The Use of Effluents from Biolatrines in Tanzania (ADF, 1996, 38 p.) Research findings and interpretation I. Demonstration institutions II. User questionnaire III. Exchange of experiences with Burundi IV. Public awareness programs in Tanzania

The Use of Effluents from Biolatrines in Tanzania (ADF, 1996, 38 p.)

Research findings and interpretation

I. Demonstration institutions

In addition to units already installed under the regular CAMARTEC program, new units were constructed at Arumeru District Hospital, Oljoro Military National Service Camp, and Rulenge Secondary School. The biolatrine at Arumeru District Hospital has a 30 m³ capacity, with four seats. It is able to handle the wastes of about 200 people with a retention time of 150 days.

Both hospital authorities and patients were grateful for improved toilets. They particularly appreciated the fact that the wastes could be treated safely even without water, a persistent problem they had faced in the past. The effluents are to be used mostly on maize fields.

Oljoro Military National Service Camp, also in Arusha province, had previously acquired, by contract with CAMARTEC, a 50 m³ digester making use of animal waste. This saves about 30 percent of their energy requirements and provides fertilizer in the form of slurry for about three hectares of fodder grass and vegetable gardens. They decided also to install biolatrines, beginning with an 8-seat toilet and 32 m³ digester. One of their objectives was to avoid the cost of clearing their latrines with vacuum suction vehicles from Arusha town.

With the increase in the camp's resident population to about one thousand, the digester proved too small. Although they obtained some gas for lighting and cooking, gas production, as well as usefulness of the effluents, was reduced by short retention times (see Appendices 2 and 3). Under the research grant, there has been progress towards constructing a 50 m³ digester for the purpose of more thorough treatment of the digestants.

Rulenge Secondary School, in Kagera Province, has a total of about 112 m³ of installed biolatrines, with a total of 24 seats. The digesters are connected to the previously installed latrine system, necessitating such a large volume. The school is now saving about 30 percent of the total school energy requirements, and good use is made of the effluents in their gardens. Formerly, untreated effluents were removed manually whenever the latrines got full.

a. Demonstration Results

At these beneficiary institutions, it is immediately clear that the question of technology acceptance is not an issue. The benefits are obvious and appreciated by both managers and residents. The students at Rulenge Secondary School, for example, who will never forget the two terrible days every year spent emptying their former concrete-based latrines, refer to their biolatrines as "Liberation Units."

Tests were conducted at the above sites, at the B.E.S. biolatrine installation, and at other selected sites. In general, the vegetable gardens fertilized and irrigated by use of bio-effluents flourish just as well as any other good garden. The fertilization process was deliberately not carefully controlled: for example, watering of vegetables was continued until the plants were mature, without taking into considering the possible survival of some pathogens. If the results skill turned out safe under such conditions, then the risk would indeed be minimal.

Most of the existing biolatrines had their digestants analyzed to identify pathogens. Analysis was done more than twice in every case after periods of about four months. Specimens were drawn from different levels in the digesters, in order to sample all possible conditions favorable or unfavorable to pathogenic micro-organisms. Pathogens examined included bacteria (shigella, salmonella, pathogenic E. coli, vibrio cholera), protozoa (entamoeba hystolitica), helminths (ascaris lumbricoides, hookworm, schistosoma, taenia, trichuris trichura) and viruses (enteroviruses). Results showed that the most persistent pathogens were the helminths (intestinal nematodes), particularly the ascaris.

Survival of Ascaris eggs and Salmonella species in soil tends to be longer than the growth period of most vegetable plants. Survival periods of viruses and hookworm eggs may also occasionally be as long as the growth periods of certain vegetable crops. On crop leaves the survival period of excreted pathogens tends to be shorter than the growth period of vegetables.

If such persistent pathogens are present, then one must either prolong the retention time in the biolatrine or use them on crops with longer growth periods, in order to allow sufficient time for them to die off (see Figures 3 and 4).

The results of analysis of the pathogenic content of vegetables grown in effluent-treated soil showed that they needed only normal food preparation processes before consumption just as normal vegetables from the public market. Indeed, tests by the Tanzania Bureau of Standards revealed that spinach from the public market had more coliform bacteria than the bio-effluent treated spinach (see Appendices 5 and 6).

II. User questionnaire

A total of eight provinces and nineteen districts were visited during the course of the research. In these, twenty-five sites are using biolatrines or have their toilet systems connected to digesters principally fed with animal wastes. Another twenty-two institutions at the visit sites are potential users.

In general, those exposed to the technology, through the CAMARTEC program, were convinced of its usefulness. In comparison to the potential nationwide impact, however, the number reached so far is very small.

The discussion and interviews at the sites visited were accompanied by active mobilization in surrounding areas. Short seminars were conducted in villages, involving village leaders, elders, and women. The response was generally favorable, despite initial doubts.

