Scaling up Fecal Sludge Management Through Mobile Treatment Units

Through sweeping behavior change campaigns and people's participation, the Indian government successfully shifted cultural norms toward the wide-scale construction and use of toilets. However, fecal sludge now accumulates in septic tanks throughout the country that must be periodically removed. Building permanent infrastructure to manage the sludge is expensive, time intensive, and land intensive, often resulting in sludge being dumped - untreated - into waterways and on land, where it can transmit diseases such as as diarrhea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid, polio, and parasitic worms. To ensure fecal sludge from septic tanks is properly treated, the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Institute, an Indian nongovernmental organization, developed Mobile Treatment Units (MTUs) that empty and treat fecal sludge from septic tanks on site, collecting the solids and discharging treated water that can be used for general irrigation. Two technical engineering evaluations demonstrated that MTUs eliminate the need for expensive fixed infrastructure fecal sludge treatment plants, reach households located far from treatment plants, and can reduce or eliminate health and environmental issues caused by illegal untreated fecal sludge disposal. MTUs are locally-made and cost less to operate than vacuum trucks. However, as a new solution, national and state governments have yet to fully embrace MTUs as a preferred approach to manage fecal sludge. With support from the DIV Fund and other partners, WASH Institute has tested and continues to implement several public and private sector partnership-based approaches and business models to position MTUs for scale and eliminate widespread disposal of untreated fecal sludge. With approximately 90 million septic tanks serving over 300 million people throughout India, the rapid expansion and commercialization of MTUs could benefit hundreds of millions of people.