CDC Healthy Water Home

Potential Sanitation Solutions During an Emergency Response

Lack of access to adequate and appropriate sanitation and hygiene can be chronic public health challenges contributing to the spread of disease in low- and medium-income countries. This situation can be made worse during environmental disasters and environmental and public health emergencies.

In response to disasters and emergencies, prevention of open defecation and waste containment are critical to reduce the spread of disease.

While planning for long-term waste management, immediate sanitation solutions are often needed to minimize the spread of disease during emergencies, and should include sanitation facilities, hand washing facilities with soap and water, operation and maintenance regimes, operator training, and community education. Sanitation options are discussed below.

Sanitation Solutions (Immediate Term)

example of a packet bag

Individual, single-use biodegradable bags for point-of-use sanitation that are buried or properly disposed

  • Bags typically inside reusable buckets
  • Brand names: Peepoople, Wagbag

Advantages:

  • No infrastructure required
  • Lightweight and easy to transport
  • May be used where space is severely limited or in flooded areas

Constraints:

  • Active supply chain needed to provide approximately 1 bag/person/day
  • High costs of some types of bags
  • Need for disposal site and possibly collection services
  • Potential for bags to be discarded in open areas or areas posing risks to others
  • Social acceptance varies and would need to be determined for target population
  • Requires intense hygiene campaign to educate the community on handling and disposal of bags

Recommendations for Sanitation in Improvised Settlements and Cholera Prone Areas

  • Chemical toilets should be used in the immediate term where available and where the means to service them adequately exists.
  • If chemical toilets are not feasible, trench latrines or temporary pit latrines should be constructed immediately where no toilet facilities exist.
  • Elevated latrines should be considered for areas where digging of latrines is not possible or acceptable or areas with high water table or prone to flooding. They have larger reservoirs and need to be desludged less frequently than chemical toilets.
  • The Sphere standard of 50 people per latrine for emergency situations should be used for the immediate term, with the aim of decreasing to the Sphere minimum standard for excreta disposal of 20 people per latrine.
  • Residents of internally displaced persons (IDP) settlements should be engaged in choosing among appropriate alternatives.
  • Existing practices should be further investigated to identify other feasible alternatives (e.g., are people in improvised settlements using toilets in minimally damaged buildings in the vicinity?)
  • Further investigation of the local feasibility and local acceptability of packet and bucket latrines should be undertaken.
  • Health communication materials should contain information about latrine use and care (in local languages), and provisions made to communicate with non-literate populations.
  • Longer term sanitation solutions should be investigated further to help prevent occurrence of cholera and other infectious diseases.
  • Regardless of the type of sanitation facility installed, handwashing stations should be installed at every sanitation facility.

 Top of Page

Related Pages

Additional Resources

Healthy Water Sites

Get Email Updates

To receive email updates about this page, enter your email address:

What’s this?Submit
Top