A bucket toilet is a basic form of a dry toilet whereby a bucket (pail) is used to collect excreta. Usually, feces and urine are collected together in the same bucket, leading to odor issues. The bucket may be situated inside a dwelling, or in a nearby small structure (an outhouse).
Where people do not have access to improved sanitation – particularly in low-income urban areas of developing countries – an unimproved bucket toilet might be better than open defecation. [1] They can play a temporary role in emergency sanitation, e.g. after earthquakes. [2] However, the unimproved bucket toilet may carry significant health risks compared to an improved sanitation system. [3] The bucket toilet system, with collection organised by the municipality, used to be widespread in wealthy countries; in Australia it persisted into the second half of the 20th century.
Once the basic bucket toilet has been "improved", it evolves into a number of different systems, which are more correctly referred to as either container-based sanitation systems, composting toilets, or urine-diverting dry toilets.
Bucket toilets are used in households [1] and even in health care facilities [4] in some low- and middle- income countries where people do not have access to improved sanitation.
In those settings, bucket toilets are more likely to be used without a liner, or the liner is not removed each time the bucket is emptied. This is because the users cannot afford to regularly discard suitably sized, sturdy liners. Instead, the users may place some dry material in the base of the bucket (newspaper, sawdust, leaves, straw, or similar) in order to facilitate easier emptying.
Bucket toilets have been historically common in cold climates where installing running water can be difficult and expensive and subject to freezing-related pipe breakage, for example in Alaska and rural areas of Canada and Russia. [5]
In natural disasters and other emergencies, the portability of bucket latrines can make them a useful part of an appropriate emergency response, especially where pit latrines cannot be isolated from floodwater or groundwater (potentially leading to groundwater pollution) and where the contents can be safely disposed into sanitary systems, [6] taking measures to avoid contact with the contents. [7] Different organizations give advice on how to build bucket toilets in case of emergency. The Twin Bucket Emergency Toilet system (a two bucket system), for example, has been developed in Christchurch, New Zealand following their infrastructure destroying earthquake in 2011. The system has been endorsed by the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management. [8] It is promoted by the volunteer advocacy group PHLUSH (Public Hygiene Lets Us Stay Human) for reasons of safety, affordability, and matching ecological sanitation principles. [9]
The bucket is emptied when it becomes full or emits excessive foul odor; usually once a day for large families, and about once a week for smaller families[ citation needed ]. Some sources say that it averages once per week per person per five-gallon bucket. The quantity of excreta varies widely depending on the amount of fiber in the local diet. If the bucket has a liner, then emptying is more hygienic in areas with poor water access for cleaning the collection chamber (bucket) than without a liner, as the bag could be sealed with a knot and the bucket would remain fairly clean.
To minimize offensive odors and prevent the spread of disease, the material in the bucket can be covered with some covering material after each use, such as quick lime, wood ash, finely crushed charcoal or fine sawdust (similarly to the operation of a urine-diverting dry toilet).
When the bucket is full, it can be covered with a lid and stored away until the collected waste can either be disposed of (e.g., by burial) or treated for safe reuse, e.g., via composting the material. Some municipalities, accept double/triple bagged waste in the trash can, much like the disposing of cat litter.[ citation needed ]
An unimproved, open bucket in which excreta are not covered by carbon matter does not offer much protection to the user from the pathogens in the feces, which can lead to significant health risks. Flies can access the contents unless it is kept securely covered (e.g., by a toilet lid and/or adequate carbon matter). There is also the risk that the bucket can tip over and spill its contents; an improved system encloses the bucket inside something which is securely bolted to the floor. Unhygienic emptying and disposal practices add further opportunities for pathogens to be spread, [3] for example, if the bucket is not cleaned after each use or if a liner is not used.
