Clean Water and Sanitation in Urban Communities
Article written by Natasha Saunders
With two-thirds of our planet covered by it, and the human body comprising 75% of it, water is unmistakingly a crucial element to life as we know it. Though this transparent and odorless substance is seemingly unremarkable, without it, we would not be here. Each person needs about 20–50 litres of clean water a day- which includes water for drinking, cooking, washing, and essential sanitary practices. Evidently a factor in human lifestyle, hydration, and the flora and fauna that surrounds us, our society is very much dependent upon this chemical compound. With this said, it is important not to neglect the importance of sanitation to us, as humans. Sanitation provides the means for humans to be hygienic. A lack of proper sanitation services not only breeds disease, but it can also rob people of their basic human dignity. The tendency for water and sanitation to be more unclean or unsafe increases towards a city center. Basically, the two work conversely wherein the more people, the less sanitation. The need for clean water and sanitation is paramount, especially in urban environments. In critical situations like these, solutions and actions towards clean water and sanitation are crucial- locally and globally.
Water is essential for hydration and for food production- but sanitation is an equally important, and complementary use of water. The two go hand in hand; to have clean water, we need upstanding sanitation- and vice versa. To not have them would be detrimental to our society. Polluted water isn’t just dirty, it’s deadly. According to the Koshland Science Museum, about 1.8 million people die every year due to diarrheal diseases like cholera. Aside from this, tens of millions of others are seriously sickened by a host of water-related ailments, many of which are easily preventable with clean water. In 2014, the World Health Organization reported that health risks are often exacerbated by poor sanitation. Some 20% of the urban population still lacked access to improved sanitation in 2012 and 100 million city dwellers still practiced open defecation. Failure to adequately collect and dispose of solid waste can increase the proliferation of disease-carrying vectors, such as rodents and insects. Other urban conditions can inflame these risks, such as overcrowding. These social inequities in cities play an important role in water and sanitation-related risks.
With almost 13 million people in Metro Manila alone, there is a blatant problem of overcrowding in the Philippines. As we know, overcrowding gives root to poor sanitation and a lack of access to clean water. Out of 101 million Filipinos, nine million rely on unimproved, unsafe and unsustainable water sources and 19 million lack access to improved sanitation. A lack of sanitation and access to clean water kills 55 people every day in the Philippines. The National Sewerage and Septage Management Program (NSSMP) says this is because over 90 percent of the country’s sewage is not collected or treated properly.”Over 30 million people in the Philippines do not have access to improved sanitation facilities,” says Katrina Arianne Ebora, who works on UNICEF’s Water, Sanitation and Hygiene program in the Philippines. Further, PIDS says Manila’s slums are growing by the day with a population growth rate of nearly 8 percent. By 2050 the government predicts the slum population in Manila city alone will reach over 9 million people from its current 2 million. A recent study published by the Water and Sanitation Program revealed that not only does this current situation demands urgent attention, but the annual population growth of 2 percent is likely to place a greater burden on already limited resources. Further, if not resolved, it can affect the sanitation of beaches. Some cities will have runoff from poor sanitation, which flows into the ocean. This can then shut down beaches if the E Coli count is too high, harming fish and building up PCB levels. This runoff can also carry microplastics into the ocean. Smaller plastics actually have a bigger impact because it affects the bottom of the food chain, which affects everything above it- including us, humans. The largest source of drinking water to the Philippines is through our groundwater. With poor sanitation, all these nitrates are absorbed by the ground which renders the water undrinkable.
From a comprehensive lens, sanitation and water cleanliness are still relevant problems faced by society. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over 600 million urbanites live in low-quality shelters or other areas plagued by overcrowding and inadequate provision of sanitation services, including potable water and safe waste disposal. Poor sanitation is one of the most accurate indicators of urban poverty and health problems. The number of people without access to these services is still increasing, despite general improvements in urban sanitation programs. In the last twenty years, sanitation coverage has made great strides, but it continues to be less accessible to the urban poor. The challenge of sanitation intervention is to keep up with the growing population. In today’s day and age, the rate at which sanitation programs are being introduced to communities is far lower than the rate of overall population growth, resulting in more underserved people, despite these attempts to increase coverage. What poor sanitation does is perpetuate a cycle of uncleanliness and detriment. It acts as a catalyst for littering and copious amounts of trash. This then turns into marine debris which is responsible for impacting 267 species of animals worldwide, most of which are marine animals. (Impacting meaning engendering suffering and/or the extinction of these animals) In addition to this, it also pollutes the human food chain. This then constitutes to contamination within society, increasing disease and protracting poor sanitation.
The world we live in is desperately vociferating for a solution- or at least an improvement in the quality of life. Action is important because the means of sanitation and clean water are absolutely necessary to all facets of society and at the rate that our population is growing, health simply cannot be sustained. As aforementioned, introducing sanitation programs are key to alleviation. However, one of the problems with this is that our society is greatly relying upon the government to produce solutions. This delay impedes effectiveness. To aid this, we can support the multitude of NGOs that directly contribute to this cause but often go unnoticed because of a lack of marketing budget. Locally, we have the “ChildFund International for the Philippines” wherein they fund to support and improve the living standards of children and families- of which sanitation is a crucial counterpart to. Further, we can engage in hands-on volunteer work. The organization Project Pearls gives one the opportunity to physically visit Tondo, Manila, where sanitation is a grave problem. Additionally, we can aim to keep our bodies of water clean in hopes of purifying our food sources. This conversation is important to have because it spreads awareness. By advocating for this conversation, you engage others, which subsequently leads to action and change, which is yearned for globally.
References:
https://www.who.int/sustainable-development/cities/health-risks/water-sanitation/en/
http://www.uniteforsight.org/urban-health/module4
https://water.org/our-impact/philippines/
https://www.childfund.org/Content/NewsDetail/2147489253/
https://www.koshland-science-museum.org/water/new/en/Overview/Why-is-Safe-Water-Essential.html
https://www.cleanwater.org/problem-marine-plastic-pollution
https://www.oceanunite.org/issues/marine-plastic-pollution/
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/habitats/plastic-pollution/
https://www.projectpearls.org/
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