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INTRODUCTION
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), 842,000 deaths could be prevented annually by improving water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH). This is despite the final progress report on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) stating that 91% of the world's population has access to an improved water source. This disparity stems from the sanitation situation that 2.4 billion people who have no access to improved sanitation facilities (ISFs).
An ISF is defined by the WHO as (a) not being shared among households and (b) able to ‘hygienically separate human excreta from human contact’ (WHO 2014; Exley et al. 2015). This is in contrast to unimproved sanitation facilities, which include the absence of any facility at all, as is the case for 946 million people who practice open defecation worldwide (JMP 2015). Current ISFs include pit latrines, pour-flush latrines, and the focus of this work, composting latrines (CLs) (Exley et al. 2015). The JMP has developed the ‘sanitation ladder’ hierarchy for sanitation technologies that include open defecation on the bottom ‘rung’ and ISFs like flush toilets connected to sewerage on the top rung (Kvarnström et al. 2011).
LITERATURE REVIEW ON PROBLEMS ADDRESSED
Latrine cost
Cost of the compost vaults slab can be reduced by using ferrocement. Ferrocement is common in developing countries and uses light-gage wire as reinforcement instead of steel rebar and is, therefore, less expensive than reinforced concrete. The cement portion refers to the 1:2 or 1:3 cement-to-sand mortar that is plastered over the reinforcing steel. These ratios must be prescribed by weight rather than volume for optimal performance and differ depending on cement origin and fabricator. Ferrocement calls for a workable mortar consistency for application, yet the water-to-cement ratio must be as low as possible for the best strength conditions. Although not the focus of the current study, thicker walls for insulation or applying a dark material to the outside of the ferrocement could improve the mechanisms described for pathogen inactivation in CLs and in ammonia-based sanitation (ABS). Ferrocement construction can be less expensive than masonry block walls due to the ease of construction not requiring skilled labor.
Latrine user acceptability
Despite the proposed benefits gained through improved sanitation...