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Health and sanitation
Safe plumbing to the people
US-based non-profit organisation Plumbers Without Borders attended the World Plumbing
Council Conference to participate in the global industry discussion entitled, “Reasons to
support international regulations and standards for sustainable plumbing”.
By Fiona Ingham
Plumbers Without Borders (PWB)
launched six years ago, and comprises
an international database of volunteer
plumbers and mechanical t radespersons.
This humanitarian organisation is building a
global database of plumbing and mechanical
tradespersons volunteers, and is working to
increase access to safe water and sanitation.
The aim of the initiative is to improve health and
sanitation by connecting humanitarian organisations
with volunteer tradespersons throughout the world.
It goes about this by matching volunteers with
projects that are committed to alleviating water
and/or sanitation poverty.
Many homes in Haiti are built with pit latrines
having an outside access door, but without any
means to seal the home from unsanitary sewer
gases and accompanying fly-borne diseases.
After installing the SaTo™, this family’s home
was free from foul odours and flies, providing a
safe and sanitary bathroom.
Schilling described the wife’s joy at realising that
their home was free from foul odours, “When I
looked back at the house, she had removed all
their belongings from the home and had begun
to wash them. This was because she realised
that their home felt clean at last.”
Conference theme
The 2016 World Plumbing Council (WPC)
Conference theme began with the belief that with
an understanding of regulations and referenced
international standards, a baseline can be
established that will work in any application and
in any country, irrespective of the environment
and local authority.
Schilling’s former students at HaïtiTec have now
installed an additional 1 000 SaTo™ units in
Haiti, transforming community health prospects,
one toilet at a time. Globally, American Standard/
LIXIL has one million SaTo™ products sold or in
field trials in countries including Kenya, Uganda,
Rwanda, Haiti, the Philippines, and India,
granting approximately five million people access
to safe and hygienic sanitation.
Water, sanitation, energy, and environment are
inextricably linked around the world and affect
every basic human right. The plumbing sector’s
role in providing access to water and sanitation,
while ensuring that it is both designed and
implemented properly, safely, and efficiently, are
critical to building healthy communities, in every
corner of the world.
As international professionals in the plumbing
and health sectors, we need to facilitate
discussions that allow for innovation without
sacrificing geopolitical and socio-economic
goals. Resolving and updating existing standards
and regulations should be a priority for areas
that have poor or lax national standards in
provisioning sustainable plumbing, Schilling said.
Energy, sanitation, environment
and water
Working with the support of brands American
Standard/LIXIL Water Technology, the vicepresident of PWB, Fred Schilling, installed the
first SaTo™ safe-toilet pan in the western
hemisphere in Haiti. Schilling instructed and
worked with the plumbing students and staff at
the HaïtiTec vocational college in Haiti to retrofit
a SaTo™ in the home of a local banana farmer.
Regulations and standards
“Regulations and standards may also be
useful in understanding, preventing or
resolving increasing water rights conflicts.
Population growth in urban areas worldwide
is increasing exponentially, but lacking basic
plumbing infrastructure precludes meeting
traditional design expectations that are based
on connecting to municipal water and sewer,”
Domenico DiGregorio, president of PWB said.
November 2016 Volume 22 I Number 9
Domenico DiGregorio presents the outcomes
of the breakaway on sanitation.
A common thread in Schilling’s breakout
presentation was for ‘out of the box’ thinking to
develop solutions and to provide opportunities that
enable an evolution of ideas for problem solving.
Urban and rural water and sanitation issues
require innovative solutions respectful of local
conditions and social customs, providing
sustainable plumbing systems that work for
the stakeholders at their starting point to be
successful, said Schilling.
Urban and rural water and sanitation systems
need different approaches given their unique geosociological, cultural, and economic environments.
In rural areas, biomass digesters for lower volume
users offer advantages in terms of sustainability.
Technological advances in transportable
wastewater treatment facilities can provide
cost-effective solutions for high-density inner city
situations that lack infrastructure, he added.
A primary and often seen health risk is that
of cross-connections, which can contaminate
potable water systems, causing illness and
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