Welcome to Ecosan Service Foundation

Ecological Sanitation

What is sanitation?

Sanitation refers to the principles and practices relating to the collection and management of refuse, human excreta and wastewater, as they impact upon communities, users, operators and the environment (Asmal, K et al., 1996). Sanitation includes the following components (Evans, B. 2004):

 safe collection, storage, treatment and disposal/re-use/ recycling of human excreta (faeces and urine) and sewage effluents
 drainage and disposal (re-use, recycling) of household grey water
 management/ re-use/ recycling of solid wastes
 treatment and disposal/ re-use/ recycling of drainage of stormwater
 collection and management of industrial waste products
 management of hazardous wastes, including hospital wastes, and chemical/radioactive and other dangerous substances.

References:
-Asmal, K. et al (1996): National Sanitation Policy (National Sanitation Task Team). Republic of South Africa.
-Evans, B. (2004): Whatever Happened to Sanitation?
- Practical steps to achieving a core Development Goal. Millennium Project: Task Force on Water and Sanitation in March 2004.

Definition of ecological sanitation

What is sanitation?

What are the problems related to conventional sanitation?

How is the use of ecological sanitation used in agriculture?

Scavenging is the demeaning practice of manual cleaning of human excreta from service/dry latrines.

Services Overview

Training Services Education on ecosan by ESF is to enable the people to develop, plan and implement eco-sanitation systems that are hygienically safe, socially acceptable, economically feasible, environmentally sound and technically appropriate.

Promotional Activities ESF partners different organizations in bringing sanitation to limelight, and thus giving true meaning to the word advocacy - “the process of managing information and knowledge strategically to change and/or influence policies and practices that affect the lives of people – particularly the disadvantaged”.

ProjectsThe concept behind ecological sanitation (ecosan) is that sanitation problems could be solved more sustainable and efficiently if the resources contained in excreta and wastewater were recovered and used rather than discharged into the water bodies and the surrounding environment.

Consulting ServicesThe Consulting unit has the mission of supporting individuals, industrial, commercial, residential, educational and governmental partners with the implementation of ecological sanitation systems to manage communal water in their premises.