Current World Environment

Introduction

Understanding of sanitation used by many references had been referring to the definition of sanitation by WHO.^1,2 Next was the vision of ecological sanitation, shortly ECOSAN^3,4 had extended the term sanitation with pollution prevention. In the context of pollution prevention, the important message was change the mindset of "throw away the waste as soon as possible" to "as much as possible utilizing the waste". In line with ECOSAN was sustainable sanitation, shortly SUSAN⁵ with the addition of sustainability criteria, namely health and hygiene, environment and natural resources, technology and operations, financial and economic issues, socio-cultural and institutional aspects. It also included the provision of drinking water and sanitation, biodiversity and ecosystem management, energy, agricultural productivity and health.⁶ Because sanitation was meant to sanitize the environment,³ the environmental sanitation term used by some countries in all continents,^7-9 and also in this paper.

Most definitions of environmental sanitation were based on the measures or services and on its results. Little was known the definition of environmental sanitation in scientific perspective. However, the following definition could represent it:”Environmental sanitation means the art and science of applying sanitary, biological and physical science principles and knowledge to improve and control the environment and factors therein for the protection of the health and welfare of the public.”.⁷ Scientific definition was essential to identify the necessity of sciences and technologies, which supported the implementation of sanitation services and for scientific development as well as formal education curriculum.

Based on the definition provided for environmental sanitation, this paper proposed a concern regarding the environmental damage caused by natural events, and formulated environmental sanitation platforms to perform problem solving as well as scientific research in the future.

Special concern

Environmental sanitation as services had been devoted to the health of all human and environmental health simultaneously. Services also included process, which involved other environmental components, i.e. biological components, which consisted of animals and plants; physico-chemical components that covered air, waterand soil. In addition, the service alsoincludedtheprevention ofenvironmental damage.

It had been well known that environmental damage could occur due to the efficiency of the process never reaches 100%, resulted in the accumulation of persistent materials, which to some extent could be damaging to the environment. Moreover, it was important to note the environmental damage caused by natural processes, such as catastrophic hurricanes, which brought about physical damage in one place and accumulating contaminants on other places. Natural disasters certainly were difficult to be predicted and might be unavoidable, but the important thing was the efforts to minimize the negative impact of disasters. Facing to the post disaster conditions, the impacted environment had to be rehabilitated.

However, in thebestof myknowledgeso far, concerning theremediation, restoration, or rehabilitation ofthe pollutedenvironmenthad notexplicitlyexpressedin the coverage ofenvironmental sanitation. The addition ofsuch service wastocreate anenvironmental sanitationcapable ofstrengthening thethree sustainable development pillars: social-economic-environment and goals.

Three platforms

In addition to SUSAN criteria, environmental sanitation providedthe followingthreeplatforms for sustainability, i.e. Environmental Resources, Environmental Repression, Environmental Remediation, shortly 3ER.

Environmental Resources

In this platform, the environmental resources were air, water and land given naturally, with all the content of the physical materials, chemical substances and living beings.With the mindset that wastes were valuable, thus wastewater and solid waste were included in environmental resources. Also, with the obligation to restore the damaged environment, then the one was considered to be environmental resources.

Environmental Repression

What was meant by the environment repression was pollution prevention efforts. Pollution prevention was important for the purpose of safeguarding environmental resources so that it could continue to be used as a source of life. On this platform involved treatment or process for resources and all the waste materials for reuse.

Environmental Remediation

As described in the special concern, environmental remediation referred to the polluted/damaged endironment. One should not let the damaged environment remained on the conditions. Therefore, restoration of the environment needed to be done by any one or a combination of  recovery methods.

The following described each of the platforms in connection to sustainable environmental sanitation. The list was limited to technical aspect in general, because millions of detailed engineering had been available. Moreover, in implemention stage, all SUSAN criteria should be applied.

Conclusion

The damaged of environment required special attention, and thus should be included in environmental sanitation services. Both environmental repression and environmental remediation efforts were direct benefit for environmental resources to be sustainable. These were identified as sustainable environmental sanitation.

References