Water Pakistan

MAKE THIS CONFERENCE COUNT:

GRASSROOTS ACTIVISTS URGE GOVERNMENTS TO MAKE GOOD ON THEIR COMMITMENTS

As the fourth South Asian Conference on Sanitation (SACOSAN IV, 4-7 April 2011) kicks off in Colombo, Sri Lanka, leading civil society groups present a unified call to their governments to take concrete steps to address the life threatening state of sanitation and hygiene affecting the nearly one billion most marginalised and voiceless people in the region.

Civil society representatives and community leaders will formally present a joint statement, reflecting the views of thousands of people living with the reality of unsafe sanitation, to leaders and experts calling for them to deliver on commitments made in Delhi in 2008. In addition, they call for:

• the inclusion of the right to sanitation and water in legislation
• the design and delivery of context-specific, equitable and inclusive sanitation and hygiene programmes with better identification of the poorest and most marginalised groups, and transparent targeting of financing
• the development of strong accountability mechanisms that include everyone from community level to national governments

In turn, civil society groups commit to leading with integrity, inspiring through example and transforming through meaningful partnership their collective vision of sanitation and hygiene for all into reality.

“Despite our collective efforts, since the last SACOSAN 750,000 children under-five have died of diarrhea caused by poor sanitation and water in South Asia,” the statement reads.

“We are striving to bring an end to these preventable deaths and this huge suffering so we call on our governments to take urgent action.”

“We have consulted widely with our communities so our statement reflects thousands of voices” explains Ramisetty Murali, Convenor of FAN South Asia (FANSA) co-organiser, with WaterAid and the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC), of a preparatory meeting, where over 100 civil society members and activists came together to explore key issues blocking progress on sanitation and to agree the statement.

“We have worked hard over the years to secure space in the official conference and, for the first time, community leaders have the opportunity to present the statement in their own plenary session, where key decision makers will also benefit from hearing the real life experience from those people working on the ground.”

“We would like to see our recommendations taken seriously and reflected in the final declaration as well as in national policies going forward” said Mustafa Talpur, WaterAid’s Regional Advocacy and Policy Advisor for South Asia

“If the leaders of South Asia are serious about tackling child mortality, and stopping millions of needless deaths, they must follow their consciences and deliver on the promises they have made.”

Early findings from a South Asian People’s Perspective on Sanitation study will be launched at the conference. Based on a series of interviews and discussions with a cross-section of poor and marginalised people in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, it highlights the real situation people are facing every day thanks to the shocking state of sanitation and offering solutions for the way forward.

The coalition also employed an innovative Traffic Light discussion paper, produced by WaterAid, to highlight the gap between government commitments on sanitation and action taken for each country.

At current rates of progress, the 2015 MDG target for sanitation will not be met in South Asia. `”As South Asia races to meet the MDGs, we will need to focus disproportionately on the marginalised and vulnerable in order to ensure that they are not left out “, emphasizes Archana Patkar, Programme Manager, WSSCC.   This failure comes at an enormous social and economic cost. In India alone inadequate sanitation costs the economy US $53.8 billion annually in lost productivity, healthcare provisions and other losses.

Notes to editors:
For all media enquiries, please contact Ceridwen Johnson (FAN) +94 776 120 203 or Archana Patkar (WSSCC) +91 982 123 3355

Grassroots Voices: Tuesday 5^th April 11.35 – 1.00pm
Reaching the Unserved: Tuesday 5^th April 2.15 – 3.40pm
Strengthening Monitoring and Accountability: 6^th April 9.15 – 10.40am

Copies of the Declaration of the Pre-SACOSAN IV Consultation Meeting of CSOs, Traffic Lights discussion paper and South Asian People’s Perspective on Sanitation executive summary are available online www.freshwateraction.net/sacosaniv. The full South Asian People’s Perspective on Sanitation report is due to be published next month.

