Being Productive with Sanitation!

Facebook reactions to use of urine at a rooftop garden: Creative work; looks doubled organically;  Khana auna paryo ki kya ho? (could I come to eat);  chakra ji hamilai pani kitchen garden dekhaunus so that we can grow vegetable (pls show us your garden to manage at my place), Gajab ko lead farmer, (good leader farmer), कस्तो राम्रो तरिका हामरो सिकुन सबै ले "पिसाब काे मल लेनटरमा तरकारि" (fertilizer human urine and vegetable being grown in the roof); send the location of this place;  garma ta organic khane ani bahira hidda ke hunchha? blight baata jogaine updya ke chha? organic le blightbaata jagaune sakdaina ki ke ho? (Organic vegetable at home, what to eat outside? and does it control blight?); IMP practice ko lagi congrat (congratulation for IPM practice); Novel work of hardworking family, Great to see rooftop vegetable; always good to teach by demonstration; You are model; Keep it up and disseminate; Practical education to kids etc.!

The term productive sanitation can refer to a variety of sanitation systems that make productive use of the nutrients, organic matter, water and energy content of human excreta, urine and wastewater in agricultural production and aquaculture. This is a real option for  soil fertility conservation as well as for increasing agricultural productivity. It can directly contribute to food security and help to reduce malnutrition.  While productive sanitation makes sense, its implementation and scaling up in practice is not easy in many ways. One of the barriers is that many people just do not want to deal with this resource directly, even if practicing open defecation does not seem to be a problem! On the other hand, human urine from healthy people is perfectly safe to use.

Scaling up productive sanitation calls for awareness raising, advocacy and behavioral change. It also calls for continued research and development of the ways to use the urine and excreta in such a way that it is convenient and rewarding for the users while it is also safe. We all can contribute our experience to the public debate. Social media opens up many opportunities to do this, and to reach to the people who are not talking about sanitation daily as some of us do.