Sanitation
and Cleanliness
for a Healthy Environment
Keeping clean and disposing of human waste (feces and urine) are necessary for good health.
If they are not taken care of in a safe way, our feces and urine can pollute the environment
and cause serious health problems, such as diarrhea, worms, cholera, and bladder infections.
Many of these problems can be prevented through:
• personal cleanliness (hygiene) — washing hands, bathing, and wearing clean clothes.
• public cleanliness (sanitation) — using clean and safe toilets, keeping water sources
clean, and disposing of garbage safely.
This chapter has information about
both personal and public cleanliness
including instructions on how to
build safe toilets. All of the toilets
described in this chapter will dispose
of human waste so it does not cause
health problems. Some of the toilets
have the added benefit of turning this
waste into fertilizer for farmers to use
in their fields. This is called ecological
sanitation.
When people handle animal waste
to make fertilizer, care must be taken
or it can cause sickness. Human feces
and urine can also fertilize the soil.
But like animal waste, human waste
carries harmful germs and must be
managed carefully.
The soil grows
crops
Fer tilizer
feeds the soil
Crops
become food
Human waste can be
turned into fertilizer
Food becomes
human waste
Ecological sanitation turns
waste into a resource.