Dear Amelia,

I am finding your Ocean Sewage Alliance quite interesting (www.oceansewagealliance.org/). It's always not so easy to bring people from different sectors together. You could frame this as looking at SDG 6 and SDG 14 (life below water) in conjunction. 

I was wondering if you have thought about using Wikipedia to help disseminate information? If so, I could help you with that. I am involved in a project that is improving the content of 150 Wikipedia articles which relate to SDG 6, SDG 14 and SDG 13.
Our project is described here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/S..._of_environment_SDGs

Would you be interested to collaborate?
This could for example involve adding WASH related content to the article on marine pollution: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_pollution

Or adding ocean related content to the article on sewage treatment: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewage_treatment



Therefore, if you want to educate the general public, journalists, decision makers on this issue, improving relevant Wikipedia articles would be a low hanging fruit.

Regards,
Elisabeth 

Hi all,
I wanted to send a final reminder to please fill out our needs assessment survey on ocean-friendly sanitation! We have received responses from 66 people but only 14 who have identified themselves as sanitation practitioners. We would love to hear from a few more sanitation practitioners on current barriers to collaboration between the marine conservation and sanitation sectors and to hear your ideas on the resources that could help you implement ocean-friendly sanitation interventions and reduce wastewater pollution entering marine environments.

Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or are interested to hear more about our working group (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

Regards,
Amelia

ABOUT THE PROJECT:
There are many public and ecosystem health benefits that can come from collaboration between the marine conservation and sanitation sectors: tropical coastal and marine ecosystems need clean water and communities need safely managed sanitation and healthy coastal ecosystems. 

We want to hear from you! We'd like to hear about your work in sanitation and if you currently engage with marine conservation practitioners. We'd like to know your thoughts on current barriers to collaboration between the marine conservation and sanitation sectors and to hear your ideas on the resources you need to help you implement ocean-friendly sanitation interventions and reduce wastewater pollution entering marine environments.

This survey will take you 5-10 minutes to complete.  www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZZ5ZXK7

We are a working group of scientists, practitioners, technical experts, and development partners in the fields of sanitation, engineering, water quality, and marine conservation ( snappartnership.net/teams/improving-coastal-health/ ). Our work is part of a broader coalition to improve collaboration across the water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) and conservation sectors to better achieve public and ecosystem health outcomes. Please visit The Ocean Sewage Alliance website for more information.

We will use the results of the survey to guide the development of  resources on designing and implementing sanitation interventions that can meet public and ocean health goals.

Dear Chaiwe,

 Thank you for sending these links, both are very interesting! We have now received responses from 66 people but only 14 sanitation practitioners, so I am hoping to get a few more responses from the sanitation sector before we analyze the results.  I will be putting together a summary report of the findings and will distribute them here before the end of the year.

Cheers,

Amelia

Dear Amelia,

Great initiative by the Ocean Alliance towards mitigating the impact of untreated sewage and other wastewater pollution in our oceans, at the same time increasing the well-being of health and life for humans.

Several pollution surveys have been carried out in the coastal marine environment of Dar es Salaam (as a case example) with the objective to determine the levels of contamination, heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants in comparison with the recommended environmental quality targets for the West Indian Ocean. Levels of microbial pollution in urban coastal waters off Dar es Salaam were excessive, indicating that water within the port channel was not safe for contact recreation. A couple of links to these studies and articles below;

1. www.pureearth.org/project/environmental-management-trust/ 
2. www.ajol.info/index.php/wiojms/article/view/73958 

In the context of Dar es Salaam, It is cheaper to dump this untreated/semi-treated waste into the ocean, particularly if it is chemically contaminated as treatment options are nonexistent. The UN policy is that properly treated sludge from cities does not contain enough contaminants to be a significant cause of an increase in chemical nutrients in the ecosystem, however in most cases within developing countries (including Zambia where I am from), industrial waste is commingled with sewer waste at the treatment facilities.

It would be great to know whether there is a time frame attached to the survey? Looking forward to hear from you about the results of the survey soon.

Regards,
Chaiwe

Hi all,

I wanted to send a quick reminder to please fill out our needs assessment survey on ocean-friendly sanitation!

Regards,

Amelia

ABOUT THE PROJECT:

There are many public and ecosystem health benefits that can come from collaboration between the marine conservation and sanitation sectors: tropical coastal and marine ecosystems need clean water and communities need safely managed sanitation and healthy coastal ecosystems. 

We want to hear from you! We'd like to hear about your work in sanitation and if you currently engage with marine conservation practitioners. We'd like to know your thoughts on current barriers to collaboration between the marine conservation and sanitation sectors and to hear your ideas on the resources you need to help you implement ocean-friendly sanitation interventions and reduce wastewater pollution entering marine environments.

This survey will take you 5-10 minutes to complete.


www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZZ5ZXK7

We are a working group of scientists, practitioners, technical experts, and development partners in the fields of sanitation, engineering, water quality, and marine conservation ( snappartnership.net/teams/improving-coastal-health/ ). Our work is part of a broader coalition to improve collaboration across the water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) and conservation sectors to better achieve public and ecosystem health outcomes. Please visit The Ocean Sewage Alliance website for more information.

We will use the results of the survey to guide the development of  resources on designing and implementing sanitation interventions that
can meet public and ecosystem health goals.

Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or are interested to hear more about our working group (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

Dear Researcher. 

It is indeed a well needed topic to deal on at these present times.

Being a Mariner, who has served nearly 50+ years on board ships, can say that while most Seafarers are particularly careful but many are careless. 
Even though there are full proof fail safe systems in place, failures occur due varied reasons.

We need an attitudinal change in the personnel and all to follow practices already laid down.

If these rules are followed, principles are applied well, and apt practices are applied, all will be well.

IMO under its auspices have allocated MARPOL rules to follow and In convention given one full Annexe 4 as for waste water and Annexe 5 for solid wastes Etc..

These are to be made aware to ALL and participation sought for desired benefits.

Well wishes to our communities. 

Prof Ajit Seshadri. 

Hi all,

There are many public and ecosystem health benefits that can come from collaboration between the marine conservation and sanitation sectors: tropical coastal and marine ecosystems need clean water and communities need safely managed sanitation and healthy coastal ecosystems. 

We want to hear from you! We'd like to hear about your work in sanitation and if you currently engage with marine conservation practitioners. We'd like to know your thoughts on current barriers to collaboration between the marine conservation and sanitation sectors and to hear your ideas on the resources you need to help you implement ocean-friendly sanitation interventions and reduce wastewater pollution entering marine environments.

This survey will take you 5-10 minutes to complete.


www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZZ5ZXK7

We are a working group of scientists, practitioners, technical experts, and development partners in the fields of sanitation, engineering, water quality, and marine conservation ( snappartnership.net/teams/improving-coastal-health/ ). Our work is part of a broader coalition to improve collaboration across the water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) and conservation sectors to better achieve public and ecosystem health outcomes. Please visit The Ocean Sewage Alliance website for more information.

We will use the results of the survey to guide the development of  resources on designing and implementing sanitation interventions that
can meet public and ecosystem health goals.

Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or are interested to hear more about our working group (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

Regards,

Amelia