For these reasons, unimproved bucket toilets were not considered as improved sanitation systems according to WHO and UNICEF for monitoring access to basic sanitation as part of Goal 7 of the Millennium Development Goals. [10] At the time of these goals, IAPMO had not yet published new standards for acceptable improved bucket toilet procedure.
For application in emergencies (e.g. after earthquakes), it is possible to use two buckets (also known as "twin bucket toilet"): one for urine, the other one for feces and soiled toilet paper. The Wellington Region Emergency Management Office recommends strong 15–20 litres (3.3–4.4 imp gal; 4.0–5.3 US gal) buckets or pails and the use of dry mulch material that can consist of sawdust, dry leaves, soil, or shredded newspaper. [7] The bottom of the "urine bucket" should be covered with water and emptied every day. The content is then poured onto a disused green space after diluting the urine with water. The bottom of the "feces bucket" should be covered with dry mulch. After every use, a handful of dry mulch should be used to cover the feces in order to keep it as dry as possible. After the bucket is full, it should be emptied into a hole in the ground or into a separate large storage bin. [7] Since feces contain pathogens, they should be handled with caution. [11]
Unimproved bucket toilets can be upgraded to become improved bucket toilets, where some composting starts in the bucket itself but most of it takes place in an external composter.
An upgraded system may consist of a bucket under a wooden frame supporting a toilet seat and lid, possibly lined with a biodegradable bag, but many are simply a large bucket without a bag. Newspaper, cardboard, straw, sawdust, or other absorbent materials are often layered into the bucket toilet. Improved bucket toilets also have an associated composting chamber, with well-defined specifications for how to manage the manure as it composts.
Container-based sanitation systems have superficial similarities with bucket toilets but use a rigorous approach regarding safety of the user and of the staff who is handling the collected excreta. [12]
Although bucket toilet systems are now rare in developed countries, particularly where sewers are common, basic forms of sanitation were widely used until the mid 20th century. The pail closet was the term in Victorian England for a bucket (pail) in an outhouse. The municipality employed workers, often known as "nightmen" (from night soil, the euphemism for excreta), to empty and replace the buckets. This system was associated in particular with the English town of Rochdale, to the extent that it was described as the "Rochdale System" of sanitation. [13] [14] It persisted in England in some rural schools into the 1960s. [15]
Twentieth-century books report that similar systems were in operation in parts of France and elsewhere in continental Europe. [13] In Germany, bucket toilets were used by workers in some mines up to the 20th century.[ citation needed ]
The system of municipal collection was widespread in Australia; "dunny cans" persisted well into the second half of the twentieth century. [16] Because the population was so dispersed, it was difficult to install sewerage. [17] Tar, creosote, and disinfectant kept the smell down. [18] Academic George Seddon claimed that "the typical Australian back yard in the cities and country towns" had, throughout the first half of the twentieth century, "a dunny against the back fence, so that the pan could be collected from the dunny lane through a trap-door" [19]
Armies used to use "thunderboxes" or portable latrines.
Bucket latrines were used extensively in the Kumasi Metropolis of Ghana since colonial times. [20] They are still used in some households in the metropolis.[ citation needed ] Since the mid-1980s, the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly has actively discouraged bucket latrines and has stopped the emptying services that was provided by the assembly. [20]
In the region of Wajir, few residents have access to improved sanitation. Because of the high water table, pit latrines are impossible to use, and instead bucket toilets are common. By the time the waste collectors come, the bucket toilets are often already overflowing. These unhygienic circumstances can lead to frequent outbreaks of diarrhea. [21]
Due to high poverty, some inhabitants still use bucket toilets. [22]
Bucket toilets are common in many rural villages in the state of Alaska, such as those in the Bethel area of the Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta, and are found throughout the rural regions of the state. [23]
Bucket toilets are used especially where permafrost makes the installation of septic systems or outhouses impractical. Bucket toilets are promoted for cases of emergency, especially in regions with risk of earthquakes. [24]
They were also relatively common in the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut [25] of Canada, but by now they have mostly been replaced with indoor plumbing and sewage pump-out tanks. They are still found in summer cabins where the use of a sewage tank is impractical.
