- COP29 fight looms over climate funds for developing world
- Shanghai stocks soar to extend stimulus rally amid Asia-wide drop
- Australia moves to expand Antarctic marine park
- Tragedy of Madrid street sweeper highlights how heatwaves kill
- Survivors wait for aid as Trump's lies help cloud Helene response
- Fleeing Israeli bombs, Lebanon's displaced met with suspicion
- Jila Mossaed, from refugee poet to Swedish Academy
- Will Tesla's robotaxi reveal live up to hype?
- Drugs, people smuggling at heart of Mexico's raging violence
- 'Invisibility' and quantum computing tipped for physics Nobel
- Musk says he is 'all in' on Trump in US election
- Category 5 Hurricane Milton roars towards storm-battered Florida
- Carpenter bomb stuns Guardians as Tigers level series
- Harris, Trump and Biden mark Oct. 7 attacks as US election looms
- Oil prices extend gains on Mideast tensions, Wall Street falls
- US judge orders Google to open Android to rival app stores
- On attacks anniversary, Israel fights 'sacred' multi-front war
- Nobel scientist uncovered tiny genetic switches with big potential
- Grammy-winning Cissy Houston, mother of Whitney, dies at 91
- UN biodiversity summit in Colombia aims to turn words into action
- Georgia Supreme Court reinstates six-week abortion ban
- 'Dark day': Victims mourned around the globe on Oct. 7 anniversary
- On attacks anniversary, Israel fights multi-front war
- Mexican mayor murdered days after taking office
- Intensifying to Category 5, Hurricane Milton targets Florida
- Mission to probe smashed asteroid launches despite hurricane
- Biden, Harris mark Oct. 7 with call for Mideast peace
- Dupont set for Toulouse return after post-Olympic holiday
- French rugby bosses tighten discipline after nightmare Argentina tour
- Oil prices extend gains on Mideast tensions, Wall Street slips
- Visitors to get rare view of Rome's Trevi Fountain
- Europe's asteroid mission Hera launches despite hurricane
- Man City and Premier League both claim victory in legal case
- Deschamps delight as 'light back on' for Pogba after doping ban
- Biden, Harris urge Mideast peace on Oct. 7 anniversary
- Neeskens, tough midfielder in Cruyff's Ajax and Dutch teams
- UN warns world's water cycle becoming ever more erratic
- Oil prices extend gains on Mideast tensions, Wall Street retreats
- Ex-Dutch football star Johan Neeskens dies
- Man Utd battling to improve fortunes, says Evans
- What is microRNA? Nobel-winning discovery explained
- Masood, Abdullah centuries lift Pakistan to 328-4 in first England Test
- Hurricane Milton strengthens fast, threatens Mexico, Florida
- Tunisia's President Saied set for landslide election win
- Barca hoping to return to Camp Nou 'by end of year'
- Trump to open second golf course at Scotland resort in summer 2025
- Super-sub Jhon Duran rewarded with new Aston Villa deal
- US duo win Nobel for gene regulation breakthrough
- Masood hits first ton for four years to power Pakistan to 233-1
- Fritz wins delayed match to reach Shanghai Masters third round
RBGPF | -1.97% | 58.94 | $ | |
BCC | 1.68% | 141.27 | $ | |
JRI | -0.76% | 13.18 | $ | |
CMSD | -0.09% | 24.79 | $ | |
CMSC | -0.53% | 24.57 | $ | |
GSK | -0.49% | 38.63 | $ | |
AZN | -0.78% | 76.87 | $ | |
SCS | -0.15% | 12.95 | $ | |
RELX | -0.54% | 46.04 | $ | |
RIO | -0.11% | 69.62 | $ | |
NGG | -1.56% | 65.48 | $ | |
RYCEF | -1.45% | 6.88 | $ | |
BCE | -0.54% | 33.53 | $ | |
BTI | -0.26% | 35.2 | $ | |
VOD | 0.31% | 9.69 | $ | |
BP | 0.78% | 33.14 | $ |
'Floating toilets' help Cambodia's lake-dwelling poor
Pointing to the murky waters of the Tonle Sap, Si Vorn fights back tears as she recalls her four-year-old daughter dying from diarrhoea after playing in the polluted lake.
Her family of 12 is among 100,000 people living in floating houses on Cambodia's vast inland waterway, and while their village has 70 houses and a primary school, it has no sanitation system.
Now a local social enterprise, Wetlands Work (WW), is trying to tackle the problem by rolling out "floating toilets" to filter waste, but the high cost of installation means for now they are available to only a lucky few.
For generations, villagers whose livelihood depends on fishing have defecated directly into the water that they use for cooking, washing and bathing -- risking diarrhoea and even more severe water-borne diseases such as cholera.
"We use this water, we drink this water, and we defecate into this water. Everything!" Si Vorn, 52, told AFP, saying her family fell ill all the time.
"Every day, I worry about my health. Look at the water, there is no sanitation. I'm so worried but I don't know what to do."
- Microbe magic -
More than a million people live on or around Tonle Sap, the world's largest inland fishery, but there is no system in place for managing human waste from the 20,000 floating houses around the lake.
Cambodia, ravaged by war and the genocidal Khmer Rouge in the 1970s, is one of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia.
Around a third of the population does not have access to proper toilets, according to the WaterAid charity, and diarrhoea is a leading killer of children under five.
Wetlands Work hopes its HandyPods, as the floating toilets are properly known, can help Si Vorn's village and others like it in other countries.
HandyPods use three small tanks to filter and clean the sewage.
Human waste passes from the toilet into the first tank, then the second and third. Inside, trillions of microbes in a "biofilm" -- a slimy matrix of microorganisms -- remove pathogens and the treated water is discharged into the lake.
"We're addressing sanitation in floating villages that have never experienced sanitation before," Taber Hand, the founder of Wetlands Work, told AFP.
The resulting "grey water" may not be clean enough to drink, but it is safe to use for washing and cooking.
The company has installed 19 floating toilets in Chong Prolay, Si Vorn's village, and they have proved popular with the few that have them.
"We use this water because a bottle of clean water is 4,000 riel ($1), so we can't afford to buy clean water for using, cooking and bathing," fisherman Roeun Nov, who won a free HandyPod through a lucky draw two months ago, told AFP.
"We buy clean water for just drinking."
- Cost a barrier -
WW has installed more than 100 HandyPods in 20 villages on the lake through two separate projects funded by European Union, and aims to roll out 200 more by 2025.
The hope is that the more villagers see the toilets in action, the more they will want proper sanitation.
Outside Cambodia, WW has also installed the system in 12 villages in Myanmar, but cost is a major obstacle to widespread adoption.
The floating toilets cost around $175 each -- a huge sum of money for Tonle Sap fishing communities, where on a good day a villager might make $5.
Hand said his team was considering subsidies in the longer term, so that families would only pay $35 to $40 for a treatment system.
Chan Sopheary, a WW field officer, said lake people were beginning to change their behaviour around sanitation and hygiene, but they were not willing to pay for the toilet yet given their poor livelihoods.
"We cannot afford one because we just make enough money for daily spending," Si Vorn's husband Yoeun Sal told AFP after bathing in water by his house during a hot afternoon.
"If no one helps us, we will keep using the lake (as a toilet)," he added.
L.Miller--AMWN