Message from the Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia Region,
on World Water Day 2017 “Why Waste Water”
World Water Day, celebrated on 22 March every year, has often highlighted the issues related to lack of access to drinking water by poorly served households, and it is true that there are over 663 million people living without a safe water supply close to their homes or coping with the health impacts of using contaminated water.1 So why is the focus on wastewater this year? Target 3 of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) for water seeks to “improve water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping and minimizing release of hazardous chemicals and materials, halving the proportion of untreated wastewater and substantially increasing recycling and safe reuse globally” by 2030. Progress on this target will also help achieve the SDGs on health and well-being and safe water and sanitation. WHO and UNICEF estimates that 1.8 billion people use a source of drinking water contaminated with faeces,2 putting them at risk of contracting cholera, dysentery, typhoid and polio. Unsafe water, poor sanitation and hygiene cause around 842 000 deaths each year with the most at risk group being children under the age of five.3 Much of this threat to health comes from untreated wastewater.
By 2030, due to population growth, economic development and impact of climate change global demand for water is expected to grow by 50%.4 Most of this demand will be in cities where, by 2050, close to 70% of the world’s population will be living5 and will require new approaches to wastewater collection and management. Industries are also increasingly been pressured to use water efficiently by treating and recycling wastewater but are also realizing that it is providing new business opportunities and creating more “green” jobs. Agriculture is the world’s biggest water user and farmers are increasingly looking into wastewater as a new water resource with a high nutrient content.
Over 80% of the wastewater generated in the world is currently untreated or not reused,6 meaning that 80% of the world’s wastewater is wasted by letting it flow into the environment
1 WHO/UNICEF (2015) Progress on sanitation and drinking water, 2015 Update and MDG Assessment https://www.wssinfo.org/ fileadmin/user_upload/resources/JMP-Update-report-2015_English.pdf
2 WHO/UNICEF (2014), Progress on drinking water and sanitation: 2014 update: https://www.unicef.org/gambia/Progress_on_ drinking_water_and_sanitation_2014_update.pdf
3 WHO (2014), Preventing diarrhoea through better water, sanitation and hygiene: exposures and impacts in low- and middle-income countries: http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/150112/1/9789241564823_eng.pdf
4 UNHABITAT (2016), World Cities Report 2016: Urbanization and development: http://wcr.unhabitat.org/wp-content/uploads/ sites/16/2016/05/WCR-%20Full-Report-2016.pdf
5 UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2014), World Urbanization Prospects: 2014: https://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/ Publications/Files/WUP2014-Highlights.pdf
6 On average, high-income countries treat about 70% of the wastewater they generate, while that ratio drops to 38% in upper-middle-income countries and to 28% in lower-upper-middle-income countries. In low-income countries, only 8% of industrial and municipal wastewater undergoes treatment of any kind (Sato et. al, 2013).
without treatment, thus contaminating fresh waterbodies and the soil where food is grown. Due to the ever increasing pressure on our freshwater resources, we need to look at ways of reusing treated wastewater for a variety of purposes in homes, in cities, in industries and in agriculture.
The use of wastewater in agriculture is practised in many countries through informal mechanisms. Use of wastewater in agriculture presents many benefits as a nutrient rich source of water (reducing the need for extra fertilizer) but if untreated wastewater is used, it poses serious health risks to many different parties, including farm and treatment plant workers, communities and people selling or consuming food irrigated with untreated wastewater. WHO’s Guidelines on Safe Use of Wastewater in Agriculture and Aquaculture, and the Sanitation Safety Planning approach, provide a comprehensive framework to ensure that health risks are managed to protect public health for all at-risk groups. The WHO South-East Asia Region is supporting countries to build capacities to implement sanitation safety plans and promoting the tool in the region.
There are many health concerns relating to the lack of treatment and reuse of untreated wastewater, not least its role in exacerbating the development of antimicrobial resistance. Regulation and monitoring on the use of wastewater needs to be vastly improved. Various waste producing sectors such as municipalities, hospitals, industries, including pharmaceutical and livestock, need to be encouraged to develop onsite treatment plants able to neutralize antibiotics and resistant bacteria.
Knowledge about the specific content and levels of contamination in wastewater is still limited and it is essential that surveillance for understanding and for SDG monitoring is enhanced. This is an area in which SEARO will be working with its country partners very closely in the coming months and years.
