Sustainable sanitation

In order to be sustainable a sanitation system has to be not only economically viable, socially acceptable, and technically and institutionally appropriate, but it should also protect the environment and the natural resources.

Furthermore, it evaluates the robustness of the system, its vulnerability towards disasters, and the flexibility and adaptability of its technical elements to the existing infrastructure, to demographic and socio-economic developments and climate change.

Financial and economic issues relate to the capacity of households and communities to pay for sanitation, including the construction, maintenance and depreciation of the system.

Since there is no one-for-all sanitation solution which fulfils the sustainability criteria, evaluation will depend on the local framework and will have to take into consideration the existing environmental, technical, socio-cultural and economic conditions.

[9] Five recommendations were made in 2020 for the optimization of resource recovery: (i) prioritize short systems that close the loop at the lowest possible level; (ii) separate waste streams as much as possible, because this allows for higher recovery potentials; (iii) use storage and treatment technologies that contain the products as much as possible, avoid leaching technologies (e.g. single pits) and technologies with high risk of volatilization (e.g. drying beds); (iv) design sinks to optimize recovery and avoid disposal sinks; and (v) combine various reuse options for different side streams (e.g. urine diversion systems that combine reuse of urine and production of biofuel from feces).

[9] Some examples for improving present sanitation practices in the short-term, purely from a technology perspective, are listed below: With respect to the other sustainability factors, key areas of attention include: