1 Basics
Why sanitation: it stops the real killer
In every long crisis, camp and siege, more people died of diarrhoea, cholera, dysentery and typhoid than of hunger or violence. The cause is always the same: human faeces reaching someone's mouth.
| Barrier | Why it matters | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Contain faeces | Blocks every route at the source | Bucket toilet, latrine, composting |
| Wash hands with soap | Cuts diarrhoea by roughly a third to a half | Hand washing, making soap |
| Safe drinking water | Stops the fluid route | Water treatment |
| Control flies and rats | They carry faeces to food | Pests, rubbish |
2 Day one
The bucket toilet: before the first flush fails
When mains water stops, toilets stop. Set this up on the first day, before anyone uses a dry toilet bowl.
First: can you still flush?
Water off, sewer works
Pour-flush: tip a bucket of 6–10 L of used washing or rain water quickly into the bowl from waist height. Flush only for solids ("if it's yellow let it mellow").
Sewer blocked or flooded
Do not flush anything: it will back up into your house or a neighbour's. Put a plug or a bag of sand in the bowl, and use a bucket toilet.
Quick fix in the bowl
Empty the bowl, line it with two strong bin bags, add cover material after each use, tie off and remove daily. Better than nothing for a few days.
Bucket, lid, seat
A strong 15–20 L bucket with a tight lid. A toilet seat taken off the house toilet sits on it well. Line it with a heavy bag if you will carry the contents away.
Cover after every use
A scoop of dry cover material over the deposit: sawdust (the best), dry soil, peat, shredded dry leaves, shredded paper, a little wood ash. No smell and no flies means you use enough.
Keep urine separate
A second bucket, bottle or funnel for pee. Most of the smell and weight comes from mixing the two. Urine is nearly germ-free: dilute it and use it as fertiliser (below) or pour it into a soakaway.
Empty at two thirds
Into a compost bin, a latrine pit, or a hole at least 30 cm deep (better 60 cm), 30 m from any water. Cover with soil. Rinse the bucket, the rinse water goes in the hole too.
Wash hands every time
Soap and water or a tippy tap right next to it. Wear gloves for emptying.
Two buckets with lids, heavy bin bags, a spare toilet seat, a large sack of sawdust or wood shavings (pet bedding), toilet paper, gloves, soap. It costs little and stops the first-week outbreaks that follow every disaster.
3 Weeks to years
Latrines: from a cat hole to a pit that lasts a decade
Location matters more than design. A latrine in the wrong place poisons your well.
- At least 30 m from any well, spring or stream, and downhill of it.
- Bottom of the pit at least 1.5 m above the groundwater in the wettest season. If you hit water while digging, fill back in and move, or build a raised latrine.
- Not in sand or fractured rock over a water source (germs travel far), not in a flood area.
- Within 50 m of where people sleep, lit at night, and safe for women and children to use.
Cat hole (one person, one use)
Dig 15–20 cm deep with a trowel, 60 m from water, trails and camp. Use, fill in, and push a stick upright into it so nobody digs the same place.
Trench latrine (a group, weeks)
A trench 30 cm wide, 90 cm deep, 1 m long for every 10–15 people. Put the dug soil in a pile with a shovel next to it; every user throws soil in after use. When filled to 30 cm below the surface, close it with the soil, mound it up and dig a new trench.
Ventilated pit latrine (years)
Dig
About 1–1.5 m wide and 2–3 m deep. A 1.2 × 1.2 × 2.5 m pit holds roughly 12 years of waste for a family of five (dry pits fill at 40–60 L per person per year).
Line the top
At least the top 50 cm with brick, stone, logs or a concrete ring so the edge does not collapse under the slab. In loose soil line it all, leaving gaps in the lower part for liquid to soak away.
Slab
Reinforced concrete, or strong treated timber covered with a washable sheet, sloping to the hole. A tight-fitting lid on the hole if there is no vent pipe.
Vent and shelter
Vent pipe as in the diagram, shelter with a roof and a door, and a hand-washing station outside.
Use and close
No rubbish, no plastic, no disinfectant down the hole (it kills the breakdown). A handful of ash or soil after use cuts flies. At 50 cm from the top, fill with soil, mound it, and plant a fruit tree in it; move the shelter to a new pit.
