JKMakowka wrote:


I'm sorry, I was blogging about the concept rather than the specifics. In brief they are that the SA government has a responsibility to ensure that everyone has basic sanitation. In Durban/eThekwini, over 80% of residents have flush toilets. Of the rest, there has been a massive programme of building VIP-style latrines, which are emptied periodically by the municipality. This particular group has been offered UDDT which are basically buckets for reasons of cost. More details here

That they could build their own flush toilets is irrelevant. The government has decided that it cannot afford to offer them more than bucket toilets.




Which ignores the objective fact that bucket toilets are totally inadequate. And also does not engage with my point - in that human psychology means that people are inclined to reject things when they feel they are being short-changed. In this case they are right, they are being short-changed.




A smart solution would be to offer people a sanitation offering which is adequate. Clearly by any measure a bucket toilet is not as good as a VIP toilet which is not as good as a flush toilet.

I don't know anything about that.



Based on what, exactly, do you make that statement? Dry toilets do not kill pathogens sufficiently to be safe. So no, they are definitely inferior and are unsafe. I accept there are different types of flush toilet and that there are problems where they flush into septic tanks. But a drain-and-sewer flush toilet is absolutely and undoubtedly safer than any kind of dry urine diversion toilet or VIP system.

It is not about the design and engineering, it is about the science. Small scale cold composting does not kill the pathogens. Therefore it doesn't work. Therefore it is not safe.

I agree that if the SA's government has a law that they have to offer basic sanitation, and that if they build VIPs in the past in the same area (I assume the flush toilets where self financed?) the solution for the remaining inhabitants should be equally convenient (to avoid wasting money on something that isn't used). However if there isn't any money for that, what exactly is the respective agency supposed to do?

But as mentioned above, a properly designed and operated dry toilet, with a feces collection system and professionally run composting sites is vastly superior in any sense to a VIP toilet that is emptied from time to time (and the sludge dumped somewhere).
And a case could be made that it is also better than the typical "leaky sewer, no properly running waste-water treatment plant and discharge into a water body that is used for drinking water abstraction, fishing, irrigation etc." classical solutions, besides being much more cost efficient and less prone to technical breakdown.

JKMakowka wrote:


I'm not offering solutions as much as illustrating that it is a rational belief to reject CLTS and poor sanitation offerings, even if they can be said to be better than no sanitation.



Totally agree on this point. Mesoscale composting is the only ecosan composting toilet system that works. All other types of composting toilet are bunk.

Of course, there are very high health risks associated with the collection and operation of a co-composting site, especially for the workers.



I think we agree more than we disagree. Properly run mesoscale composting and vermiculture systems are the answer. VIP latrines and pit latrines are not. But even that is a minority view, as far as I can tell.

I am no fan of flush toilet systems, mesoscale composting sites work well. But it is definitely true to say that a person who has a bucket or a VIP latrine is aspiring to something better by looking for a flush system. The challenge is therefore to persuade him that a composting system is as good as a flush system, rather than to try to persuade him to use poor quality bucket or VIP systems.

With regard to CLTS, I cannot see anyone having enough knowledge of mesoscale co-composting to safely construct their own system, can you?

joeturner wrote:


Yes, good idea to get back on topic

In my opinion CLTS alone only really works (and was originally intended and tested) in remote rural areas. This is both because of social factors (which partly plays into the problems that were discussed previously in this topic) and because in low population density areas low-tech solutions like the Arborloo that don't require emptying are usually acceptable from a public health point of view. Besides that, you will rarely find an rural area with a high percentage of flush toilet systems, the remaining users could aspire too
However, some components of CLTS can be used in an (peri-)urban setting for demand creation of a service model that incorporates meso-scale composting for example.