This presentation outlines the Fecal Sludge Management Challenges in Bidibidi Refugee Settlement, as seen from the perspective of Global Sanitation Concern - a local CBO in partnership with Sanwas Limited - an engineering consultancy. The presentation highlights the existing gaps due to central sewerage system as the population relies on poorly managed on-site sanitation technologies coupled with high incidences of water and sanitation related diseases and degradation of the environment in and around the district bearing in mind that Yumbe District has inadequate capacities (technical, financial and human) to plan & provide sustainable sanitation services to host and refugee communities. The report underlines the "way we want to solve the problem" and what needs to be done at large.

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GSC-U is a non-profitable CBO registered with Yumbe DLG, YTC/000604,
Address: Yumbe T.C. (Behind UDRMC Office), aims to promote sanitation
beyond physical boarders.
- Water & Sanitation Engineering.
- Technical and Field Studies.
- Civil and Structural Construction.
- Project Design, Costing, Monitoring and Evaluation.
- Engineering Consultancy.
Sanwas is a LLC registered with UBoS (Reg. No. 80020000197799),
Address: Melia Cell, Yumbe T.C and Bweyogerere, Kampala.
- Garbage collection and management.
- Emptying & desludging of toilets and other sanitary facilities.
- Promotion of hand washing practices.
- Distribution of sanitary materials.
- Health education promotion.
- Youth empowerment in market driven sanitation.
- Partnership (NGOs & Gov’t) in sustainable sanitation practices.

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63%
37%
Sanitation coverage
- No central sewerage system
- Population relies on poorly managed on-site sanitation
- High incidences of water and sanitation related diseases and
degradation of the environment in and around the district.
- YDLG has inadequate capacities (technical, financial and human) to
plan & provide sustainable sanitation services to host and refugee
communities.
58%
52%
69%
71%
66%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
Zone 1 Zone 2 Zone 3 Zone 4 Zone 5
Zonal latrine coverage (%)

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0%
2%
4%
6%
8%
10%
12%
14%
16%
18%
Refugee % by Settlement
- Bidibidi Refugee Settlement hosts an
estimated 224,750 refugees.
- Many I/NNGOs have constructed HH
latrines for PSNs and offered
subsidies for Non PSN latrine
construction.
- Many HH latrines constructed in
Bidibidi settlement are continuously
filling upCoverage,
63%
Target,
74%
Standard,
85%
Sanitation coverage benchmarks
- Gross lack of funding due to donor fatigue has
brought an end to new HH latrine
construction.
- Hundreds of families have resorted to latrine
sharing and Open Defecation.
- The settlement is within reach of the
Decentralized Feacal Sludge Treatment
(DEFAST) plant.

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Semi Mechanized
(Labour & Machine)
Excreta Removal
Fully Mechanized
(100% Machine)
Pure Manual
Desludging
Pure Manual Exhaustion
• The most basic approach is
the scooping technique.
• With scooping the emptiers
open the squatting slab and
scoop out the pit.
• The waste is then either
carried away in containers or
buried on site if there is
space for a hole to be dug.
• Advantages - Robust and
highly sustainable, resilient
to variability, low capital
startup cost, money goes to
the community.
Semi Mechanized Emptying
• This details some tools and
mechanisms that have been
developed to assist laborers
with latrine emptying in a
semi mechanized way where
the power for the work is
manually applied but a
mechanism moves the
waste.
• Examples include;
- Manual Pit latrine Emptying
Technology (The MAPET)
- The Gulper
- The Nibbler
- The Gobbler
Fully Mechanized Emptying
• Fully mechanized waste
exhaustion systems use
engines to supply the required
power.
• The most common method
for this are systems using a
vacuum based approach to
draw the waste out of the pit.
• There is a wide variety of
machines that use a vacuum
based approach;
- Vacuum tanker
- The Microvac
- The Dung Beetle
- The Vacutug

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• The Gulper is a sewage sludge pump
based on a simple hand pump design.
• It is inexpensive and highly portable
technology.
• The foot valve on the pump is based on
a valve type commonly used in low cost
water pumps.
• The sludge pump is operated by moving
a handle on the top of the machine up
and down.
• This handle is connected by a long rod to
the foot valve at the bottom of the
pump, which is submerged in the sewage
sludge.
• The up and down motion of the foot
valve draws waste up the rising pipe and
out of the outlet at the top of the pump.
The Gulper – Our predominant technology

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Transportation
 Low-cost transport equipment can be manually propelled by human
or animal power or motor-propelled using a fuel-powered engine.
 Transportation of fecal sludge is dependent on the type of vehicle to
be used, the type of sludge removal equipment, the type of the road
et cetera.
Manual transport
• Consists of standard and customized carts typically having load-beds
mounted on a single axle with one or more wheels. Sludge containers
with capacities of up to 200 litres can be carried on or in a manual cart
designed for an effective range of up to 3 km.
• Manual low-cost transport equipment generally have a small load
capacity, limited and a low travel range and low speed and they are
not suitable for long distance transport.

