Poor water treatment services silently harm many aspects of development
Toilets are often taken for granted, along with the sanitation services that support them, but many around the world are still waiting for safely managed sanitation, and they suffer from diseases that proper sanitation could prevent. Poor sanitation hinders development and peace, contributes to malnutrition, and increases the risk of sexual violence, especially for women and girls who must use inadequate facilities outside their homes at night.
While many think of sanitation crises as problems in the developing world, it might come as a surprise to know that a sanitation crisis also exists in the United States, the world’s largest economy. How can we reach U.N. Sustainable Development Goal #6, water and sanitation for all, which includes the goal of safe toilets for all by 2030?
World Sanitation by the Numbers
The good news is that 4.6 billion people, or 57% of the global population, have access to a safely managed sanitation service. Some 33%, 2.7 billion people, have private sanitation facilities connected to sewers that treat their wastewater. Some 21% use toilets or latrines where waste is disposed of safely on-site. And 88% use at least a basic sanitation service.
Yet 3.5 billion people go without safely managed sanitation, including 419 million who practice open defecation. New water, sanitation, and health (WASH) estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO) show that 1.4 million people die annually from poor drinking water and sanitation, most of them in low- and middle-income countries. Poor sanitation accounts for 564,000 deaths, mostly from preventable diarrheal disease in children under 5, but poor sanitation also contributes to other tropical diseases such as intestinal worms, schistosomiasis, and trachoma. It also worsens stunting and increases microbial resistance to antimicrobial agents.
Countries where open defecation is most widespread post the highest number of deaths of children under 5 and have the highest levels of malnutrition and poverty, as well as large wealth gaps. Poor sanitation in general degrades human well-being and slows social and economic development because of anxiety, the danger of sexual assault, and fewer opportunities for education and employment.
Decentralized Strategies for Sanitation
Various groups are investigating “non-sewered” technologies to treat wastewater at a decentralized scale while recovering resources such as energy, safe water, and nutrients. These non-sewered sanitation systems can also treat wastewater for safe, nonpotable reuse, but commercialization of the new technologies takes time.
In the United States, a 2017 study found that more than one in three residents of Lowndes County, Georgia, had hookworm, a parasitic infection that was thought to be eradicated. Hookworm larvae enter the body through contact with human waste, and the high infection rate amounts to a significant sanitation crisis in the world’s largest economy.
In the rural South, many areas are built on dense clay that does not make for efficient drainfields for septic systems, so many sewage pipes simply empty into backyards. Modular, decentralized treatment units, however, can extend safely managed sanitation services even to small or remote communities through the establishment of community water systems. A functioning sewer system makes communities more attractive to new residents and can spark development.
Financing Wastewater Treatment Can Help Small Communities
The world would need to double the current rate of progress to achieve universal basic sanitation coverage by 2030 and increase fivefold to deliver safely managed services in time. Sanitation is under threat from conflict, disasters, climate change, and simple neglect; moreover shifts in priorities and funding frameworks could impact the progress of sanitation projects, particularly in smaller communities, which may face delays or reduced support for critical infrastructure improvements.
New financing structures can help communities that fall through the cracks to achieve their WASH goals and make SDG6 a reality. Through financial arrangements such as build-own-operate, build-own-operate-transfer, and plant acquisition, often in a public-private partnership, a water company and its trusted lender can offer financing even to smaller communities with little access to capital.
Such deals are built for low- or middle-income areas and can slash or eliminate CAPEX for the customer, shifting risk to the water company. The benefits of such arrangements go beyond lower initial cost. Smaller communities may not have the organizational resources to reliably manage a treatment plant, so the agreements retain the company that provides the infrastructure to operate and maintain it. Generally, lower costs can be realized during the delivery and the long-term maintenance phases.
While the traditional design-bid-build method has long been the main mode for infrastructure delivery, issuing bonds, instituting new taxes, and making loans can be too complex and costly for many. Contact Seven Seas Water Group to learn how Water-as-a-Service® was developed to deliver safely managed sanitation services even for regions that face financial barriers.
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