Abstract
Faecal sludge management has been a burden for most waste managers particularly in developing countries; yet a sure way of preventing the continuous disposal of this waste into drains, bushes water bodies and the environs in general has been by treatment. The introduction of a new treatment plant with the UASB technology in the management process of faecal sludge has been much welcomed as an improved technology for solving the treatment problems of the waste; but this technology is not without some challenges. It has no design criteria for the treatment of other wastes that it screens from faecal sludge. This paper assessed the foreign material load in faecal sludge dislodged at the treatment plant at the Lavender hill a suburb of the Greater Accra region of Ghana. The foreign materials in the faecal sludge were categorized into their material composition or items that were relatively easy to recognized. The characteristic components were Textile/Fabric, Condoms, Gravels, Metal, Glass, Sanitary pads, Rubber/Plastics and Others’ (cotton wool, mobile phones, broom sticks, paper wrappers, cartons, wallets, ID cards, money, feotus). The faecal sludge of Greater Accra region of Ghana contains about 0.24kg of foreign materials per cubic metre of the faecal sludge. Of this composition, the highest contribution was seen to have come from plastics contributing about 36.80%. Sanitary pads, textiles, ‘others’ category, condoms, stones, metals and glasses respectively contributing 29.89%,18.55%, 7.47%, 3.74%, 2.52%, 0.06% and 0.16%. The order of the load of the foreign materials were seen to be in the order of Plastics/Rubbers > Sanitary pads >Textiles/Fabrics > Others > Condoms > Gravels > Glass > Metals. These wastes pose mechanical and technical challenges to the treatment plant. Inasmuch as responsible environmental behavior through public sensitization on proper use of pit latrines in particular and the need for their redesign to make them almost impossible for use as dumping pits for other wastes were recommended, the utilization of some of these foreign materials that have the potential to be reused like the money, memory chips or mobile phones could potentially be a source of spread for disease like cholera and diarrhea as the FS contains a lot of pathogenic bacteria.
Highlights
Sanitation management is a herculean task for municipal waste managers so far as environmental health is concerned
The results indicate that the foreign material load in the faecal sludge in the Greater Accra region is about 0.24kg/m3 and this indicates that each truck contains an equivalent foreign material of about 2.17kg/truck
The daily foreign material load distribution is shown in figure 1, and the minimum truck received over the period was noted to be 22 trucks on the 13th day and 55 trucks being the highest recorded on the 15th day
Summary
Sanitation management is a herculean task for municipal waste managers so far as environmental health is concerned. UNICEF and the World Health Organization [1] reported that the world is far from meeting the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target on sanitation and that as much as 2.5 billion people currently cannot access improved sanitation facilities. In their 2012 report they indicated that the past decade has seen some improvement in the sanitation access worldwide. Sanitation provision should be a civic responsibility and must be done without restrictions The design of these pit latrines allows them to be used by some community dwellers as solid waste disposal points and this has resulted in the presence of non-faecal matter in the faecal sludge. This worrisome picture makes the access to sanitation a global priority
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