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Government and municipal authorities’ discriminate against the right to dignity of 4,800,000 households in South Africa.
Government and municipal authorities’ discriminate against the right to dignity of 4,800,000 households in South Africa.
In South Africa we have quite a modern constitution albeit constantly challenged by the very people that under wrote to uphold it since 1994.
The part of our constitution that I find most fascinating is the part that refers to everyone’s right to respect, dignity, health, water and sanitation.
With this in mind – imagine 4.8 million households and the inhabitants of these households’ dignity being deprived from them daily, their health being comprised daily, their right to fresh uncontaminated water being denied and all of this because they have to relieve themselves in a hole dug in the ground.
An analysis of the 2007 Statistics South Africa study into the various sanitation facilities available to the South African population reveals the following.
Population Av. Number of people per house hold Basic Facilities
Province People House holds Pit Toilets Bucket No Toilets Flush type
East Cape 6 500 000 1 600 000 4 468 800 44 800 376 000 710 400
Free State 2 800 000 803 000 3 176 660 101 981 25 696 498 663
Gauteng 10 500 000 3 200 000 3 441 600 403 200 102 400 2 252 800
KZN 10 300 000 2 200 000 5 737 000 11 000 228 800 1 223 200
Limpopo 5 300 000 1 200 000 4 774 000 1 200 148 800 276 000
Mpumalanga 3 600 000 940 000 4 438 980 4 700 75 200 421 120
North West 3 300 000 910 000 4 379 470 38 220 52 780 439 530
North West 1 000 000 270 000 4 38 880 11 880 18 630 200 610
West Cape 5 300 000 1 400 000 4 11 200 33 600 53 200 1 302 000
Total 48 600 000 12 523 000 4 3 466 590 650 581 1 081 506 7 324 323
20% of the population aged between 1 and 5 years living in KZN die annually due to diarrhoea that can be directly attributed to poor sanitation and lack of fresh water
Man discards on average 280 grams of waste daily.
There are 4.8 million households in rural SA with an average of 4 people per household
This equates to 5.7 million kilograms per day or 2.1 billion kilograms of solid raw, foul stinking disease infested excrement being dumped into a hole in the ground without being treated per annum. The problem is compounded because a large volume of this waste is liquefied and percolates into the underground water tables contaminating this valuable resource – I do not know the ramification of this but it must be huge – surely the CO2 emissions must be huge and the effect on CO2 emissions significant.
Allow me to paint a picture: the more affluent people that reside in cities and towns have toilet facilities that are never questioned, they seem to work adequately, not that we really know how or why or what even happens to the solid waste that flows away at the push of a button or a lever.
Now this is the challenge- imagine if you can: you live in a dwelling of some sorts in a rural South African area – you have an urge to visit the water closet – in this case it can hardly be called a water closet as it is a rickety shack/building - inside it is a sitting devise that has a hole in it and below this devise is a deep hole that collects the human effluent discarded into it on a daily basis.
Unlike your toilet at home in the city where you may choose to sanitise, disinfect and clean using some form of antiseptic or harsh chemical designed to kill all germs and bacteria known to mankind because you have been raised and educated to do so – your counterpart in the rural area does not have this luxury.
Your fellow human must go and relieve him or herself in a shack that has such a bad foul odour that it knocks your breath away or could make you feel ill by just having to be there. Now visualise this – in your home you could sit in your clean hygienically sterile water closet ponder your navel, read a book even plot saving the world and have your morning dump with no fear of being infected by a bug that ultimately will bring about death.
Now your rural counterpart is faced with the foulest odours you can imagine, untreated sold waste that breed all kinds of disease, maggots crawling in the effluent, up the sides of the sitting devise, you are swamped by flies – you do not know better you just have to have a dump.
In 2002 the government published a white paper outlining how they are going to eradicate the pit latrines, the bucket system, build more toilets, and lay on more modern facilities. In many instances they have actually kept true to the vision but in most rural and semi-rural areas they have failed the very people that voted them into place, the rulers they trust.
This is just the tip of the iceberg – it is all good and well that our government builds lots and lots of pit toilets all over the country side – but what do you do with the waste?
If you do not provide education in good hygiene practices or a suitable mechanism to treat the waste you have failed.
The untreated solid waste leads to disease, ultimately death and serious contamination of underground water
There is a small organisation that has for years being fighting a losing battle with the authorities to do something about this, we have provided solid proof that there is a way to treat the solid waste that will dissipate the foul odour of rotting and fermenting effluent that will liquefy the solid waste and allow this to percolate into the ground without contaminating underground water recourses.
Strangely enough the method to apply is eco-friendly, biodegradable, non hazardous -it is a natural product and can be applied to a pit toilet at the cost of R2.50 per month.
The decision to reduce our selling price and ultimately our gross profit is directly related to us as an organisation giving something back in a bid to say thank you to the South African market place and it forms part of our social responsibility program.
If you would like to know more about us and the plight that the rural South African faces please visit our website www.mces.co.za to learn more about sanitation and the plight of your fellow countryman.
