As of 2019, UNICEF has been working in over 80 countries to improve access to WASH in health-care facilities. Our work focuses on technical assistance to governments for the construction and rehabilitation of WASH infrastructure, as well as on developing national standards, policies and hygiene protocols for WASH in health-care facilities. Centralized treatment stations for these slurries not only involve large costs for construction and operation, consume energy and chemicals, and have great management requirements, but also are the nutrients lost to the air or finally disposed of in landfills. Conventional wastewater treatment systems have a large potential to be optimized and to be made more sustainable by reducing the use of water (e.g. dry systems) and improving the recovery and reuse of nutrients and energy. Kurian, Mathew; McCarney, Patricia, eds. (2010). Peri-urban Water and Sanitation Services. Springer. doi: 10.1007/978-90-481-9425-4. ISBN 978-90-481-9424-7. Archived from the original on 2022-12-11 . Retrieved 2017-09-11. WHO works with partners on promoting effective risk assessment and management practices for sanitation in communities and health facilities based on evidence and tools including WHOguidelines on sanitation and health, safe use of wastewater, recreational water quality and promotion of sanitation safety planning and sanitary inspections, and through communities of practice such as RegNet and the sanitation workers initiative.WHO also supports collaboration between WASH and health programmes where sanitation is critical for disease prevention and risk reduction including neglected tropical diseases, cholera, polio and antimicrobial resistance, and environmental surveillance of pathogens. Aspects of climate resilience are incorporated in all WHO sanitation guidance documents.

The term “dry sanitation” is not in widespread use and is not very well defined. It usually refers to a system that uses a type of dry toilet and no sewers to transport excreta. Often when people speak of “dry sanitation” they mean a sanitation system that uses urine-diverting dry toilet (UDDTs). There has been positive progress. Between 2015 and 2022, the proportion of the world’s population with access to safely managed drinking water increased from 69 per cent to 73 per cent. Why? In the chart we see the breakdown of sanitation access globally, and across regions and income groups. We see that in countries at the lowest incomes, less than one-fifth of the population have safe sanitation. Much like safe drinking water, most live in Sub-Saharan Africa. Tilley, E., Ulrich, L., Lüthi, C., Reymond, Ph. and Zurbrügg, C. (2014). Compendium of Sanitation Systems and Technologies. 2nd Revised Edition. Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag), Duebendorf, Switzerland Hygiene promotion is seen by many as an integral part of sanitation. The Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council defines sanitation as "The collection, transport, treatment and disposal or reuse of human excreta, domestic wastewater and solid waste, and associated hygiene promotion." [13]In many settings, provision of sanitation facilities alone does not guarantee good health of the population. Studies have suggested that the impact of hygiene practices have as great an impact on sanitation related diseases as the actual provision of sanitation facilities. Hygiene promotion is therefore an important part of sanitation and is usually key in maintaining good health. [50] promoting school attendance: girls’ school attendance is particularly boosted by the provision of separate sanitary facilities; Some 1245000 people in low- and middle-income countries die as a result of inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene each year, representing 89% of total WASH-attributable deaths. In 2019, the most recent year for data on the WASH burden of disease, poor sanitation is believed to be the main cause in some 564000 of these deaths and is a major factor in several neglected tropical diseases, including intestinal worms, schistosomiasis and trachoma. Poor sanitation also contributes to malnutrition.

