The American National Standards Institute (ANSI), with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will hold a final of a series of workshops to develop an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) International Workshop Agreement (IWA) on Community-Scale Resource-Oriented Sanitation Systems, January 16-18, 2018, in Dakar, Senegal. The IWA will serve as a crucial step in developing an international standard for non-sewered sanitation systems.

According to The World Health Organization, an estimated two billion people use latrines that aren’t properly drained. Communal toilets in urban areas pose a problem, as more than 2 billion people use toilets that are connected to septic tanks that are not properly emptied. People regularly use other toilet systems that discharge raw sewage into open drains or surface waters. Statistics indicate that one billion people have no options but to defecate in open locations.

Without access to proper sewage treatment, toxins from human waste make their way into the soil and water systems, contaminating food and water, and endangering human life. Untreated waste sludge that is unsafely disposed of also leads to environmental pollution as it impacts both domestic and industrial systems. Poor sanitation management poses a grave threat to the health and safety of large populations. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates a resulting one million preventable deaths per year, mostly from dysentery-like diseases. Universal toilet access is necessary to support poor communities, and to stop the disease and crime associated with poor sanitation.

To that end, part of the solution to this global challenge is to reinvent sewage treatment through the deployment of community-scale resource-oriented sanitation treatments in order to safely process human waste and recover valuable resources such as water, energy, and/or nutrients through economically sustainable technologies in an off-grid and non-sewered environment.

The IWA will serve as a starting point in developing a standard that would enhance efforts to widely manufacture, market, and deploy the technology where it is needed most. Expert IWA participants are welcome and do not have to be members of ISO or their respective standardization body. The IWA has an expected publication date of March 2018.

As the U.S. member body to ISO, ANSI serves as the Secretariat of record for this activity, and together with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, provides logistical support.

View the agenda and register for the third ISO International Workshop on Community-Scale Resource-Oriented Sanitation Treatment Systems at www.ansi.org/WasteTreatment

Please email Sally Seitz (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) with any questions or comments on the IWA.

Source: World Health Organization (WHO), Sanitation Factsheet, www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs392/en/