The non-governmental organisations Plan China and Yunnan Environmental Development Institute (YEDI) implemented sustainable and ecological sanitation (ecosan) to improve existing and not satisfying sanitation conditions in the Chinese provinces of Shaanxi and Yunnan. Different technical solutions like urine-diverting dehydration toilets (UDDTs), biogas-toilets, as well as double-urn toilets prove feasible without high-cost public sewerage and wastewater plants. The different systems close the loop of nutrients and provide the possibility to use human excreta as fertiliser in agriculture or to produce biogas for cooking. Yet whatever its level of technical excellence, the user proved to be the decisive factor for success or failure of the project in the long-run. Visiting the project sites, the authors examined why not every built toilet is still being used and why not every user is satisfied. They learned that not every user knows how to use it adequately and that it takes a long time to change people’s habits, especially if one’s privacy is affected. In order to achieve a high success rate with the improved means of sanitation among the population, they recommend to keep up training activities, supervise the users and to be available for advice over a long period. The experiences of the two visited projects show that it is very important to start working with young children in order to change the habits of the next generations as early as possible. The school sanitation projects in Shaanxi and Yunnan confirm this assumption.

Bibliographic information

Feiereisen, P., Wu, T. (2009). Surveying the long-term feasibility and acceptance of different sustainable sanitation systems in Shaanxi and Yunnan 2009 Beijing International Environmental Technology Conference

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Urine diversion dehydration toilets (UDDTs) UrineRuralSchoolsEnglish

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China

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