Commitments between SACOSAN meetings are tracked at www.washwatch.org
For the latest news from SACOSAN, please visit: www.freshwateraction.net/sacosaniv

FAN South Asia (FANSA) is a regional network of small and medium sized civil society organisations. FANSA aims to strengthen the engagement of CSOs in policy-making and development initiatives to achieve the international targets on water and sanitation, improve regional cooperation between CSOs of differing perspectives, priorities and skills to increase the number of NGOs to advocate and communicate clearly on water policy issues and the broader agenda.  www.fasasia.net

WaterAid’s vision is of a world where everyone has access to safe water and sanitation.  The international organisation works in 26 countries across Africa, Asia and the Pacific region to transform lives by improving access to safe water, hygiene and sanitation in some of the world’s poorest communities.  Over the past 30 years, WaterAid has reached 14.38 million people with safe water and, since 2004, 9.4 million people with sanitation. www.wateraid.org

The Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC), is an international organization that works to improve access to sustainable sanitation, hygiene and water for all people.  It does so by enhancing collaboration among sector agencies and professionals who are working to provide sanitation to the 2.6 billion people without a clean, safe toilet, and the 884 million people without affordable, clean drinking water close at hand.  WSSCC is part of the UN system and contributes to development through knowledge management, advocacy, communications, and the implementation of a sanitation financing facility.  WSSCC supports coalitions in more than 30 countries, and has a broad membership base and a small Secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland.

Source .   http://www.freshwateraction.net/sacosaniv

Definition

Access to improved water source is the percentage of population with access to an improved drinking water source in a given year.

Access to improved sanitation is the percentage of population with access to improved sanitation in a given year.

Associated terms

Improved drinking water sources are defined in terms of the types of technology and levels of services that are more likely to provide safe water than unimproved technologies. Improved water sources include household connections, public standpipes, boreholes, protected dug wells, protected springs, and rainwater collections. Unimproved water sources are unprotected wells, unprotected springs, vendor-provided water, bottled water (unless water for other uses is available from an improved source) and tanker truck-provided water.

Reasonable access is broadly defined as the availability of at least 20 liters per person per day from a source within one kilometer of the user’s dwelling.

Sustainable access has two components with respect to water: one stands for environmental sustainability, the other for functional sustainability. The former insists on environmental protection through limiting extraction of water to a capacity below what is actually available. The latter reflects programme sustainability in terms of supply and management.

Improved sanitation facilities facilities are defined in terms of the types of technology and levels of services that are more likely to be sanitary than unimproved technologies. Improved sanitation includes connection to a public sewers, connection to septic systems, pour-flush latrines, simple pit latrines and ventilated improved pit latrines. Not considered as improved sanitation are service or bucket latrines (where excreta is manually removed), public latrines and open latrines.

source  http://www.who.int/whosis/indicators/compendium/2008/2wst/en/

COMPARISON OF AEROBIC AND ANAEROBIC WASTEWATER TREATMENT

By

Hira Waheed

(07-arid-1088)

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of

the requirements for the degree of

Master of Science

in

Environmental Sciences

Department of Environmental Sciences

Faculty of Forestry, Range Management and Wildlife

Pir Mehr Ali Shah

Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi,

Pakistan

2009

ABSTRACT

Water is a basic necessity and is required to run all industrial, domestic and agricultural activities. With an increase in its consumption rate, quantity of wastewater generated on daily basis has also increased. Wastewater handling and it’s conversion into useable form by an effective treatment has become a major challenge of recent era and it needs to be treated because it contains toxic and persistent chemicals and can be a threat to environment if remain untreated. Biological treatment is an environmental friendly technique with its low operational and capital cost. It includes aerobic and anaerobic processes both of which have low energy consumption and low sludge production, thus making biological treatment most suitable. This study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of hydraulic retention time (HRT) on activated sludge process (ASP) and up flow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) process. Experimental condition i.e. HRT was varied and the effluents were evaluated in terms of pH, color, chemical oxygen demand (COD), total dissolved solids (TDS), total suspended solids (TSS) and alkalinity. Reactors in continuous flow mode were operated to treat the wastewater. In the treatment varying concentration of HRT was used in different combinations i. e. 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 hours for aerobic process and 4, 8, 12 and 24 hours for anaerobic process. In ASP, maximum color and COD removal efficiencies of 69 and 60 percent were achieved at HRT of 8 h in case of domestic wastewater treatment.  However, in combined wastewater treatment, optimum color and COD reduction approached 72 and 66 percent at HRT of 24 h in case of UASB process. The results have demonstrated that the color was mainly removed under anaerobic conditions while COD was reduced under aerobic conditions.

