Sanitation

Sanitation is the hygienic means of promoting health through prevention of human contact with the
hazards of wastes as well as the treatment and proper disposal of sewage wastewater. Hazards can be
either physical, microbiological, biological or chemical agents of disease. Wastes that can cause health
problems include human and animal feces, solid wastes, domestic wastewater (sewage, sullage,
greywater), industrial wastes and agricultural wastes. Hygienic means of prevention can be by using
engineering solutions (e.g., sewage and wastewater treatment), simple technologies (e.g., latrines,
septic tanks), or even by personal hygiene practices (e.g., hand washing with soap).

The World Health Organization states that

"Sanitation generally refers to the provision of facilities and services for the safe disposal of human urine
and feces. Inadequate sanitation is a major cause of disease world-wide and improving sanitation is
known to have a significant beneficial impact on health both in households and across communities. The
word 'sanitation' also refers to the maintenance of hygienic conditions, through services such as garbage
collection and wastewater disposal.

The term sanitation is applied to a wide range of subjects such as

Improved sanitation refers to the management of human feces at the household level. This
terminology is the indicator used to describe the target of the Millennium Development Goal on
sanitation, by the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation.
On-site sanitation the collection and treatment of waste is done where it is deposited. Examples are
the use of pit latrines, septic tanks, and Imhoff tanks
Food sanitation refers to the hygienic measures for ensuring food safety
Environmental sanitation the control of environmental factors that form links in disease transmission.
Subsets of this category are solid waste management, water and wastewater treatment, industrial
waste treatment and noise and pollution control
Ecological sanitation an approach that tries to emulate nature through the recycling of nutrients and
water from human and animal wastes in a hygienically safe manner.

Wastewater collection
The standard sanitation technology in urban areas is the collection of wastewater in sewers, its
treatment in wastewater treatment plants for reuse or disposal in rivers, lakes or the sea. Sewers are
either combined with storm drains or separated from them as sanitary sewers. Combined sewers are
usually found in the central, older parts or urban areas. Heavy rainfall and inadequate maintenance can
lead to combined sewer overflows or sanitary sewer overflows, i.e., more or less diluted raw sewage
being discharged into the environment. Industries often discharge wastewater into municipal sewers,
which can complicate wastewater treatment unless industries pre-treat their discharges.[4]

The high investment cost of conventional wastewater collection systems are difficult to afford for many
developing countries. Some countries have therefore promoted alternative wastewater collection
systems such as condominial sewerage, which uses pipes with smaller diameters at lower depth with
different network layouts from conventional sewerage.

Wastewater treatment
In developed countries treatment of municipal wastewater is now widespread,[5] but not yet universal
(for an overview of technologies see wastewater treatment). In developing countries most wastewater
is still discharged untreated into the environment. For example, in Latin America only about 15% of
collected sewerage is being treated (see water and sanitation in Latin America)

Health effects
For any social and economic development, adequate sanitation in conjunction with good hygiene and
safe water are essential to good health (Mara, Lane and Scott and Trouba 1). Lack of proper sanitation
causes diseases. Most of the diseases resulting from sanitation have a direct relation to poverty. The
lack of clean water and poor sanitation has caused many diseases and the spread of diseases. Sanitation
is very important in order to keep good health. One of the most significant diseases that arise from poor
sanitation is diarrhea. Deaths resulting from diarrhea are estimated to be between 1.6 and 2.5 million
deaths every year (Mara, Lane and Scott and Trouba 2). Most of the affected are young children below
the ages of five. Other diseases that are caused by poor sanitation include schistosomiasis, trachoma,
and soil-transmitted Helminthiases.
Poor sanitation accounts for almost 50 percent of underweight child since it has a direct link to diarrhea.
Children suffering for diarrhea are more vulnerable to become underweight. According to Mara, Lane,
and Scott and Trouba (3), about 26 percent acute respiratory infections occur in children who are
malnourished, which has a direct link to diarrhea. Sanitation is a serious issue that is affecting most parts
of the world especially the developing countries. On a global scale, the most affected are children who
in most cases lose their lives due to diseases caused by poor sanitation. Major initiatives need to be set
up if the MDG goal on sanitation is to be achieved by 2015.

