CUTTING EDGE
Last month, non-profit start-up Sanergy won the top award at the FT/
Citi Ingenuity Awards for its sanitation scheme operating in the slums
of Nairobi, Kenya. As
reveals, the scheme is not only
providing jobs and improved sanitation for residents in Nairobi, but it has
the capacity to be extended globally to other cities
A
Sanitation facts
Some 2.5 billion people in the developing world do
not have access to a clean toilet and 1.6 million
children die annually from sanitation-related
diseases–it’s the second-leading cause of disease
throughout the developing world. In Kenya, 8
million people in urban slums lack access to
hygienic sanitation, and 4 million tonnes of waste
(90 percent of the faecal sludge from slums) gets
dumped into waterways causing environmental
damage and a major health risk.