“Where there is muck there is brass”
Cleaner, Greener, Smarter
Thank you for your attention.
John J Coetzee
In South Africa we have quite a modern constitution albeit constantly challenged by the very people that under wrote to uphold it since 1994.
The part of our constitution that I find most fascinating is the part that refers to everyone’s right to respect, dignity, health, water and sanitation.
With this in mind – imagine 4.8 million households and the inhabitants of these households’ dignity being deprived from them daily, their health being comprised daily, their right to fresh uncontaminated water being denied and all of this because they have to relieve themselves in a hole dug in the ground.
An analysis of the 2007 Statistics South Africa study into the various sanitation facilities available to the South African population reveals the following.
Population Av. Number of people per house hold Basic Facilities
Province People House holds Pit Toilets Bucket No Toilets Flush type
East Cape 6 500 000 1 600 000 4 468 800 44 800 376 000 710 400
Free State 2 800 000 803 000 3 176 660 101 981 25 696 498 663
Gauteng 10 500 000 3 200 000 3 441 600 403 200 102 400 2 252 800
KZN 10 300 000 2 200 000 5 737 000 11 000 228 800 1 223 200
Limpopo 5 300 000 1 200 000 4 774 000 1 200 148 800 276 000
Mpumalanga 3 600 000 940 000 4 438 980 4 700 75 200 421 120
North West 3 300 000 910 000 4 379 470 38 220 52 780 439 530
North West 1 000 000 270 000 4 38 880 11 880 18 630 200 610
West Cape 5 300 000 1 400 000 4 11 200 33 600 53 200 1 302 000
Total 48 600 000 12 523 000 4 3 466 590 650 581 1 081 506 7 324 323
20% of the population aged between 1 and 5 years living in KZN die annually due to diarrhoea that can be directly attributed to poor sanitation and lack of fresh water
Man discards on average 280 grams of waste daily.
There are 4.8 million households in rural SA with an average of 4 people per household
This equates to 5.7 million kilograms per day or 2.1 billion kilograms of solid raw, foul stinking disease infested excrement being dumped into a hole in the ground without being treated per annum. The problem is compounded because a large volume of this waste is liquefied and percolates into the underground water tables contaminating this valuable resource – I do not know the ramification of this but it must be huge – surely the CO2 emissions must be huge and the effect on CO2 emissions significant.
Allow me to paint a picture: the more affluent people that reside in cities and towns have toilet facilities that are never questioned, they seem to work adequately, not that we really know how or why or what even happens to the solid waste that flows away at the push of a button or a lever.
Now this is the challenge- imagine if you can: you live in a dwelling of some sorts in a rural South African area – you have an urge to visit the water closet – in this case it can hardly be called a water closet as it is a rickety shack/building - inside it is a sitting devise that has a hole in it and below this devise is a deep hole that collects the human effluent discarded into it on a daily basis.
Unlike your toilet at home in the city where you may choose to sanitise, disinfect and clean using some form of antiseptic or harsh chemical designed to kill all germs and bacteria known to mankind because you have been raised and educated to do so – your counterpart in the rural area does not have this luxury.
Your fellow human must go and relieve him or herself in a shack that has such a bad foul odour that it knocks your breath away or could make you feel ill by just having to be there. Now visualise this – in your home you could sit in your clean hygienically sterile water closet ponder your navel, read a book even plot saving the world and have your morning dump with no fear of being infected by a bug that ultimately will bring about death.
Now your rural counterpart is faced with the foulest odours you can imagine, untreated sold waste that breed all kinds of disease, maggots crawling in the effluent, up the sides of the sitting devise, you are swamped by flies – you do not know better you just have to have a dump.
In 2002 the government published a white paper outlining how they are going to eradicate the pit latrines, the bucket system, build more toilets, and lay on more modern facilities. In many instances they have actually kept true to the vision but in most rural and semi-rural areas they have failed the very people that voted them into place, the rulers they trust.
This is just the tip of the iceberg – it is all good and well that our government builds lots and lots of pit toilets all over the country side – but what do you do with the waste?
If you do not provide education in good hygiene practices or a suitable mechanism to treat the waste you have failed.
The untreated solid waste leads to disease, ultimately death and serious contamination of underground water
There is a small organisation that has for years being fighting a losing battle with the authorities to do something about this, we have provided solid proof that there is a way to treat the solid waste that will dissipate the foul odour of rotting and fermenting effluent that will liquefy the solid waste and allow this to percolate into the ground without contaminating underground water recourses.
Strangely enough the method to apply is eco-friendly, biodegradable, non hazardous -it is a natural product and can be applied to a pit toilet at the cost of R2.50 per month.
The decision to reduce our selling price and ultimately our gross profit is directly related to us as an organisation giving something back in a bid to say thank you to the South African market place and it forms part of our social responsibility program.
If you would like to know more about us and the plight that the rural South African faces please visit our website www.mces.co.za to learn more about sanitation and the plight of your fellow countryman.
“Where there is muck there is brass”
Cleaner, Greener, Smarter
Thank you for your attention.
John J Coetzee
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