Water Wheel Nov/Dec 2022: On-Site Sanitation

Abstract

More than a decade of sludge management research behind new guide In 2008, a research team from Partners in Development and the University of KwaZulu-Natal embarked on a WRC-funded study on deep row entrenchment (DRE) of pit latrine and wastewater sludges. The technique, pioneered in the United States in the 1970s, entails disposing of sludge by burying it in a trench under at least 300 mm of soil, which prevents odours and reduces attraction of disease vectors such as rats, flies and mosquitoes. Forestry or fruit trees, or even other crops like sugarcane and maize, can be planted on or between the trenches to take advantage of the sludge’s high nutrient levels. This initial project, published as WRC Report No. 1829/1/12 in 2012, included trials at a number of different study sites, one of which was a two-hectare area of gently sloping ground in a Sappi timber plantation near Howick. In November 2009 the site was pegged out into 30 blocks measuring 20 m x 20 mand separated by a 10 m buffer zone.

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