Given their positive responses, schools and institutions already using the biogas technology were asked to integrate it into their school syllabus.

a. The Research Findings-Questionnaire Feedback

People who were interviewed fell into the following four categories:

1. The village community. Most of them were approached through individual families. Most of these people depend on subsistence farming and a few animals, particularly cows, goats, and pigs.

2. The village and semi-urban middle class families. Most of the semi-urban people are civil servants or in some way employed as teachers or medical assistants, while the village families hold relatively large farms or hold some kind of commercial business.

3. Institutions, including schools, hospitals, prisons and army camps. Both rural and urban based institutions were visited.

4. Village opinion leaders and political leaders.

b. Responses

The Village Community. Most of these people have pit latrines in their neighborhoods and have to dig another toilet whenever the existing one fills up. Some of these toilets are the old, poor system, some without roofs.

In some cases, people tend to opt for not using these toilets especially when the toilets are in terrible condition. Some people, particularly the animal keepers, do not have toilets at all.

More than 90 percent of this category responded quite positively to the biolatrine technology. However, their big interest was the possession of a more secure and more hygienic toilet unit, but with little interest on the effluent reuse. The authors noted that the beneficiaries could easily be convinced and directed on the reuse of these effluents once they had these bio-units. The biggest problem these people are facing is that they are really too poor to afford these units, and those with more income had other priorities like sending their children to school, buying more animals and expanding their farmlands.

The Midddle Class. About 40 percent of people in this category could afford these bio-units. Almost all have formal education which made it easy to understand. However, it is in this category where all sorts of questions were raised, for instance, on the safety of the effluent and which kinds of food crops could be fertilized. By the end of the day, the authors found that these people needed more mobilization than what had been provided to them on the installation of demonstration units. Of the 170 people who were interviewed, 42 had agri-bio-units, and their response was positive. About 100 said they liked the idea and would install these units once they had financial capabilities. Most of them asked about the subsidy possibility. The rest simply said they will think about it.

Institutions. Administrators of institutions immediately realized the importance of this technology. They have little or no choice as a solution to their existing problems. For example, the Rulenge Secondary School, had toilet bottoms in concrete which were emptied twice a year, manually. Currently Rulenge has seven, 16 cubic meter biolatrines and is already using slurry on its orange trees and has integrated bio-technology in the school syllabi.

Endavofta Secondary has no pipe water connection or simply no water supply at all. It gets cooling and drinking water from a distance of ten hen brought by tanker. The school receives about one-fifth of what it needs. It used pit latrines as well. There are now two, 30 cubic meter biolatrine digesters with 8 seats. Endavofta Secondary School is a rural school based in Varatu, Mbulu district in Arusha province.

Favalu Secondary School is a girls secondary school which has about 1200 students, 800 of them boarder students. The school is connected to the city water supply system, but the school gets very little water. It buys water which is brought by vehicle and this is only for cooking and very few other requirements. The school has flush toilets, but without water that is as good as no toilets at all. At the time of the interview, students were using standing water from what was formerly a fishpond. They drew water from this pond by use of buckets to use to flush the waste. The School is based right in the center of the city of Dar-es-Salaam.

Patandi-Arumeru Hospital is a district hospital for West Meru district, Arusha province. Before this hospital got a 30 cubic meter digester with four toilet seats (financed by ADF through this research), it had a small, one-seat pit latrine to serve about 150 people. The latrine was old and damaged such that some people preferred to relieve themselves outside. The whole sanitary situation was terrible.

These are but a few of many visited schools and institutions. The response towards biolatrines was quite positive, though the reuse of bio-effluent was always an issue for discussion. This raised concerns particularly in institutions and schools in Zanzibar where almost 100 percent of the students are Muslims. Again, the general feedback shows that intensified mobilization campaigns with demonstration units are needed. Both need resource inputs.

Village leaders. This is a category involving political leaders and community opinion leaders who have influence on the community. It is an important group as the people involved have the means to approach and convince the public. The problem noted here was the direction of the approach. It is not the beneficiaries of the technology (who are the victims) appealing to the government leaders, neither is it the government trying to understand the problem and assist the people, but rather a group of technologists somewhere in between (including the authors of this report) who try to define the problem to the beneficiaries and explain the usefulness of the technology as a solution to their problem. Then the same group explains to the leaders the problem the communities are facing and ways they could assist.

To make an impact in both directions, this group needs to be strong in terms of resources (personnel, material) to expose this technology to as many people as possible, as well as working to come up with more concrete facts to convince the government leaders and other donor agencies. The technology is still below the self-sustaining level.