In South Africa, bucket toilets – frequently referred to as the "bucket system" – are still used in 2016 in some low-income communities as a relic of the Apartheid era. During that era, the poor, predominantly black townships generally did not get proper sanitation. [26] The term "bucket toilet" or "bucket system" is nowadays very much stigmatized in South Africa and politically charged. Protests against bucket toilets are still occurring. As of 2012 [update] , 5.3 percent of households in South Africa either had no toilets, or used bucket toilets. [26]
The South African government set up a bucket eradication programme in order to eradicate all pre-1994 sanitation buckets from the formal townships and replace them with sanitary sewers and other sanitation systems. [27] According to the Department of Water Affairs & Forestry, in 2005 the bucket sanitation backlog in formal townships was estimated at 252,254 bucket toilets. In 2009, the majority of the pre-1994 buckets were eradicated. [27] However, this change has not been completed throughout the country. In 2013 the use of bucket systems was still common in the Free State, Eastern Cape, Western Cape, and Northern Cape provinces. [28] [29]
A study in 2012 evaluated South Africa's bucket eradication programme and highlighted the following weaknesses: "One-size-fits-all" toilets were constructed that did not meet the special sanitation needs of vulnerable groups; health and hygiene education and user education had not been integrated; community participation barely took place; and operation and maintenance of water treatment works were neglected, as were water conservation and water demand management. [27]
The number of bucket toilets still in use in India is unknown but figures on "manual scavenging" can give some indication of the practice: Manual scavenging is a term used in Indian English for the removal of untreated human excreta from bucket toilets or pit latrines. The workers, called scavengers, rarely have any personal protective equipment. According to Socio Economic Caste Census 2011, 180,657 households are engaged in manual scavenging for a livelihood. [30] The 2011 Census of India found 794,000 cases of manual scavenging across India. [31]
Prior to the introduction of mains sewerage, most houses had a Pail closet which is a bucket toilet in a dedicated outbuilding. In larger towns and cities a bucket collection service was operated, while in rural areas a 'lat pit' or burial was common. Local Authority bucket collection services were discontinued in the post war years as sewers were extended to nearly all built up areas, and most rural locations installed either septic tanks or cesspits
In some regions, the term "honey bucket" is used (for example in Alaska), see also honeywagon (a vehicle which collects human excreta for disposal elsewhere). The term "bucket latrine" is also in use. In the UK Pail closet was also a common description.
Sanitation refers to public health conditions related to clean drinking water and treatment and disposal of human excreta and sewage. Preventing human contact with feces is part of sanitation, as is hand washing with soap. Sanitation systems aim to protect human health by providing a clean environment that will stop the transmission of disease, especially through the fecal–oral route. For example, diarrhea, a main cause of malnutrition and stunted growth in children, can be reduced through adequate sanitation. There are many other diseases which are easily transmitted in communities that have low levels of sanitation, such as ascariasis, cholera, hepatitis, polio, schistosomiasis, and trachoma, to name just a few.
A latrine is a toilet or an even simpler facility that is used as a toilet within a sanitation system. For example, it can be a communal trench in the earth in a camp to be used as emergency sanitation, a hole in the ground, or more advanced designs, including pour-flush systems.
A composting toilet is a type of dry toilet that treats human waste by a biological process called composting. This process leads to the decomposition of organic matter and turns human waste into compost-like material. Composting is carried out by microorganisms under controlled aerobic conditions. Most composting toilets use no water for flushing and are therefore called "dry toilets".
Night soil is a historically used euphemism for human excreta collected from cesspools, privies, pail closets, pit latrines, privy middens, septic tanks, etc. This material was removed from the immediate area, usually at night, by workers employed in this trade. Sometimes it could be transported out of towns and sold on as a fertilizer.