On-site treatment
In many suburban and rural areas households are not connected to sewers. They discharge their
wastewater into septic tanks or other types of on-site sanitation. On-site systems include drain fields,
which require significant area of land. This makes septic systems unsuitable for most cities.

Reuse of wastewater
The reuse of untreated wastewater in irrigated agriculture is common in developing countries. The reuse
of treated wastewater in landscaping, especially on golf courses, irrigated agriculture and for industrial
use is becoming increasingly widespread.

Ecological sanitation
Ecological sanitation is sometimes presented as a radical alternative to conventional sanitation systems.
Ecological sanitation is based on composting or vermicomposting toilets where an extra separation of
urine and feces at the source for sanitization and recycling has been done. It thus eliminates the
creation of blackwater and eliminates fecal pathogens. If ecological sanitation is practiced municipal
wastewater consists only of greywater, which can be recycled for gardening. However, in most cases
greywater continues to be discharged to sewers.

Sanitation and public health

The importance of the isolation of waste lies in an effort to prevent diseases which can be transmitted
through human waste, which afflict both developed countries as well as developing countries to
differing degrees. It is estimated that up to 5 million people die each year from preventable waterborne
diseases,[6] as a result of inadequate sanitation and hygiene practices. The effects of sanitation has
impacted the society of people throughout history.[7] Sanitation is a necessity for a heathy life.[8] The
results of studies published in Griffins Public Sanitation show that better sanitation produces an
enhanced feeling of wellbeing.

What is safety?
Safety is the state of being "safe" (from French sauf), the condition of being protected against physical,
social, spiritual, financial, political, emotional, occupational, psychological, educational or other types or
consequences of failure, damage, error, accidents, harm or any other event which could be considered
non-desirable. Safety can also be defined to be the control of recognized hazards to achieve an
acceptable level of risk. This can take the form of being protected from the event or from exposure to
something that causes health or economical losses. It can include protection of people or of possessions.

Types of safety
It is important to distinguish between products that meet standards, that are safe, and those that
merely feel safe. The highway safety community uses these terms:

Normative safety
Normative safety is achieved when a product or design meets applicable standards and practices for
design and construction or manufacture, regardless of the product's actual safety history.

Substantive safety
Substantive or objective safety occurs when the real-world safety history is favorable, whether or not
standards are met.

Perceived safety
Perceived or subjective safety refers to the users' level of comfort and perception of risk, without
consideration of standards or safety history. For example, traffic signals are perceived as safe, yet under
some circumstances, they can increase traffic crashes at an intersection. Traffic roundabouts have a
generally favorable safety record[2] yet often make drivers nervous.
Low perceived safety can have costs. For example, after the 9/11/2001 attacks, many people chose to
drive rather than fly, despite the fact that, even counting terrorist attacks, flying is safer than driving.
Perceived risk discourages people from walking and bicycling for transportation, enjoyment or exercise,
even though the health benefits outweigh the risk of injury.[3]

Security
Also called social safety or public safety, security addresses the risk of harm due to intentional criminal
acts such as assault, burglary or vandalism.
Because of the moral issues involved, security is of higher importance to many people than substantive
safety. For example, a death due to murder is considered worse than a death in a car crash, even though
in many countries, traffic deaths are more common than homicides.

