Tingloy ecosan pilot project : final project report UWEP plus programme

The Center for Advanced Philippine Studies (CAPS) facilitated an Integrated Sustainable Waste Management (ISWM) program in the Municipality of Tingloy Island, Batangas province under the global Urban Waste Management Expertise Program (UWEP), coordinated and financed by WASTE (Advisors on Urban Environment and Development), a Dutch NGO. This 9 months project (July 2002-April 2003) involved the following activities : 1) construction of 3 EcoSan (urine diversion) toilets; 2) training on operation and maintenance of these sanitation facilities; 3) monitoring on use and performance; and 4) extraction of lessons learned, recommendations and advocacy material on ecological sanitation facilities as an alternative for 'conventional' sanitation systems.

The main objective was to introduce the ecological sanitation approach in the Philippines and to demonstrate that it is an attractive alternative sanitation technology for the situation in Tingloy. The EcoSan approach and urine diverting toilets as a technology option prevent pollution, fight infections, save water, promote zero waste management and encourage food production.

This final project report relates the implementation process of the project. A certain number of problems were encountered, the sum of circumstances in which a lot of organizations may find themselves. During the first phase of the project the respective partner households and community representatives were insufficiently involved in the process of designing and constructing the toilets. Construction was not supervised enough and was executed in a too rushed manner. Analysis of the implementation process shows how next time a project like this can be done in a better and more appropriate way.