One toilet for every 20 people in the long term (up to 50 in the first days). Separate toilets for women, lockable from inside.
4 Close the loop
Composting toilet: turn waste into soil, safely
Human waste contains the nitrogen and phosphorus your fields lose at every harvest. Composted properly, it becomes safe, earthy humus. Composted badly, it spreads worms and disease.
Build two or three bins
About 1 × 1 × 1 m each, of pallets or boards, on soil, with a lid or cover against rain, dogs and rats. At least 30 m from water.
Start with a base
A 30 cm thick "sponge" of straw, hay or leaves on the bottom to soak up liquid.
Add, then cover
Empty the bucket into a hollow in the centre of the pile, scrape the bucket clean, and cover the deposit immediately with a thick layer of straw, weeds, grass or leaves. Kitchen scraps go in too. Nothing should be visible or smell.
Let it heat
A big, moist, well-covered pile runs at 50–60 °C inside, which kills most pathogens in days. Small or dry piles stay cool and depend on time instead.
Fill for a year, rest for a year
When the first bin is full (about a year for a family), cover it thickly and start the second. Leave the full bin untouched for at least another year. Two years in total at normal outdoor temperatures makes it safe.
Use
On fruit trees, bushes, grain and field crops, or dug into beds before planting. If you are unsure it heated, keep it off salad and root crops eaten raw.
- Use fresh or half-composted human waste on vegetables: roundworm eggs survive for years in cool soil.
- Add waste from someone with cholera, typhoid or dysentery: treat it with strong chlorine and bury it in a deep pit instead.
- Turn or open the pile while it is still active; you only spread the germs.
Urine as fertiliser
A person produces about 500 L of urine a year, holding most of the nitrogen in their food. Store it in closed containers (it turns to ammonia; keep the lid on), then dilute 1 part to 5–10 parts water and pour it onto the soil, not the leaves, of hungry crops like maize, cabbage, squash and leeks. Stop a month before harvest. If others outside the household will eat the food, store the urine for a month first. See Farming for crop needs.
5 Barrier
Hand washing: the cheapest medicine there is
Soap and water, at the right moments, prevents a large share of diarrhoea and chest infections. It only works if it is easy: put water and soap where people need them.
When
- After the toilet, and after cleaning a child's bottom or nappy
- Before preparing food, eating, or feeding a child
- Before and after caring for a sick person or a wound
- After handling animals, raw meat, rubbish, dead animals
How
- Wet hands with running or poured water
- Soap: palms, backs, between fingers, thumbs, nails, wrists
- Rub for 20 seconds
- Rinse under running water, not in a shared bowl
- Air dry or a clean personal towel
No soap?
Wood ash or sand rubbed in the same way and rinsed off works better than water alone. Hand gel (at least 60 % alcohol) works on clean-looking hands, but not on dirty or greasy ones, and poorly against norovirus.
The tippy tap
Build a tippy tap: hands-free washing with 40 mL a go
- Set two forked sticks in the ground about 1 m apart and lay a crossbar in the forks.
- Hang a 3–5 L jerrycan or large plastic bottle by its handle, with one cord at the handle and one at the cap so it tips. Make a small hole with a hot nail just below the cap.
- Tie a string from the neck down to a stick on the ground. Stepping on the stick tips the can and releases a thin stream: no hands touch anything.
- Soap in a stocking or with a hole bored through it, on a string. Dig a small pit filled with gravel under it so no mud or puddle forms. Refill with treated or rain water daily.
6 Make
Soap: fat plus lye
Soap is fat reacted with a strong alkali (lye). With a kitchen scale and bought caustic soda it is reliable; with lye from wood ash it is old-fashioned soft soap and takes practice.
Sodium hydroxide blinds and burns. Goggles, gloves, long sleeves, work outdoors or by an open window, children and animals away. Always pour lye into water, never water onto lye (it can boil up and spit). Use only stainless steel, heat-proof glass or PP/HDPE plastic: lye eats aluminium and makes hydrogen. Splash on skin or eyes: flush with plenty of water for 15–20 minutes.
