The Business of the Honey-Suckers in Bengaluru (India): Potentials and Limitations of Comercial Faecal Sludge Recycling - an Explorative Case Study

The global urban population is increasing rapidly; the number of urban dwellers is set to increase to 4.2 billion in 2020 out of a projected global population of 7.7 billion1, an increase that is to a large extent taking place in rapidly growing small and medium-sized towns (UN-Habitat, 2009). Typically less than 15% of urban dwellers in African cities rely on centralized collection of wastewater (Schaub-Jones, 2005).

In Asia the percentages of un-served population are equally high. In India, 40% of the 350 million dwellers are connect to a sewerage, however only 9% of the sewage is treated, 29% of the urban population is using a septic tank, and 17% is using a pit or vault latrine (AECOM and SANDEC, 2010). The part of the urban population that is not served by sewerage networks will have to rely on different forms of self-services to cover their basic needs. Most of these self-services are some kind of combination of on-site containment such as latrines of different kinds, or septic tanks, with off-site disposal. In the best of cases, the faecal sludge gets collected and then emptied at a designated site where sludge dewatering takes place. However, more often the collected faecal sludge gets disposed of haphazardly and illegally. (Koné et al, 2010).

Valfrey-Visser and Schaub-Jones (2008) discuss new options for this waste as a resource as one important topic to develop the treatment segment of the on-site market. The fact is that faecal sludge is used at a large-scale as nutrient input into agriculture in different settings around the world. It has been estimated by Scott et al (2004) that approximately 700 million people in 50 countries eat food from crops irrigated with untreated or inadequately treated wastewater from sewage systems on a total areal surface of at least 20 million hectares. Partly, the nutrient recycling is done by on-site sanitation entrepreneurs who empty the faecal sludge on agricultural fields instead of in water courses, open drains and vacant plots. These practices, albeit unsafe from a health perspective, have emerged without external support. The faecal sludge thus presents a value to farmers in the sanitation chain, which is explored by on-site sanitation entrepreneurs. (Seidu, 2010 and Bo et al. 1993).