pour flush choice

By A Single Drop Posted on Fri 30 Jul 2010, over 14 years ago

Hi there

I'm curious, how did you choose the pour flush? I understand there's a river near by and that some people use a hose to extract water. For those who are a bit further and fetch water, do you feel they will be ok with having to fetch extra water to use their toilets? I know ecosan is an option, but often very hard to sensitize communities to it. Can you tell me your opinion on ecosan's vs the pour flush honey comb leach pits? Very intriguing!

Do you have any projects that are over 2 years old that are using the compost? Would love to hear about that!

Good luck
Gemma

pour flush choice

By Pure Water for the World Posted on Fri 30 Jul 2010, over 14 years ago

We have observed from the few single pit latrines we found that even after very hard rains there was no flooding problem with these latrines. The soil has low ground water level. We could also observe that after digging a 3 meters, we did not find any water infiltration.
As for the rivers being nearby, when we mentioned water by hose, it does not mean they use only one hose to transport the water, most of the water sources come from a source located up the hill or very far away from their houses, for instance one family uses 100 meters of hose to transport the water to their house instead of pvc pipe because of the price and flexibility of the hose.
They usually have a place where to store water in each house, some houses have cement tank, other have barrels, We would not construct a pour and flush latrine close to a river or in a place where they had no water.
The latrines have to be at least 50 meters from the nearest water source. The people in Trojes have accepted the pour and flush latrine because they have water in their homes as it is not as scarse as in sothern Honduras.

Regarding my opinion on the two types of latrines, both of them are good options and both of them require that you train people on the use and maintenance. The only difference is the criteria you use for implementing either one of them for instance in the ecosan is recommended in places where the water level is too high. Chambers have to be changed every 6 months and you have to pour lime or ashes every 8 days, to avoid bad odor. They also attract more insects. In the other hand we have already have experience and the acceptance of the communities with the one chaimber pour and flush latrines. This is just a new version of this latrine that they are giving good use and maintenance. Now in the pour and flush latrines the alternation of pits takes longer. This has to be done every 2 years. They do not have to do it every six month as in the ecosan.
It is a fact that in these communities, connections to larger sewage systems are a very remote possibility, however one of the advantages of the 2 septic tank pour and flush latrines is that they could be connected later to sewage system.
In my experience working in the Northcoast of Honduras I saw lots of the ecosan latrines abandoned because people did not have the time take out the compost when the 1 chaimber was filled and it became a greater problem than a solution.
Sorry, we cannot share the experience with you yet, We do not have a latrine project over 2 years old with a double pit chaimber.

Maria Regina Inestroza
Pure Water for the World
Central American Director