World Water Day Focus on Global Sewage Flood
Nairobi, Kenya - Two billion tons of human and animal waste and
industrial pollution are dumped into waterways every day around the
world, according to reports released today in Nairobi, Kenya, for
the 17th annual
Water Day-a day the United Nations (UN) dedicates to raising
awareness of the water quantity and quality challenges facing the
planet.
“Wastewater-you’re literally swimming in it,” said David Osborn,
the primary study author of the UN
Environment Program’s (UNEP) report, Sick Water.
Osborn and his UNEP colleagues single out sewage and animal waste
as the biggest source of global water pollution, flushing pathogens
and an overdose of nutrients and sediments into rivers and lakes,
and out to sea.
There are few places where this is more
clear than in
target=”_blank”>Nairobi’s slums. On a rainy day in Kibera-one
of the world’s largest unofficial settlements, or shantytowns-you
are ankle deep in a soupy, earthy smelling mess of red mud, human
waste, and plastic shreds.
Kibera is a sea of corrugated tin over a maze of earthen walls and
dark narrow paths along the eastern bank of the Ngong River, a
tributary of the Nairobi River. It is home to anywhere between
500,000 and 1 million people-likely more than a fourth of Nairobi’s
population-and is crammed into just 620 acres (250 hectares) on the
outskirts of the city.
Residents of Kibera, many day laborers who have moved from rural
areas to find work in the city, lack toilets and a direct
connection to drinking water.
As you squish your way through the Kibera village known as Soweto
East, you see children dropping their trousers next to makeshift
sewage canals that lead to the Ngong, as well as a few very
primitive, and sometimes overflowing, outhouses.
Flying Toilets
Another common practice in Kibera is known
as the flying toilet-doing your business in a plastic bag and
throwing it on the ground.
But the 70,000 or so residents of Soweto East
have something else-cement, ceramic, and clean toilets and showers.
Or at least they have a handful of them to share.Starting in
2003, UN
Habitat has worked with the Soweto East community to build
seven “water kiosks,” where residents, who on average make less
than U.S. $1 a day, pay about $0.05 to use the bathroom and shower,
or $0.07 for 5 gallons (20 liters) of drinking water.
Nicholas Odero, who is a member of one of
the sanitation facility management committees in Kibera, says there
are about 500 people a day that use the new structure near his
home, adding that it benefits many children in the village.
Children are often the most vulnerable to waterborne diseases
associated with sewage contamination. According to UN statistics, a
child dies from waterborne diseases, primarily diarrhea, every 20
seconds.
target=”_blank”>That means nearly 1.5 million children under the
age of five die each year because of water pollution and a lack of
sanitation infrastructure.
In Soweto East, each kiosk has four to six toilets and a couple of
showers. According to Daniel Adom, chief technical adviser of UN
Habitat’s Water for African Cities Program, each facility receives
about 2,000 visitors a day, and generates about $600 a month. The
money is used for kiosk operations, maintenance, and security,
utility bills, and housing cooperatives.
Adom says that while it’s slowgoing, the project is a success based
on the number of toilet visitors, and the fact that kiosks provide
21,000 gallons (80,000 liters) a year of drinking water-which was
once illegally siphoned from public pipes.
One more kiosk is slated for construction before the UN hands over
the project, in May 2010, to the Kenyan government, according to
Adom.
Globally, 2 million tons of sewage and
industrial and agricultural waste are poured into the world’s
waters every day;
At least 1.8 million children under five
years-old die every year from water-related diseases, or one every
20 seconds;
Every day, millions of tons of inadequately
treated sewage and industrial agricultural wastes are poured into
the world’s waters;
More people die as a result of polluted water
than are killed by all forms of violence, including wars;
Over half of the world’s hospital beds are
occupied with people suffering from illnesses linked with
contaminated water.
While Kibera is an extreme example, lack of
wastewater treatment is a global issue. Nearly 80 percent of sewage
around the globe is flushed, untreated, directly into lakes,
rivers, and oceans, according to the second report released
today-Clearing the Waters, a joint effort by UNEP and the
California-based target=”_blank”>Pacific Institute, which specializes in global
water issues.
To add to the mix, the world’s urban slum population is estimated
at 1.8 billion and is on the rise.
Beyond better water quality regulation and enforcement, emphasis
needs to be placed on education and prevention, said Pacific
Institute President Peter Gleick.
The kiosks in Soweto East are a starting point, Gleick said. They
brought in a new road, now lined with prime commercial real estate
for food stalls, beauty shops, and other income-generating
clapboard and trailer-based businesses. And most importantly, the
road can be used for transporting clean water and sanitation
supplies even deeper into the slum.
Gleick says he now thinks it is time for the local government to
step up-and that access to water is a human right and it is the
government’s responsibility to provide it.
Not in My Backyard
Untreated wastewater might be considered an issue for the
developing world, but the developed world, including the U.S., is
not immune, said Nancy Ross, communications director for the
Pacific Institute.
While modern treatment facilities are generally able to remove
pathogens from human waste, there is a whole new suite of chemicals
to consider. Traces of antidepressants, birth control, illegal
drugs, sunscreen, and insect repellent are just some of the
compounds often impervious to treatment.
target=”_blank”>They have all been found in U.S. drinking
supplies.
Kibera used to be Maasai grazing land, teeming with wildlife,
according to the UN. And now it is a textbook example of how the
world’s poor are often left without basic health services. It is
also a key example of how the rivers, streams, wetlands, and
coastal areas of poor regions are often left as a depository for
human waste and other pollutants associated with cramped city
living.
“If you know what’s going on [in the developing world], you can’t
in good faith not be on board [to find a solution],” Ross said.
Source: wastemanagement.einnews.com
