Logistics and ecological sanitation in the city of San Fernando, La Union, Philippines

Abstract

Access to basic sanitation remains a grave challenge on both global and local scales. This paper examines the logistical aspects of a pioneering ecological sanitation initiative piloting the use of urine-diverting dehydration toilets in two low-income communities in San Fernando city, La Union, Philippines, from January 2005. The San Fernando city government currently faces two challenges. First, how to develop a system that will more efficiently serve not only the communities piloted in the project but an additional 1000 households in the city to which ecological sanitation services are to be extended by 2010. Second, how to ensure that the system employed manages waste from the separation stage up to the treatment and re-use stages thus confirming San Fernando city’s commitment to providing fully sustainable ecological sanitation. The logistics system presented in this paper is the result of a six-month assessment study carried out from August 2006 to January 2007, the aim of which was to create a replicable logistics system that could be used to extend effective ecological sanitation services not only to other communities in San Fernando outside the original pilot study, but to other cities in the Philippines and, by extension, the developing world. Throughout, the authors emphasize the importance of joint cooperation between local government, the people in the communities concerned and any other stakeholders in achieving local-scale sanitation targets that can be replicated nationally and internationally.