The question of technology affordability is crucial. In all cases, the authors tried to ask the beneficiaries whether, if they got support for the biolatrine units, they would use them. The levels of willingness differed from one family to another, depending on the family economic potential, and from one institution to another

TOMATO GARDEN WHICH WAS FERTILIZED USING BIO-EFFLUENT.

III. Exchange of experiences with Burundi

The government of Burundi realizing the importance of bio-technology, initially supported several schools and colleges in installation of institutional digesters for treating excrete as well as kitchen wastes. In Burundi a small country with relatively easy communication links, better road networks than Tanzania, and extensive television and radio services, technology advertisement and mobilization of people was relatively easy. Individuals adopted the technology very quickly. Acceptability of the technology was not very difficult, and utilization of bio-effluents has been quickly integrated into farm systems.

Bio-technology in Burundi received good support from the government after the following events:

1. A study carried out in the late 1980s proved that out of fifty-one randomly selected institutions, thirty-seven had their septic tanks not functioning due to blockages and/or lack of emptying facilities.

2. According to environmental policy in Burundi each institution, factory, or industry must treat its waste water before it goes into a common purifying plant (for the area with such facilities - as many other rural areas have none). In that sense, following the problem explained above, anaerobic waste treatment through bio-digesters which provided gas for energy purposes was a better alternative to septic tanks, particularly for the semi-urban and rural sectors.

3. About the same time one "Bureau des Projets d'Education" (B.P.E.), a state owned organization, compared the investment costs for waste treatment for 400 users by septic tanks and biogas plants. This showed that the bio-treatment plants were about US$5000 less expensive than septic tanks.

FERTILIZATION OF TOMATO GARDEN AT NYANKANDA SECONDARY SCHOOL IN BURUNDI

The major impetus for extension of this technology was due to serious government involvement, either through direct support or through several donor agencies.

Tomato garden fertilization with bio-effluents is done manually, even with ungloved hands at Nyankanda Secondary School, Ruyigi province as well as banana and coffee fertilization with effluents at Makamba Teachers College in Makamba province.

Interviews and discussions in Burundi with more than eighty people from eleven provinces, including users as well as potential users, revealed consistently positive attitudes towards this technology. The only problem cited was shortage of funds for users to expand or rehabilitate existing units, or for would-be users to acquire new units.

Special Energy Programme Burundi, the agency responsible for this technology in the country, was formerly foreign-supported. Now largely self-sustaining, it is optimistic about wider dissemination of this technology in the country.

IV. Public awareness programs in Tanzania

Tanzania, in contrast to Burundi, encountered several hurdles in the process of technology dissemination. In relative terms, Tanzania is about 33 times the size of Burundi (about 945,000 square kilometers/28,000 square kilometers) and its population is about 5 fumes the population of Burundi (27 million/5.5 million). The country's poor infrastructure system makes it even more difficult to reach many people easily.

During the course of the research, CAMARTEC continued with its public awareness programs designed to popularize biogas technology. CAMARTEC personnel, including the authors of this paper, participated in efforts to publicize the technology through media such as newspaper, radio programs, relevant seminars, workshops, and scientific symposia. Whenever a new region or district is visited, regional and district leaders are contacted to ensure their support. Representatives of the section for women and children, in the Ministry of Community Development, are consistently supportive. Regional and district field and extension offices in agriculture, health, and livestock have been involved, particularly in selection of appropriate demonstration sites as well as in general sensitization campaigns.

Often it is not difficult to explain the need. This picture, for example, shows a flood of waste water from the municipal sanitation system in Arusha. In the same area, there was an outbreak of cholera only two months previously. The municipal authorities needed little convincing of the necessity for a solution such as biolatrine technology. The issue is rather how to find the resources for its construction.

The research team, as part of the fulfillment of the research goal, had on two occasions successfully disseminated the research findings.

The first occasion was through a conference held in Benin, West Africa where more than 150 attended. The conference participants constituted all categories of people, from university professors down to secondary school teachers, renowned scientists and researchers down to technicians, and some big institutions down to villagers who are involved in appropriate technology promotions.

The conference was so convinced of CAMARTEC's research recommendations that these recommendations were included in the final conference resolutions. This conference was organized and financed by the African Development Foundation (ADF).

The second occasion was through a two-day seminar in Arusha, Tanzania where the seminar objective was to expose the research results to people. The seminar participants included key people from relevant ministries like the Ministry of Education, Health, Community Development, Women and Children, Environment, Defense, the previous officers, some representatives from resident donor agencies, schools, hospitals, and other institutions. Potential beneficiaries were also united. Journalists from different news media also participated. The conference was officiated by the regional leaders.

The seminar resolutions included the realization of the importance of bio-slurry recycling as an appropriate option for most of the developing world and what remained was for each individual agency to play its role accordingly to promote this technology.

FLOOD OF WASTE WATER IN ARUSHA.