Earlier this year the Department of Water Affairs published a report on the quality of sanitation in South Africa that said 11% of households have no sanitation and 26% of households have sanitation services that do not meet minimum standards.

Providing sanitation for the 1.2 million households in informal settlements around the country is difficult. Densely built informal settlements provide little space for full sanitation services, making these communities vulnerable to water-borne diseases.

Pollution becomes rife through open defecation and grey water runoff. The lack of sanitation services also endangers women and children who must walk long distances in dimly lit areas to fetch water or use toilets.

In 2009 the eThekwini municipality implemented a novel solution to inadequate sanitation called Communal Ablution Blocks or CABs. The municipality introduced 350 of these modified shipping containers, around Durban to give an estimated 200 000 residents free, safe and effective sanitation services.

CABs are lit at night and each container has two showers with doors for privacy, two flush toilets with doors, two basins and a small locked store room for cleaning materials. Attached to the outside of each container are four basins for washing clothes.

eThekwini closely monitors CABs. They are connected to the municipal sewerage and water systems and at every site someone from the area is employed for four hours a day to clean them, ensure toilet paper is readily available and to report any malfunctions. The CABs normally operate from about 5.30am, but some close in the early evening when the caretaker goes off duty, but most remain open during the night.

A recent University of KwaZulu-Natal survey of the areas where CABs exist indicates that 82.8% of households see CABs as having “significantly improved” their lives and 71.7% said that CABs address their household needs. The environmental and health benefits of CABs are clear, but the social benefits are what make this innovation noteworthy.

The existence of CABs is being directly linked to emerging socio-economic hubs within their immediate vicinity and nodes for economic development have sprouted up. Small covered stalls selling vegetables and basic household supplies have started and some are also providing communities with communal cellphones. This way, calling emergency services is made easier.

Fostering the social offshoots of CABs also brings other municipal and provincial bodies such as the municipality’s agricultural management unit and its food garden programme and other small enterprise development NGOs on board.

Child-care facilities have even emerged near to CABs in some cases. Child-minders are paid to care for children and early childhood development NGOs have provided training and educational tools. One CAB site is sorting and preparing waste material such as wood from crates and palettes, tins, plastics and bottles for onward sale.

CABs are not long-term solutions but they are laudable short-term measures in the provision of sanitation to informal settlements. How communities have leveraged this resource speaks volumes of the potential for social cohesion when municipalities are active in communities.

Source: citizen.co.za