Hard bar soap from lard or tallow
| Ingredient | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Lard or tallow, clean and rendered | 1000 g | Render trimmed fat slowly with a little water, strain, let set, scrape off the bottom layer. |
| Sodium hydroxide (caustic soda, 99 %) | 130 g | Weigh exactly. Olive or sunflower oil instead of lard: 128 g. Coconut oil: 172 g. |
| Water (rain or distilled) | 330 g | Hard tap water works but can leave spots. |
These amounts leave about 5 % of the fat unreacted, so the soap is mild. Different fats need different lye amounts: for any other fat, mix, or batch size, use a soap calculator table from a soap-making book (see Library).
Dissolve the lye
Sprinkle the lye into the water while stirring. It gets very hot and fumes for a minute: do not breathe it. Let it cool to about 40 °C.
Melt the fat
Warm to about 40 °C.
Mix to "trace"
Pour the lye into the fat and stir steadily (a stick blender takes minutes, a spoon up to an hour) until it thickens like custard and a drizzle leaves a trail on the surface.
Mould and insulate
Pour into a box lined with baking paper, cover with a board and a blanket for 24–48 hours.
Cut and cure
Cut into bars, stand them apart on a rack in an airy place for 4–6 weeks. The soap gets harder, milder and longer-lasting.
Test
pH paper should show 8–10. Or wet a corner and rub it on the back of your wrist: it should feel slippery, not sting. If it stings or has white crystals, grate it, melt it with a splash of water and more fat, and re-mould.
Lye from wood ash and soft soap
Collect ash
White ash from hardwood (oak, beech, ash, fruit wood) burnt hot. No coal, no painted or treated wood, no rubbish ash.
Leach it
A bucket or barrel with small holes in the bottom, a layer of gravel and then straw, then packed ash. Pour rainwater through slowly and collect the brown liquid underneath. Pour it through a second time to make it stronger.
Test and concentrate
Traditional test: a fresh egg should float, showing a patch about the size of a coin. Too weak: boil it down (outdoors, in stainless steel or iron, never aluminium).
Cook with fat
Heat rendered fat and add the lye gradually while simmering and stirring, for several hours, until it turns into a thick, clear, brown jelly with no grease floating on top. Grease layer: add lye. Stings the skin: add fat.
Use
Ash lye is potassium hydroxide and makes soft soap that stays a paste. Store in a covered jar. Excellent for laundry, floors and hands. Stirring in a handful of salt at the end hardens it a little.
7 Body
Keeping clean: with 5 litres a day
Skin infections, lice and gum disease follow when washing stops. A strip wash is enough.
Body
Daily: face, armpits, groin, bottom and feet with a cloth and a bowl of warm water. Full wash every few days. Heat water in a black container in the sun for free. Dry feet between the toes: wet feet in boots rot (trench foot).
Teeth
Brush twice a day. A frayed green twig of willow, birch or hazel works as a brush; salt or baking soda as toothpaste. Floss or a thin twig between teeth. Tooth problems without a dentist are serious (Medical).
Laundry
Underwear and socks most often. Soak in soapy water, agitate with a plunger in a bucket, rinse, wring, dry in sun (UV kills germs). Sick person's clothes: soak 30 minutes in 0.05 % chlorine or boil.
Periods
Reusable cloth pads (several layers of cotton flannel) or a menstrual cup. Soak pads in cold water, wash with soap, dry in the sun. Boil a cup for 5 minutes between cycles. Stock these now: they last years.
Kitchen
Wash dishes in hot soapy water, rinse, dry in a rack in the sun. Separate boards for raw meat. Cover food. Cook meat through. Leftovers: eat within a day or reheat until steaming.
Babies
Cloth nappies: scrape solids into the toilet, soak in a lidded bucket, wash hot, dry in sun. Clean bottles by boiling. Breastfeeding is the safest food and water there is.
8 Disease
When someone gets sick: stop it spreading
Diarrhoea, vomiting, fever or cough in one person should change how the whole household works, that day.
Separate
A separate room or corner for the sick, one carer only, a separate toilet or bucket if possible.
Own cup, plate, towel
Marked and washed separately.
Hands, hands, hands
The carer washes with soap after every contact and before touching food or water.
Disinfect body fluids
Vomit, stool and blood: cover with 0.5 % chlorine for 10 minutes, then clean up with gloves and put it in the latrine. Wipe surfaces, handles and the toilet seat daily with 0.05 %.
