(1) Kitchen and animal waste because biogas for energy saving is needed --> But the organic load is to high for the wastewater treatment
(2) Treated domestic wastewater for irrigating food garden is needed
--> But not so much and not all the time
(3) Water temperature goes down to 9°C in winter time. -->Actually to cold for biological treatment processes
(4) Can the construction not be done cheaper?
--> On-site sanitation may not cost much, shall be repaid within few years, shall bring clean water and much biogas
Those are the 4 major challenges facing the BORDA partner TED (Technologies for Economic Development) in Lesotho. But on the other hand, Lesotho is an ideal place for DEWATS application. Septic tanks with soak-away are either not allowed by authorities or do not work due to the ground texture. Regular empting of the septic tanks is expensive and the commercial utility can hardly serve the demand. Thus many private households, landlords of rental houses and institutions invest in a Biogas/DEWATS system provided by TED in cooperation with BORDA.
Africa is by no means ‘one‘ place, but the country profiles show some similarities in the issues faced by the majority of sub-Saharan countries. One of the biggest problems is the overwhelming weight of on-site sanitation, which places the emphasis for sanitation on households rather than service or utility providers. Other issues arise from the pace of demographic growth and rapid urbanization and growth of informal settlements.
The location could not better selected, right in Ndola in the Copper Belt Region of Zambia. The area used to be rich and needed a lot of labour, but things have changed. The labourers offspring’s are still living in the same squatters as the bachelor governmental employees, but the families have grown and the pressure on the sanitation system as well. Until it collapsed. Drains are blocked, toilets dismantled. Out of 300 inhabitants in such a settlement area not a single one has a regular job. Survival means food in the first place… the last point where the community can spend its scarce resources on, are better sanitation facilities and toilets. But they are very urgently required.
DEWATS-CBS
The DEWATS- CBS project in Southern African Development Countries (SADC) kicked-off through the cooperation with TED (Technology for Economic Development) in Lesotho beginning of 2007 after a six months warm-up phase. Tasks of that new cooperation office are a) to support TED’s efforts in a sustainable business growth in providing on-site sanitation to private and public markets. As an implementation NGO, TED develops and transfers economic and ecological technologies into their country and tries to combine commercial and non-commercial activities. Task b) of the TED-BORDA cooperation is to link-up TED with BORDA-SADC, to establish a network and to serve DEWATS-CBS learning and demonstration projects in the SADC countries like South Africa, Zambia, Tanzania, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe. It is a big challenge for the new team.