In Sandec News No. 11 (published in August) there’s an article (pages 14−15) by Mbaye Mbéguéré, Pierre-Henri Dodane, Ousmane Sow and Doulaye Koné on “Financial Assessment of Dakar’s Sewer vs Faecal Sludge Management”. Here’s the intro. blurb:
In Senegal’s capital Dakar, with its approx. three million inhabitants, investment and O&M costs of the conventional, centralised sewer system are considerably higher than those of the on-site faecal sludge management (FSM) system. The income generated by user fees is insufficient to cover the expenses of the centralised sewer system, yet recovery of FSM charges appears easier.
The implication seems to be that, because FSM is cheaper than conventional sewerage, it’s a good thing to do. This is the “EcoSan fallacy” (see blog of 30 November 2008): if it (whatever "it" may be) is cheaper than conventional sewerage, then you should use it. The nonsense of this way of “thinking” is rapidly understood when you remember that everything’s cheaper than conventional sewerage, as John Kalbermatten found in the 1970s (see here) and as more recently determined in South Africa (here). What’s needed is a comparison between “it” (even “them”) and simplified sewerage.
All rather tiresome!
About Me
- Duncan Mara
- University of Leeds, United Kingdom
- I'm an emeritus professor of civil engineering at the University of Leeds in England. I've been working on low-cost sanitation in developing countries since the mid-1970s, and also on low-cost wastewater treatment and reuse. I was a lecturer at the University of Nairobi, Kenya, 1970-73 and then a senior lecturer at the University of Dundee, Scotland, 1974-79 before moving to Leeds in late 1979. I was a visiting professor of sanitary engineering at the Universidade Federal da Paraiba in Campina Grande, northeast Brazil, during 1976-95, and since 1996 I have been a visiting professor of environmental engineering at the Instituto Cinara, Universidad del Valle in Cali, Colombia.