Ecological Sanitation and Associated Hygenic Risks

An overview of existing policy making guidelines and research.

09.11.2007

Due to disease risks caused by faecal wastewater, in large European cities sewers were constructed to drain the wastewater away from the people’s surroundings to the nearby water courses, and ultimately into the sea (Cooper, 2001).

Later, it was found that discharging raw wastewater had deteriorated aquatic environment of the receiving water body and at the same time it caused diseases to the people who received their drinking water from the same river downstream.

Because of drinking water contamination, epidemics of cholera had perio-dically caused heavy loss of life in the large European cities (Evans, 1987). The outbreak of cholera in 1892 , for instance, took place all over in Hamburg where drinking water supply was extracted from the river Elbe (Kluge and Schramm, 1986).

To protect these rivers from the pollution as well as the public health from water borne diseases, the wastewater was since then treated at the end of the sewer before discharging it into the river.

This tradition has been widely established as a standard way of managing wastewater worldwide. However, most of the wastewater is discharged without any treatment mostly in developing countries.

The full report: Ecological Sanitation and Associated Hygenic Risks