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Motorized transport
- Motorized transport equipment offers the potential for larger load
capacities and increased speed, leading to reduced travel times.
- Motorized tricycles are the smallest type (up to 1,000 kg) of l-c-m
transport used, they vary in size and power and are able to access
narrower paths and roads than the larger motorized vehicles, sludge
can either be transported in drums on the load bed of a tricycle or in
tank fitted to the back.
- More expensive motorized transport equipment has also been used
such as pick-up trucks with load capacities ranging from 2,000 to
5,000 kg.
- A vacuum truck or vacuum tanker consisting of a pump and a tank,
the pump pneumatically suck the sludges from a pit into the tank of
the truck, the vacuum trucks then transport the collected material to
treatment or disposal site.
- The O & M of motorized transport is generally more complex than
that of manual transport and some of these options are not always
affordable for small-scale service providers.

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Disposal & Treatment
• Treatment of human waste is being done by a 5m3 capacity
Decentralized Fecal Sludge Treatment (DEFAST) plant built by IOM,
situated in Robu village, Pena parish, Apo subcounty, Yumbe district.
• The DEFAST was put up initially to encourage the growth of sanitation
as a business, to enable resource recovery and reuse of both faecal
sludge and other municipal wastes, promote reuse of filled up pit
latrines hence reducing need for fresh pits and to improve faecal sludge
management hence promote good sanitation and public health.
• O & M of the plant is done by Global Sanitation Concern Uganda which
charges dumping fees per truck to run the plant.
• The plant consists of two residential workers who operationalize the
plant and are paid simple wages.

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IOM DEFAST Plant
- A 4 chamber oval sedimentation chamber for dewatering, separation
and bio-digestion fitted with screens to remove non biodegradable
solid substances passing through gulper screens.
- Anaerobic Baffled Reactor having a sludge layer to support growth of
anaerobic microorganisms to degrade organic pollutants.
- Anaerobic Filter packed with filtration media to about 2/3 full which
supports the growth of biological film/layer that will trap some
pathogens, suspended Solids and other remaining pollutants.
- Aerobic Planted Gravel Filter with lateral flow for removal of smell and
color plus some pollutants both organic and inorganic.
- Planted/artificial wetland for polishing the effluent and temporary
storage before discharge.
- Drying bed for further dewatering of sludge from the sedimentation
chamber.

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End Use Methodology
Methodology Description
Fertilizer as a Soil
Conditioner
Treated faecal sludge and urine to be applied to soil to
plant growth
Solid Fuel
Dried treated faecal sludge can replace wood and charcoal,
which are more expensive and damaging to the local
environment
Animal Feed Protein
Animals such as larvae feed on faecal sludge and provide a
protein source for farm animals and fish

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Entrepreneurship
• The Sanitation value chain involves construction of latrines and emptying
them to transferring and treating fecal waste in a circular economy.
 Sanitation places a high economic burden on households.
 Private sector services are barely financially viable for entrepreneurs and
not affordable for the refugees and host communities.
 Viable business models on faecal sludge management systems are
benchmarked around resource recovery.
 Additional financial flow can be generated by tapping into a customer
segment interested in resource recovery from waste derived products.
 This new value proposition of selling end products following treatment
would complement the pit emptying service of the sanitation groups.
 Multi-stakeholder approaches can adopt commercially viable & self-
sustaining business models that depart from subsidy-driven approaches.
 The additional revenue stream by sale of products generated from
treated waste result into an offset of disposal costs and increasing a
household's ability to pay for service.

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Business Models for tricycle and pickup
Unit Cost Unit - T Unit - P Amount - T Amount - P
Income streams 500,000 500,000
Pit emptying 50,000 10 10 500,000 500,000
Dry sludge sales 500 0 0 - -
Manure 500 0 0 - -
Expenses 287,000 352,000
Salaries/Wages 160,000 160,000
Office Staff Incentives 20,000 3 3 60,000 60,000
Operators wages 20,000 5 5 100,000 100,000
Operational costs 127,000 192,000
Fuel for tricycle 60,000 1 0 60,000 -
Dumping charge 20,000 2 1 40,000 20,000
Hiring of truck 300,000 0 0.5 - 150,000
Maintenance & spare parts 5,000 1 0 5,000 -
Consumables 2,000 1 1 2,000 2,000
Equipments 15,000 1 1 15,000 15,000
Marketing 5,000 1 1 5,000 5,000
Daily benefit 213,000 148,000
Annual benefit [260 days] 55,380,000 38,480,000

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• Technological options
- Cost effective latrine construction technologies should be innovated and
adopted that emphasize the lining of the pit should be adopted across
settlement to curb the effects of collapsing latrines
- Collapsed/decommissioned/condemned latrines should be replaced with
sustainable latrine types.
- Institutional latrine (drainable VIP) in schools, health centers and markets
lack a sustainable model where users charge fees for O & M.
• Business & Entrepreneurship
- Solving sanitation problems will require innovative approaches to be
developed in infrastructure, technology and cost recovery.
• Trainings
- Training Local “sanitation entrepreneurs” to receive business development
and financial management training and eventually roll out their own
business and develop CBOs.

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