Improved sanitation facilities range from simple but protected pit latrines to flush toilets with a sewerage connection. To be effective, facilities must be correctly constructed and properly maintained." 4 In 2022, 57% of the global population (4.6billion people) used a safely managed sanitation service; 33% (2.7billion people) used private sanitation facilities connected to sewers from which wastewater was treated; 21% (1.7billion people) used toilets or latrines where excreta were safely disposed of in situ; and 88% of the world’s population (7.2billion people) used at least a basic sanitation service (2). In the food and biopharmaceutical industries, the term "sanitary equipment" means equipment that is fully cleanable using clean-in-place (CIP) and sterilization-in-place (SIP) procedures: that is fully drainable from cleaning solutions and other liquids. The design should have a minimum amount of deadleg, or areas where the turbulence during cleaning is insufficient to remove product deposits. [49] In general, to improve cleanability, this equipment is made from Stainless Steel 316L, (an alloy containing small amounts of molybdenum). The surface is usually electropolished to an effective surface roughness of less than 0.5 micrometre to reduce the possibility of bacterial adhesion. Sanitation includes all four of these technical and non-technical systems: Excreta management systems, wastewater management systems (included here are wastewater treatment plants), solid waste management systems as well as drainage systems for rainwater, also called stormwater drainage. [ citation needed] However, many in the WASH sector only include excreta management in their definition of sanitation. Between 1990 and 2015, the country’s population equation reversed from 36% living in urban areas to 64% living in rural areas to 54% in urban and 46% rural (UNICEF and WHO, 2015)and IVs are either forgone or triaged. — Daniel Wolfe, Washington Post, 3 Nov. 2023 By June 2023, the alliance’s designers had created 26 projects to improve water quality and sanitation, ranging from a social media awareness campaign to encourage U.K. residents to save water to a low-cost zip bag of reusable and affordable menstrual products for remote rural communities. — Bynicholas Gordon, Fortune, 30 Oct. 2023 Five months after the fire at the Miami-Dade WTE, the county’s sanitation chief resigned after 15 years in leadership there, issuing a warning on his way out: Find somewhere to put all the trash, or halt construction projects in the area to slow waste pile-up. — J.j. McCorvey, NBC News, 29 Oct. 2023 Regardless of the courts, society has an obligation to provide assistance to help people get off the street for humanitarian, public safety and sanitation reasons. — Michael Smolens, San Diego Union-Tribune, 27 Oct. 2023 Vaccines, sanitation, antibiotics, and other advances allow many more people to survive infectious diseases that used to kill them during childhood. — Lydia Denworth, Scientific American, 17 Oct. 2023 The recurring periods of violence have led to high levels of disruption to infrastructure, particularly water and sanitation, as well as power plants, Weir said. — Julia Jacobo, ABC News, 13 Oct. 2023 Designing better sanitation and water access The alliance, formally launched in April 2022, counts some of the world’s largest companies— PepsiCo, General Mills, Microsoft, Lixil, Nestle—among its nine corporate members. — Bynicholas Gordon, Fortune, 30 Oct. 2023 See More Poor sanitation reduces human well-being, social and economic development due to impacts such as anxiety, risk of sexual assault, and lost opportunities for education and work. As at 2015, only one rural household out of ten were using improved household toilets while three in every ten of them practiced open defecation. In December 2006, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2008 "The International Year of Sanitation", in recognition of the slow progress being made towards the MDGs sanitation target. [55] The year aimed to develop awareness and more actions to meet the target. Mara, Duncan (2017). "The elimination of open defecation and its adverse health effects: a moral imperative for governments and development professionals". Journal of Water Sanitation and Hygiene for Development. 7 (1): 1–12. doi: 10.2166/washdev.2017.027. ISSN 2043-9083. Archived from the original on 2018-06-21 . Retrieved 2017-08-17.

Further information: History of water supply and sanitation, Toilet §History, and History of waste management Ensuring that everyone has access to sustainable water and sanitation services is a critical climate change mitigation strategy for the years ahead. WASH in health-care facilities helps reduce the risk of infection and improves prevention and control — crucial during outbreaks like cholera, Ebola, COVID-19 and other infectious diseases.

Floor-Standing

Water pollution poses a significant challenge to human health and the environment in many countries. UNICEF extended the objective of eradicating open defecation to effective solid and liquid waste management in all cities and villages. By 2019, according to the latest estimates, the number of people without access to toilets has reduced significantly by an estimated 450 million people.