Women’s Eco-sanitation Complex (WATSAN)

 Bless is to plan pleased to announce the recent completion of the ‘Women’s Eco-sanitation Complex’ at Mohan Singh Street.  This construction will cater for the women and children of 80 local families and generates numerous health, hygiene and convenience advantages. 

 The women’s eco-san block comprises four eco-san toilets (each toilet is 2.75m sq), separate wash basins for women and children, one communal bathing area and one clothes washing area.  Incinerators are attached to two of the toilets to destroy women’s sanitary products.  All materials used to build the block are environmentally friendly; solar energy is used to dry the waste materials and the block has good ventilation. 

 The eco-san system is simple and effective.  Human excrement falls into a chamber where it decomposes using solar energy; ash is dropped into the toilet to dry moisture and to aid decomposition.  Once the chamber is full the second chamber is used; the chambers have a capacity to hold one year’s waste material.  By containing the human excrement rather than flushing it into the water-cycle, we prevent pollution rather than attempt to control it after we pollute.  After the waste matter has decomposed it is used as compost on the fields.  Urine and water, which has been used for washing, are dispersed separately through a pipeline to a soak pit where they are filtered; they are then used on the fields as nutrition for plants.  

 Previously, women and children in this area practiced open air defecation near the railway line.  This practice posed endless hazards and hygiene threats.  The eco-san complex offers a wide range of advantages, these include: 

• The groundwater is not polluted
• Human excrement is used for compost purposes
• Water usage is minimal; in one year by using an eco-san toilet one person saves 7000 litres of water in comparison with a flush toilet
• It is economical; there are no maintenance costs
• Minimal space is required
• The toilets are odor free
• There is no need for staff or ‘scavengers’ for the upkeep of the toilets
• Hygiene and health is improved with reduced rates of diarrhea, cholera, jaundice and polio, which are spread through open defecation
• It provides privacy
• The complex is in a safe, easily accessible location, and saves valuable time spent walking to the open defection site
• The complex is eco friendly as all waste is used as nutrition for plants; one person’s urine and excrement is sufficient to use for the nutrition of one person’s food production

 A local resident described the difficulties she experienced before the construction of the new complex,

“The open defecation area is far, it takes a long time to walk there.  During high tide and the monsoon season we have to walk through water to reach there.  There is no light and so at night the children are scared of snakes.  There is also no privacy; the men’s area is not far.  I am sure everyone will use the new toilets; nobody uses the old leech pit toilets because the water never goes down. “ 

 Following the completion of the complex, Bless staff conducted four training sessions for local women and children who are to use the block.  The first session was a general orientation about water and sanitation, the second was more specifically about water resources, water scarcity and water handling.  The third and fourth sessions focused upon sanitation issues, how to use the eco-san block and maintenance; they included demonstrations.

 For the initial period Bless has provided one person to maintain the block, after which the local community will take over this responsibility.