Human waste refers to the waste products of the human digestive system, menses, and human metabolism including urine and faeces. As part of a sanitation system that is in place, human waste is collected, transported, treated and disposed of or reused by one method or another, depending on the type of toilet being used, ability by the users to pay for services and other factors. Faecal sludge management is used to deal with fecal matter collected in on-site sanitation systems such as pit latrines and septic tanks.
A pit latrine, also known as pit toilet, is a type of toilet that collects human waste in a hole in the ground. Urine and feces enter the pit through a drop hole in the floor, which might be connected to a toilet seat or squatting pan for user comfort. Pit latrines can be built to function without water or they can have a water seal. When properly built and maintained, pit latrines can decrease the spread of disease by reducing the amount of human feces in the environment from open defecation. This decreases the transfer of pathogens between feces and food by flies. These pathogens are major causes of infectious diarrhea and intestinal worm infections. Infectious diarrhea resulted in about 700,000 deaths in children under five years old in 2011 and 250 million lost school days. Pit latrines are a low-cost method of separating feces from people.
Ecological sanitation, commonly abbreviated as ecosan, is an approach to sanitation provision which aims to safely reuse excreta in agriculture. It is an approach, rather than a technology or a device which is characterized by a desire to "close the loop", mainly for the nutrients and organic matter between sanitation and agriculture in a safe manner. One of the aims is to minimise the use of non-renewable resources. When properly designed and operated, ecosan systems provide a hygienically safe system to convert human excreta into nutrients to be returned to the soil, and water to be returned to the land. Ecosan is also called resource-oriented sanitation.
Manual scavenging is a term used mainly in India for "manually cleaning, carrying, disposing of, or otherwise handling, human excreta in an insanitary latrine or in an open drain or sewer or in a septic tank or a pit". Manual scavengers usually use hand tools such as buckets, brooms and shovels. The workers have to move the excreta, using brooms and tin plates, into baskets, which they carry to disposal locations sometimes several kilometers away. The practice of employing human labour for cleaning of sewers and septic tanks is also prevalent in Bangladesh and Pakistan. These sanitation workers, called "manual scavengers", rarely have any personal protective equipment. The work is regarded as a dehumanizing practice.
Sustainable sanitation is a sanitation system designed to meet certain criteria and to work well over the long-term. Sustainable sanitation systems consider the entire "sanitation value chain", from the experience of the user, excreta and wastewater collection methods, transportation or conveyance of waste, treatment, and reuse or disposal. The Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA) includes five features in its definition of "sustainable sanitation": Systems need to be economically and socially acceptable, technically and institutionally appropriate and protect the environment and natural resources.
Improved sanitation is a term used to categorize types of sanitation for monitoring purposes. It refers to the management of human feces at the household level. The term was coined by the Joint Monitoring Program (JMP) for Water Supply and Sanitation of UNICEF and WHO in 2002 to help monitor the progress towards Goal Number 7 of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The opposite of "improved sanitation" has been termed "unimproved sanitation" in the JMP definitions. The same terms are used to monitor progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 6 from 2015 onwards. Here, they are a component of the definition for "safely managed sanitation service".
A toilet is a piece of sanitary hardware that collects human urine and feces, and sometimes toilet paper, usually for disposal. Flush toilets use water, while dry or non-flush toilets do not. They can be designed for a sitting position popular in Europe and North America with a toilet seat, with additional considerations for those with disabilities, or for a squatting posture more popular in Asia, known as a squat toilet. In urban areas, flush toilets are usually connected to a sewer system; in isolated areas, to a septic tank. The waste is known as blackwater and the combined effluent, including other sources, is sewage. Dry toilets are connected to a pit, removable container, composting chamber, or other storage and treatment device, including urine diversion with a urine-diverting toilet.
