The pit latrine paradox in low-income settings: A sanitation technology of choice or a pollution hotspot?

Exploration of appropriate media to influence sustainable on-site sanitation choices in Sri Lanka– visualization with still images or a video

“…In Sri Lanka, although OSS is installed in every household, pit latrines are still mainstream. However, a pit latrine paradox is evident: it was chosen as the sanitation technology to safeguard human health, yet its use resulted in pollution and health risk hotspots [ 22 , 23 ]. As many suburban and rural households in Sri Lanka use groundwater as their primary source of water, it is necessary to shift to septic tanks; however, this shift has not progressed well.…”

Spatial model of groundwater contamination risks from pit-latrines under multiple sanitation scenarios in a low-income country

“…Ecosan, 2000;Strande et al, 2018). Further research could also incorporate spatial variation in faecal characteristics (Gwenzi et al, 2023;Kalulu et al, 2021). Microbial contamination prediction would be enhanced by further work on the variation in the groundwater table, pit latrine depth, soil type, biochemistry (Graham and Polizzotto, 2013;Islam et al, n.d.), hydraulics (Dzwairo et al, 2006), the direction of groundwater flow (Dzwairo et al, 2006;Back et al, 2018) as well as the type, age, and level of damage of the water-point (Escamilla et al, 2013).…”

“…Improved sanitation is particularly important for reducing diarrhoeal disease, which causes 20% deaths of children under-five in Eastern and Southern Africa Amouzou et al, 2016 . Pit-latrines provide low-cost, basic excretion management (Graham & Polizzotto, 2013;Hinton et al, 2023;Nakagiri et al, 2016) and are used by over 1.8 billion people (Gwenzi et al, 2023). They are critical for reducing Open Defecation (OD) (Gwenzi et al, 2023;Hinton et al, 2023) , still practised by 419 million people globally (UNICEF & WHO, 2020). Pit-latrine usage is likely to increase as we near the 2030 deadline for the SDG6.2 goal of 'sanitation for all'.…”

“…Despite the importance of pit-latrines to meet SDG6.2, the associated pathogen and chemical groundwater contamination may undermine efforts to meet SDG6.1(UN Water, 2023) on clean drinking water (Bhallamudi et al, 2019;Diaw et al, 2020;Graham & Polizzotto, 2013;Gwenzi et al, 2023;Mkandawire, 2008;Pritchard et al, n.d.;Rivett et al, 2022). Increased pit-latrine usage and continual construction to replace filled pitlatrines will result in growing numbers of abandoned latrines, and pose significant environmental and public health concerns (Gwenzi et al, 2023;Hinton et al, 2023). Malawi has a particularly high risk of drinking water contamination from pit-latrines due to the large proportion (85%) of the population using groundwater for drinking co-located with pit-latrines for sanitation (90%) (Graham and Polizzotto, 2013;Hinton et al, 2023).…”

“…Prevention of nitrate in groundwater is consequently critical to maintain water quality, even when sources of contamination are removed (Ahmed et al, 2001.;Rahman et al, 2021). Sources of nitrate contamination, such as pit latrines, pose a long-term risk to groundwater quality (Ahmed et al, 2001;Gwenzi et al, 2023;Puckett et al, 2011), and high nitrate concentrations in groundwater have been recorded in some regions of Malawi (Mapoma et al, 2016;Missi and Atekwana, 2020;Pritchard et al, 2007Pritchard et al, , 2008. To manage nitrate contamination of groundwater from pit-latrines, nitrogen from human faeces must be prevented from entering groundwater, either by pit latrine emptying or creating physical barriers (lining) to the leaching of nitrogen (Ahmed et al, 2001).…”