Safe management of faecal sludge is a big challenge for Bangladesh. Only Dhaka City has sewerage facilities for about 22% of the city, which is insignificant compared to the whole country.
To manage this sludge, people mainly depend on an unsafe manual process which is bad for the environment. Sweepers mainly use traditional equipment like a bucket and rope to collect the sludge from the pit and dump into the nearby open water body, drain, or on open land which is harmful for their health and for others.
Most cities and towns have no management system for sewerage due to a lack of capacity, awareness and willingness. One type of modern pit emptying equipment available in the market is Vacutag which is very much costly not only for the municipality but also for the private entrepreneur and sweeper.
The MAWTS Vacutag is very expensive and loan providing institutions both public and private are not interested enough to provide financial support to entrepreneurs for providing this service as a business. In this context, we have developed a low cost 1300 liter capacity mechanized covered van through our metal development center at Faridpur for sludge transportation to the treatment site and a submersible pump for sludge collection. The cost is around ৳180,000 Bangladesh Taka (£1454) for the mechanized van and ৳55000 Bangladesh Taka (£444) for the submersible pump.
This is being tested in the field by Practical Action
Collected from: Dipok Chandra Roy, Programme Manager, Urban Services Programme