A sanitation worker is a person responsible for cleaning, maintaining, operating, or emptying the equipment or technology at any step of the sanitation chain. This is the definition used in the narrower sense within the WASH sector. More broadly speaking, sanitation workers may also be involved in cleaning streets, parks, public spaces, sewers, stormwater drains, and public toilets. Another definition is: "The moment an individual’s waste is outsourced to another, it becomes sanitation work." Some organizations use the term specifically for municipal solid waste collectors, whereas others exclude the workers involved in management of solid waste sector from its definition.
An arborloo is a simple type of composting toilet in which feces are collected in a shallow pit and a fruit tree is later planted in the fertile soil of the full pit. Arborloos have: a pit like a pit latrine but less deep; a concrete, ferrocement or other strong floor; a superstructure to provide privacy; and possibly a ring beam to protect the pit from collapsing. The pit should remain well above the water table in the soil, so as to not contaminate groundwater.
Urine diversion, also called urine separation or source separation, refers to the separate collection of human urine and feces at the point of their production, i.e. at the toilet or urinal. Separation of urine from feces allows human waste to be treated separately and used as a potential resource. Applications are typically found where connection to a sewer-based sanitation system is not available or areas where water supplies are limited.
A dry toilet is a toilet which, unlike a flush toilet, does not use flush water. Dry toilets do not use water to move excreta along or block odors. They do not produce sewage, and are not connected to a sewer system or septic tank. Instead, excreta falls through a drop hole.
A urine-diverting dry toilet (UDDT) is a type of dry toilet with urine diversion that can be used to provide safe, affordable sanitation in a variety of contexts worldwide. The separate collection of feces and urine without any flush water has many advantages, such as odor-free operation and pathogen reduction by drying. While dried feces and urine harvested from UDDTs can be and routinely are used in agriculture, many UDDT installations do not apply any sort of recovery scheme. The UDDT is an example of a technology that can be used to achieve a sustainable sanitation system. This dry excreta management system is an alternative to pit latrines and flush toilets, especially where water is scarce, a connection to a sewer system and centralized wastewater treatment plant is not feasible or desired, fertilizer and soil conditioner are needed for agriculture, or groundwater pollution should be minimized.
Reuse of human excreta is the safe, beneficial use of treated human excreta after applying suitable treatment steps and risk management approaches that are customized for the intended reuse application. Beneficial uses of the treated excreta may focus on using the plant-available nutrients that are contained in the treated excreta. They may also make use of the organic matter and energy contained in the excreta. To a lesser extent, reuse of the excreta's water content might also take place, although this is better known as water reclamation from municipal wastewater. The intended reuse applications for the nutrient content may include: soil conditioner or fertilizer in agriculture or horticultural activities. Other reuse applications, which focus more on the organic matter content of the excreta, include use as a fuel source or as an energy source in the form of biogas.
Container-based sanitation refers to a sanitation system where toilets collect human excreta in sealable, removable containers that are transported to treatment facilities. This type of sanitation involves a commercial service which provides certain types of portable toilets, and delivers empty containers when picking up full ones. The service transports and safely disposes of or reuses collected excreta. The cost of collection of excreta is usually borne by the users. With suitable development, support and functioning partnerships, CBS can be used to provide low-income urban populations with safe collection, transport and treatment of excrement at a lower cost than installing and maintaining sewers. In most cases, CBS is based on the use of urine-diverting dry toilets.
Emergency sanitation is the management and technical processes required to provide sanitation in emergency situations. Emergency sanitation is required during humanitarian relief operations for refugees, people affected by natural disasters and internally displaced persons. There are three phases of emergency response: Immediate, short term and long term. In the immediate phase, the focus is on managing open defecation, and toilet technologies might include very basic latrines, pit latrines, bucket toilets, container-based toilets, chemical toilets. The short term phase might also involve technologies such as urine-diverting dry toilets, septic tanks, decentralized wastewater systems. Providing handwashing facilities and management of fecal sludge are also part of emergency sanitation.
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