Distress to Dignity

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People don’t always like to talk about faecal sludge management. But it can be the key to improving lives, both for waste workers and underserved communities.

We are facilitating bold sanitation systems that will make Bangladesh’s cities and towns cleaner, healthier and fairer.

While almost everyone in Bangladesh has access to a basic toilet, human waste isn’t always safely managed and can cause huge problems, especially for the workers who risk their health and dignity to clean it up.

Waste disposal systems managed by local authorities do not cater for poor, urban ‘slum’ dwellings. Instead, informal waste workers have to step up to carry out this vital service.

Waste workers often work in dangerous conditions where they have to empty the contents of pit latrines and septic tanks by hand, facing toxic substances without protective clothing. Their pay and job security are poor, and they are often excluded from society and discriminated against because of the work they do.

Because there is no established system for emptying waste and treating it safely, it’s often dumped in local rivers and nearby wastelands, causing serious health and environmental hazards.

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Dates

2014 – 2024

Country

Bangladesh

Two construction workers in orange hard hats.

Themes

Wash and waste management

A group of men in hard hats are smiling while working on faecal sludge management.

Project Overview

Full title: Towards a dignified life for all sanitation workers in Bangladesh

Dates: 2014-2024

Location: Various urban centres in Bangladesh (Faridpur since 2014, expanding to Bagerhat, Barguna, Gazipur City, Kolaroa, Laksam, Magura, Meherpur, Rajbari and Satkhira in 2022).

Our role: Practical Action is collaborating with sanitary waste workers and the local authorities to transform the way faecal sludge is collected, processed and treated, and improve the health, safety and status of workers. We’re also working to change public attitudes towards those working in the toilet waste sector.

Participants: By 2022, we had reached 561,150 city residents. As the programme expands, we will work with 3,000 sanitation workers across 60 co-operatives, reaching 1.1 million people across 10 urban centres.

Project budget, Phase 1 & 2 (2014 – 2022): £2.75 million

Project budget, Phase 3 (2022 – 2024): £736,000

Theme: WASH and waste management

Lead donor: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Two construction workers in blue hard hats.

42%

of waste and sanitation workers unable to work due to frequent illness

A blue toilet icon on a green background.

66%

of urban residents lacked safely managed sanitation services in 2020

Our approach

We take a systems approach, working across sectors to facilitate bold collaborations between waste workers, communities, the private sector and local government. Our ‘Emptier to Entrepreneur’ model is transforming the sanitation sector.

Informal workers are supported to form co-operatives. By joining together in a formal business, workers are able to develop improved operating practices and obtain the licenses needed for the safe emptying, transport, and disposal of waste. Employment conditions are improved and workers get access to personal protective equipment. New, innovative technology is leased to the co-operatives from the municipality; waste workers swap emptying latrines by hand for ‘Vacutag’ suction technology, which is quicker, cleaner and much safer.

The waste is safely treated at a management plant, using ingenuity to create value. Faecal sludge is then combined with organic household waste collection to create organic ‘co-compost’ and compressed bio-gas. This not only generates a new income stream but also contributes to a lasting sanitation system that is fit for both people and the planet.

View the Solid Waste Management Model

People are recognising the importance of the work we do. My neighbours have started to respect me more; they see that I’m supporting my family through this work. Before, my work was very irregular. Now that I work here and am a member of the co-operative, I have a dependable income.

Aklima, organic fertiliser producer

Our goals

After successfully working with informal sanitation workers in Faridpur since 2014, we scaled up our Emptier to Entrepreneur model by working with co-operatives in five towns (Phase 2) and are now expanding this to a further ten towns (Phase 3) while also engaging with policymakers at a national level. Our expected outcomes in Phase 3 include:

The creation of a National Platform of Waste and Sanitation Workers co-operatives.
Co-operatives have easy access to the mechanical equipment for desludging services.
Co-operatives have easy access to finance through a public-private partnership model for scaling up inclusive sanitation to a citywide level.

Our aims

By the end of 2022
- 305,000 people in five towns are being reached by the services of Faecal Sludge Management (FSM) co-operatives, including 60,000 slum dwellers.
- Safe human waste disposal has more than doubled, from 1.48m to 3.57m litres per year in Faridpur from 2017 to 2022.
- Incomes for co-operative members in Faridpur increased by 44% in Faridpur between 2017 and 2022.
- Workers have been trained in safe practices, and can access personal protective equipment, medical care and health insurances at lower costs, bringing benefits to 1,084 workers and their family members in five towns.
- In 2022, 15 vehicles were in use across the five towns – compared to only two in 2017.
Innovative and ingenious solutions
- Three different types of waste transporting vehicles, ensuring access for hard-to-reach communities.
- Five innovations for de-sludging.
- Partnership with Metal PVT Ltd ensures the availability of innovative technologies in collection and transportation for the next ten years.
- Digital approaches to managing household services.
- An integrated approach for treatment, which combines human waste with organic household waste, to safely produce co-compost and compressed bio-gas.
- A local social enterprise, Society Development Committee, is contracted to manage the Compost Research Centre.
Project expansion
We utilised our insights and learning to create inclusive and sustainable sanitation best-practice business models that have facilitated the expansion from Faridpur into four more towns (Rajbari, Meherpur, Magura and Laksam). A further nine co-operatives have been formed with 252 members, bringing the total membership to 529. From 2022, with further funding support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, we’re working with waste and sanitation in ten towns and cities across Bangladesh.

We are also using our knowledge and experience to transform Faecal Sludge Management systems beyond the towns and cities where we work directly with waste worker co-operatives, demonstrating that big change can start small:
- Our innovative business model for pit emptying led by waste workers has been integrated into two national programmes.
- New Multi-Stakeholder Steering Committees have been formed across five municipalities, providing the co-operatives with influence in governance and investment.
- Municipal sanitation budgets were successfully influenced with at least 30% now allocated exclusively for decentralized faecal sludge management.
- Four municipalities have produced or updated their sanitation plans, following the application of our approach and learning.
- We successfully advocated for the inclusion of pro-poor and gender transformative approaches during the development of a new FSM Institutional and Regulatory Framework and the National Action Plan (2020) to deliver this.
- We’ve provided training and consultation to the national Urban Development Directorate, Dept. of Health and Engineering, on development plans, and through our role as Secretariat of the national FSM Network
- We have also provided advice on best practices to the City-Wide Inclusive Sanitation Hub for South Asia and with key sector partners (for example, Asian Development Bank and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) so that our approach can be replicated across Bangladesh, India and Vietnam.
Sustainable Development Goals

This project contributes to progress against the 17 SDGs.

Goal 3: Good Health and Well-being
Safe handling and disposal of waste reduces the spread of communicable diseases.

Goal 5: Gender Equality
We are bringing new innovations which empower women in terms of representation and new economic opportunities.

Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation
We work with informal workers to develop safe, affordable and reliable water and sanitation services in underserved communities.

Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
Our ‘Emptier to Entrepreneur’ approach provide waste workers with a safe and dignified way to make a living.

We have the special ‘gulper’ equipment, which means we can empty the pit from outside without having to get in and get dirty. […] There is less discrimination now. Householders see that we keep ourselves clean using soap and the protective clothing and they are happier to have us working on their property.

Nuider, a toilet-pit emptier