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Concept
Ecological sanitation
Summary
Ecological sanitation, commonly abbreviated as ecosan (also spelled eco-san or 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.
The definition of ecosan has varied in the past. In 2012, a widely accepted definition of ecosan was formulated by Swedish experts: "Ecological sanitation systems are systems which allow for the safe recycling of nutrients to crop production in such a way that the use of non-renewable resources is minimized. These systems have a strong potential to be sustainable sanitation systems if technical, institutional, social and economic aspects are managed appropriately."
Prior to 2012, ecosan has often been associated with urine diversion and in particular with urine-diverting dry toilets (UDDTs), a type of dry toilet. For this reason, the term "ecosan toilet" is widely used when people mean a UDDT. However, the ecosan concept should not be limited to one particular type of toilet. Also, UDDTs can be used without having any reuse activities in which case they are not in line with the ecosan concept (an example being the 80,000 UDDTs implemented by eThekwini Municipality near Durban, South Africa).
The term "ecosan" was first used in 1995 and the first project started in 1996 in Ethiopia, by an NGO called Sudea. A trio, Dr Torsten Modig, Umeå University, Almaz Terrefe, teamleader, and Gunder Edström, hygiene expert, chose an area in a dense urban area as a starting point. They used urine diverting dry toilets (UDDTs) coupled with reuse activities.
Official source
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