work efficiently and responsibly. This would cause them to play a positive role in the effort to bring about change to the sanitation condition of the city of Bahir dar and beyond.
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