SUMMARY

The recent developments in industrial, agricultural and commercial sectors are important causes of high water consumption resulting in large quantity of used water being produced and rejected. In developing countries, where access of safe drinking water is not guaranteed for a majority of the population, it is of great importance to maintain the quality of surface water sources. So there is an urgent need to develop technologies to treat huge volumes of wastewater in shortest possible time frame. Biological treatments like activated sludge process (ASP) and upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) are widely used in wastewater treatment plants to reduce effluents levels in contaminated wastewater originating from both the municipal and industrial sectors.

Wastewater used for this study was obtained from domestic, industrial and combined wastewater stream drain from I-9 Islamabad. This study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of hydraulic retention time (HRT) on different types of wastewater by applying ASP and UASB process. ASP occurred in two units. An aerated biological reactor, in which microbial activity was used to degrade pollutants, and a settling unit, in which activated sludge settled at the bottom of the unit. While, UASB consisted of an upflow of wastewater through a dense sludge bed with high microbial activity. Experimental condition i.e. HRT was varied and the effluents were evaluated in terms of pH, color, COD, TDS, TSS and alkalinity.

Following conclusions were drawn from the study:

• In case of ASP, at retention time of 6 h, 57, 62 and 35 percent of total COD removal was obtained for domestic, combined and industrial wastewater respectively.
• For domestic, combined and industrial wastewater, UASB rector achieved 52, 53 and 10 percent COD removal at retention time of 12 h.
• Comparatively, aerobic treatment efficiently removed COD value within very short period of time than anaerobic process.
• Color was mainly removed under anaerobic conditions while COD was reduced under aerobic conditions.

Based on these results, it is recommended that

• For the treatment of a combined industrial and domestic wastewater, use an integrated system consisting of a UASB reactor followed by the ASP to produce a good effluent quality.
• An extensive study is suggested to assess the effect of the process conditions such as temperature, sludge granulation, sludge height, organic loading rate (OLR) and mixed liquor suspended solids (MLSS) on the removal efficiencies of UASB reactor.
• Further more; the biogas generated during anaerobic process adds attraction as it can be used as fuel.

Proposed Declaration
SACOSAN 4, Sri Lanka.April 2011

The main idea is to trigger a virtual discussion, so as to have basic points of discussion at the conference.
The CSOs and CBOs of south Asia gathered here in Colombo, to reflect on sanitation scenario of the South Asia particularly Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan from the point of view of past-SACOSAN declarations and identify key issues and action strategies for achieving desired progress on sanitation.
The draft declaration that follows is the resultant out put of our deliberations here and several sessions of development organizations, convened back home in our countries with the stake holders
This document is the distillate of all these discussions and based on grass root inputs from the south Asian (SA) countries, it is hoped that this draft will find enough consideration, acceptance and reflected in the ministerial declaration.
The awareness and discussion taking place over the past two sessions of SACOSAN I & II, and the in between periods has led the people of SA to a better understanding of the issue, its importance vis-à-vis overall development (see annex open defecation and human development) and impact on human development (see annex water sanitation hygiene -Nexus).
This changed thinking is oblivious from the recommendations that takes a new look at the issues and the solutions.
Since the start of SACOSAN meetings , drinking water supply , quality and quantity has gone to the back burner.In order to acheive improvement in the quality of life of south Asians, it will be important to address water sanitation and Hygiene at the same time.
1.      We are convinced that lack of attention to our WATSAN issues is one of the major contributors to the disease, poverty, malnutrition, illiteracy and hence our backwardness.
2.      It will be cost effective to spend on WATSAN in the ratio of 1:9. Hence a very important area of development activity.
3.      We are convinced that the initiative being gigantic and expensive can only be handled in a phased manner. So rather than making big claims let us have doable and realistic targets till the next meeting in Sri Lanka.
4.      Flushing our shit downstream is no sanitation. Given that most of the domestic and Industrial waste water is mixed with Fresh Water or used as irrigation water for vegetable farms, without any treatment. This results in serious pollution to our fresh water sources both surface and ground water. Vegetables grown in these farms add to pathogenic recirculation in human and animals, if proper awareness and care is not there.
5.      The current practice of letting untreated domestic and industrial waste flow down stream is causing an increasing eco depletion of soil nutrients causing nutrient deficiency and extra financial burden on replenishing these nutrients. Additionally it is causing pollution downstream
6.      Looking at treatment of industrial, domestic waste, pipe laying, septic tanks standard plumbing fittings we find that most of these issues funnel down to lack of indigenous, viable technologies. Which eventually leads to the need of capacity building?
7.      We concur that establishing a centre of excellence in water Technologies (concept note with TORs) attached, will help the SA people develop viable solutions to our problems that we can afford and operate. Sharing our knowledge and experience sincerely will boost up our initiatives in solving the WATSAN issues.
8.      Hygiene awareness like washing hands with soap and
8.1 Providing soap for this purpose in schools, hospitals public toilets will be an         important initiative
8.2 Schools to be provided with clean drinking water and separate toilets.
8.3 In order to bring half of our population in main stream development process gender specific hygiene should be an important target of awareness and attention during this phase of action, till Sacosan IV.

