The rapid pace of urbanisation, combined with population growth, extreme climatic events such as flooding, and water insecurity due to drought, non-revenue water losses, poor resource management, and aging infrastructure, necessitates a shift towards more sustainable solutions.

By Dr Preyan Arumugam, Senior Research Scientist at the WASH R&D Centre, UKZN

Water Efficient Sanitation Solutions (WESS), which include non-sewered, off-grid or onsite and decentralised technologies, are emerging as essential alternatives to address the global sanitation crisis. These systems offer a sustainable response to challenges such as inadequate and unsafe sanitation, public health risks, and environmental degradation. The cost of expanding the sewer network and the large volumes of water required for flushing and conveyance make centralised waterborne sewer systems challenging to meet the growing demand for safe sanitation in all communities.

Bridging the Awareness Gap

Despite significant technological advancements, the adoption of WESS remains limited, primarily due to a lack of awareness. Since 2022, the South African Sanitation Technology Enterprise Programme (SASTEP), in collaboration with the Gates Foundation and the Water Research Commission (WRC), has spearheaded efforts to raise awareness about these solutions.

The Water Institute of Southern Africa (WISA), in partnership with the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Research and Development (WASH R&D) Centre at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, introduced Continuous Professional Development (CPD)-accredited training that highlighted key product standards and best practices to ensure the safety, efficiency, and long-term sustainability of WESS technologies.

Multi-Stakeholder Engagement

Over the past three years, the initiative has successfully engaged a wide range of stakeholders, including policymakers, engineers, regulators, practitioners and researchers. The goal is to position WESS as a sustainable and scalable alternative, especially in peri-urban and rural areas where water availability is limited. By reducing the reliance on water for sanitation, WESS can improve environmental conditions, lower infrastructure and maintenance costs, and reduce vulnerable communities where basic services are limited.

Why are standards important?

Product and management standards such as ISO 30500, ISO 31800, and ISO 24521 play a crucial role in the development, implementation, and scaling of Water Efficient Sanitation Solutions (WESS) for several key reasons:

• Ensuring Safety and Reliability: Standards provide clear criteria to ensure sanitation systems are safe and perform as intended. Without such specifications, systems could fail to meet safety requirements, potentially posing health risks.
• Guiding Technological Innovation and Consistency: ISO standards act as benchmarks for innovation, assisting manufacturers, engineers, and developers in designing technologies that meet global expectations.
• Supporting Global Compatibility and Scalability: Standards like ISO 24521, which addresses the operation and management of basic onsite domestic wastewater treatment systems, ensure that solutions are adaptable across various regions and contexts. With standardised guidelines, WESS technologies can scale globally, making them applicable in both rural and densely urbanised areas.
• Promoting Environmental Sustainability: ISO standards aim to address environmental concerns by ensuring sanitation technologies operate efficiently and minimise negative impacts. These standards promote reclaimed water reuse, energy efficiency and nutrient recovery from wastewater, and ensure systems are environmentally sustainable. This aligns with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6, which focuses on sustainable water management and sanitation for all.
• Building Trust and Confidence: Standards offer assurance to water services authorities, government, communities, investors, and users that the technologies in use meet recognised international criteria for performance, safety, and sustainability. This fosters trust, encouraging wider adoption of innovative solutions. Without these standards, there could be hesitancy to adopt new sanitation technologies due to concerns about their reliability and safety.
• Regulatory Alignment and Policy Support: Standards also provide a foundation for policymakers and regulators to craft appropriate regulations that align with global best practices. Governments can use these standards to guide the development of national sanitation policies, ensuring compliance with local norms and contributing to the global goal of universal access to safe sanitation.

ISO 30500, ISO 31800, and ISO 24521 (Figure 1) are fundamental to the successful deployment of WESS in South Africa. They establish critical benchmarks for safety, sustainability, and scalability, ensuring these technologies are reliable, adaptable, and ready to meet growing global sanitation needs.

Future Directions

As the future of sanitation is changing, the next tasks will focus on scaling and implementation but also determine how can we design more effectively around Water and Sanitation provision in terms of spatial planning. Ultimately, it would be beneficial to understand the impact of WESS on existing conventional wastewater treatment works (WWTW) in fast-growing cities and whether we can indeed reduce:

• pollution (carbon footprint, greenhouse gas emissions and solid waste);
• eutrophication downstream in receiving waters;
• the need to upgrade WWTW by diverting some of the total generated domestic wastewater to WESS.

This will require coordinated efforts from governments, industry, and communities to create resilient sanitation systems that align with SDG 6, which aims to ensure universal access to clean water and sanitation while promoting the principle of “safely managed sanitation.” A critical component of this approach is the recovery of valuable resources from wastewater, contributing to a circular economy. Most importantly, integrated budgets from the various departments will ensure that the finances required to invest in these solutions are made available. Ongoing research and development led by the WRC-SASTEP, the WASH R&D Centre and other research organisations will continue to drive the evolution of scalable, affordable and fit-for-purpose solutions making WESS the mainstream component of global sanitation infrastructure, addressing both immediate and long-term needs.