Rehydrate
Oral rehydration from the first loose stool. ORS recipe
Check water and food
Several people sick at once: suspect the water source or a shared meal. Boil all water, change source, throw out suspect food.
Chlorine solutions from 5 % bleach
| Strength | Mix | Use for |
|---|---|---|
| 0.05 % | 10 mL bleach + 1 L water (1:100) | Surfaces, door handles, toilet seats, soaking a sick person's laundry and dishes 30 min |
| 0.5 % | 100 mL bleach + 900 mL water (1:10) | Vomit, stool, blood, contaminated toilets and buckets, cholera, the dead |
Other strengths: scale the bleach in proportion (10 % bleach: half as much; 2.5 %: twice as much). Make fresh each day in a covered, labelled container. Clean dirt off first: chlorine is used up by organic matter. Never mix with acids or ammonia. For drinking water doses see Water.
If someone dies
Bodies of people who died of injuries are not a disease risk to the living; do not rush into mass graves. Record the name, date, cause and where they are buried, and if possible a photograph and personal items for the family. Wear gloves, wash afterwards. Bodies of people who died of cholera, dysentery or other infectious diseases: handle as little as possible, wrap, 0.5 % chlorine on the body and wrappings, wash thoroughly. Bury at least 1.5 m above groundwater and at least 200 m from wells and springs.
9 Waste
Rubbish and greywater: sort, reuse, bury
Without collection, rubbish piles attract rats and flies in weeks. Most of it is a resource if sorted at the door.
| Type | What to do |
|---|---|
| Food scraps, peelings | Chickens, pigs, or a covered compost heap (see Farming). Meat and bones: bury deep or in a hot compost, or they attract rats and dogs. |
| Paper, card, untreated wood | Fire starter and fuel, mulch, compost. |
| Glass jars, tins, bottles | Wash and keep: storage, preserving, planters, tools. Salvage mindset: see Salvage. |
| Plastic | Keep what is reusable (bags, bottles for SODIS, containers). Do not burn: burning plastic, foam and rubber gives off toxic smoke. Store the rest in a dry pile or bury. |
| Batteries, paint, oil, chemicals, medicines | Keep sealed, labelled and dry, far from water and children. Never bury near a well. |
| Everything else | A rubbish pit 30 m from water, downwind of the house, fenced. Cover each load with soil. |
Greywater
Water from washing and dishes is too good to waste and too dirty to leave standing. Strain out food bits through a cloth, then pour it onto a mulch basin around a fruit tree or bush, or into a soakaway (a pit filled with stones, 30 m from any well). Standing puddles breed mosquitoes and smell. Use plain soap, not bleach or strong detergent, if it goes on plants. Never onto leaves of vegetables eaten raw.
10 Pests
Flies, mosquitoes, rats, lice: the disease carriers
Remove what they eat and where they breed. Traps and poisons come second.
Flies
- Lids on toilets, compost and rubbish; faeces always covered
- Cover food and dishes
- Bottle trap: a plastic bottle with the top cut off and inverted as a funnel, bait of fish scraps or fruit in water
- Screens or cloth over windows
Mosquitoes
- They breed in any standing water in 7–10 days: tip out buckets, tyres, pots and gutters weekly
- Mesh on water tanks and barrels
- Bed nets, long sleeves at dusk
- A spoon of cooking oil on water you cannot drain
Rats and mice
- Food in metal bins, glass jars or thick plastic with lids
- Block gaps: mice pass 6 mm, rats 12 mm. Steel wool plus cement or metal mesh
- Snap traps along walls, baited with peanut butter or oats
- A good cat
- Poison is risky for children, pets and chickens; rats die in walls
Lice, fleas, bedbugs, scabies
- Head lice: wet hair, conditioner, fine metal lice comb every 3 days for 2 weeks
- Wash bedding and clothes at 60 °C or seal in a bag for 2 weeks
- Scabies (intense itch at night, between fingers): permethrin cream for the whole household at once
- Fleas: treat pets, wash bedding, vacuum or sweep daily
Ticks
- Long trousers tucked into socks in long grass and woods
- Check the whole body every evening, especially children's hairline, armpits, groin, behind knees
- Remove early, correctly: how