The challenge to implement affordable and sustainable sanitation in the new EU countries Romania and Bulgaria
WECF present at Sanitation Challenge in Wageningen, 19-21 May
23.05.2008 |Chantal van den Bossche
In rural parts of Bulgaria and Romania there is a lack of adequate and affordable sanitation. As both countries are new EU member states since 2007, European financial resources are made available to improve the water and sanitary conditions. In rural areas big parts of the population are however disconnected from this financial support and suffer continuously from the poor hygienic situation. Since 2002, WECF has built sanitation projects for demonstration to improve the hygienic situation on household and small community level jointly with local partner. Low-cost toilet systems were installed, that produce a nitrogen rich fertiliser, which is separately collected urine and a soil conditioner, which is treated faeces. The results show that these systems can improve the situation in terms of hygienic situation and public health, protection of groundwater and supporting agriculture. The source oriented sanitation systems are affordable and can be installed on site and immediately.
