Community’s Feces Disposal Behavior in Rangkah Village, Surabaya

Abstract

Background: Environmental problems in Indonesia are complex to solve. Most people in Indonesia still inappropriately dispose feces in wrong places. Based on the Joint Monitoring Program WHO/UNICEF, 55 million people in Indonesia still had unhygienic defecation behavior. Rangkah Village, Tambaksari District face the same problem because its population is not balance with its area, so settling septic-tank becomes a problem. Objective: This study identified community’s feces disposal behavior in Community Association Number 8 of Rangkah Village. Method: The primary data were collected through questionnaires, interview, and observation distributed to 249 respondents in Community Association Number 8 of Rangkah Village. While the secondary data were obtained through primary healthcare report. The analysis was done by using Slovin formula. Results: The respondents had good knowledge and attitude towards the importance of having latrines, septic-tank, and the danger of disposing feces into a river. However, environment has a big impact on the respondents to dispose fece into the river. They have already had latrines, but not septic-tank due to the lack of landfill for septic-tank and community’s low economic level. Conclusion: Feces drain from the toilet to the river through pipes, and this causes environmental pollution which spreads diseases to people around the river. This problem still cannot be solved by the healthcare providers and local government although they have done a program that deals with this problem.