So far, sanitation policies and programmes seldom include full cycle services. This oversight contributes to the continued practice of unsafe emptying and end-disposal either by the households themselves or by the formal and informal services sector.
Published on: 18/06/2012
The worst job in the world: IRC cooperated with Safai Karmachari Andolan, to show a video of this title at the 2009 Stockholm Water Week. SKA is an Indian movement started by a member from a scavenger family to eradicate the practice of manual pit emptying also known as scavenging. Without any protective clothing such as boots, masks or gloves, manual scavengers clean toilets and clogged sewer lines. They collect the faecal matter into baskets lined with leaves, an activity which makes many sick. About 80 per cent of these workers are women, the majority of them are Dalits (casteless persons or untouchables). They are paid a paltry 900 rupees (15 Euro) a month and can afford only cheap drugs to treat their illnesses”.
These guys are extremely liquid, this film by Africa Interactive and WASTE follows a couple of pit latrines emptiers in Nairobi, Kenya on their job. They tell about their work and how important they are in keeping the city healthy. They mention the problems they run into when working and when they are looking for financing to improve their business. This short video has won the second place in the USAID Environmental Health Sanitation Video Contest 2010.
Emptying may be more hygienical by mechanical means, and also as a recognized service with manual equipment to make the work safer, more hygienic and better respected.
From the turn of the last century onwards, IRC took part in policy formulation, field testing and documentation of the Manual Pit Emptying Technology (MAPET). One testing site, with KWAHO, was Kibera, a Nairobi inner city slum with ca. one million people. The MAPET consists of a small suction pump and a reservoir mounted together on a small pushcart or engine-driven cart. A modified form is now used in Dhaka, but its service is not yet self-sustainable. A more recent service development is the lower-cost gulper pump. Other IRC sanitation case studies are on Baldia in Karachi, Pakistan; Bengaluru, India and India wide; the Gitari Marigu slum in Nairobi, Kenya, and Yemen.
A peri-urban sanitation programme in Durban, South Africa provided ventilated improved pit toilets for half a million people. The municipal programme includes a scheduled improved manual emptying service which provides paid jobs to poor women and men. The service was established after a comparative study of traditional and improved urban pit emptying services in Kenya and South Africa.