Visit Link for more details.    http://www.waterpakistan.com/category/waste-water-treatment-solid-waste-hospital-waste-clts/

LAHORE: Senior Advisor to Chief Minister Punjab Sardar Zulfiqar Ali Khan Khosa has said that a comprehensive Punjab Water Policy would be evolved in order to provide clean drinking water to the people of the province and strategy, planning and financial resources would be made available for provision of clean drinking water.

He expressed these views during a briefing given by the Housing Urban Development and Public Health Engineering Department regarding Punjab Drinking Water Policy. Members Assembly, officers of Public Health Engineering, Finance and Environment Departments attended the meeting. Zulfiqar Ali Khosa said that after the 18th amendment, environment pollution is now the responsibility of the provinces and Punjab Assembly will undertake legislation for environmental pollution and specially provision of clean drinking water to the masses. The meeting was informed that polluted water is being used by a major chunk of the population in the province and poisonous articles of arsenic have been detected in the water of Lahore, Kasur, Multan, Rahim Yar Khan and Bahawalpur while one lakh and sixteen thousand children die every year in the province due to polluted water. Sardar Zulfiqar Khosa informed that provision of clean drinking water to the citizens is of fundamental importance and the participation of people in these schemes would be ensured and monitoring system of water supply schemes would be evolved. He further said that currently WASA and local government institutions are providing water while under Punjab Water Policy, WASA and other local government institutions would make investment for better storage facilities of water while water purification scheme would also be implemented with the cooperation of WASA.

Link   http://pmlni.com/newsRead.aspx?newsID=1624

A picture album of sanitation, waste water , solid waste , Hospital waste, animal waste, Hygiene , washing hands with soap in mosques facility, public toilets , mixing of untreated waste water in storm drains and water reservoirs.

Waste water treatment plant

Good for use in Publications and presentations. Mention credit while using.

Pakistan Sanitation / WASH Scenario-Tariq M Malik and M Jahangir, RDPI

After the draft of Federal drinking ware Act, draft Municipal Water Act for The Punjab province has been prepared. Lot of effort has gone in this document also.

Now Pakistan needs to Move

to have a concerted look into the existing WASH related documents, Like Drinking water Policy, Drinking Water standards , National Environment quality Standards NEQS,  National Sanitation Poliy, National Health Policy and distill a viable work Plan out of these documents.

This Focal Point can be established at Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Science and Technology and/ or UNICEF.

For details of Draft Legislation, Pl see this link

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=gmail&attid=0.1&thid=1285a64b612f2ad3&mt=application/msword&url=https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui%3D2%26ik%3Df2ea65bcd9%26view%3Datt%26th%3D1285a64b612f2ad3%26attid%3D0.1%26disp%3Dattd%26realattid%3Df_g8q838cj%26zw&sig=AHIEtbSHjVCLM_O2sDPopFhIAXUYu73Urw

Discussion on follow up is welcome

M Jahangir

Islamabad.