THE HAZARDS ANALYSIS CRITICAL POINT (HACCP)

Hazard analysis and critical control points or HACCP is a systematic preventive approach to food safety
from biological, chemical, and physical hazards in production processes that can cause the finished
product to be unsafe, and designs measurements to reduce these risks to a safe level. In this manner,
HACCP is referred as the prevention of hazards rather than finished product inspection. The HACCP
system can be used at all stages of a food chain, from food production and preparation processes
including packaging, distribution, etc. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the United States
Department of Agriculture (USDA) say that their mandatory HACCP programs for juice and meat are an
effective approach to food safety and protecting public health. Meat HACCP systems are regulated by
the USDA, while seafood and juice are regulated by the FDA. The use of HACCP is currently voluntary in
other food industries.
HACCP is believed to stem from a production process monitoring used during World War II because
traditional "end of the pipe" testing on artillery shell's firing mechanisms could not be performed, and a
large percent of the artillery shells made at the time were either duds or misfiring.[1] HACCP itself was
conceived in the 1960s when the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) asked
Pillsbury to design and manufacture the first foods for space flights. Since then, HACCP has been
recognized internationally as a logical tool for adapting traditional inspection methods to a modern,
science-based, food safety system. Based on risk-assessment, HACCP plans allow both industry and
government to allocate their resources efficiently in establishing and auditing safe food production
practices. In 1994, the organization of International HACCP Alliance was established initially for the US
meat and poultry industries to assist them with implementing HACCP and now its membership has been
spread over other professional/industrial areas.

Hence, HACCP has been increasingly applied to industries other than food, such as cosmetics and
pharmaceuticals. This method, which in effect seeks to plan out unsafe practices based on science,
differs from traditional "produce and sort" quality control methods that do nothing to prevent hazards
from occurring and must identify them at the end of the process. HACCP is focused only on the health
safety issues of a product and not the quality of the product, yet HACCP principles are the basis of most
food quality and safety assurance systems,and the United States, HACCP compliance is regulated by 21
CFR part 120 and 123. Similarly, FAO/WHO published a guideline for all governments to handle the issue
in small and less developed food business.

Principles of HACCP
1.Conduct a hazard analysis-Plans determine the food safety hazards and identify the preventive
measures the plan can apply to control these hazards. A food safety hazard is any biological, chemical,
or physical property that may cause a food to be unsafe for human consumption.
2.Identify critical control points-A critical control point (CCP) is a point, step, or procedure in a food
manufacturing process at which control can be applied and, as a result, a food safety hazard can be
prevented, eliminated, or reduced to an acceptable level.
3.Establish critical limits for each critical control point-A critical limit is the maximum or minimum value
to which a physical, biological, or chemical hazard must be controlled at a critical control point to
prevent, eliminate, or reduce to an acceptable level.
4.Establish critical control point monitoring requirements-Monitoring activities are necessary to ensure
that the process is under control at each critical control point. In the United States, the FSIS requires
that each monitoring procedure and its frequency be listed in the HACCP plan.
5.Establish corrective actions-These are actions to be taken when monitoring indicates a deviation from
an established critical limit. The final rule requires a plant's HACCP plan to identify the corrective actions
to be taken if a critical limit is not met. Corrective actions are intended to ensure that no product is
injurious to health or otherwise adulterated as a result of the deviation enters commerce.
6.Establish procedures for ensuring the HACCP system is working as intended-Validation ensures that
the plants do what they were designed to do; that is, they are successful in ensuring the production of a
safe product. Plants will be required to validate their own HACCP plans. FSIS will not approve HACCP
plans in advance, but will review them for conformance with the final rule.Verification ensures the
HACCP plan is adequate, that is, working as intended. Verification procedures may include such activities
as review of HACCP plans, CCP records, critical limits and microbial sampling and analysis. FSIS is
requiring that the HACCP plan include verification tasks to be performed by plant personnel. Verification
tasks would also be performed by FSIS inspectors. Both FSIS and industry will undertake microbial
testing as one of several verification activities.
Verification also includes 'validation' the process of finding evidence for the accuracy of the HACCP
system (e.g. scientific evidence for critical limitations).
7.Establish record keeping procedures-The HACCP regulation requires that all plants maintain certain
documents, including its hazard analysis and written HACCP plan, and records documenting the
monitoring of critical control points, critical limits, verification activities, and the handling of processing
deviations. Implementation involves monitoring, verifying, and validating of the daily work that is
compliant with regulatory requirements in all stages all the time. The differences among those three
types of work are given by Saskatchewan Agriculture and Foodd businesses.