Sanitation

Sanitation is about maintaining public health. It is closely related to the provision of clean drinking water but is also about dealing with waste, particularly sewage. Adequate sanitation provision is vital to keeping people healthy and, with more people living closer together, is increasingly important in human development.

Homeland and outstations sometimes rely on the discrete communities they surround on sanitation services. From purchasing sanitation products to emptying septic tanks. Rangers and campers on Country must abide by strict environmental protection and legislation to prevent greywater from negatively affecting National Parks and the surrounding environment.

Can you propose ideas, in partnership with the community, to improve the situation?

4. Blackwater discharge

Households will mainly choose septic tanks and greywater trenches for sanitation access. There are government regulations in place to prevent improper drainage of blackwater from septic tanks into the environment, however, leakages are common due to poor design and ageing infrastructure. Poor design, improper drainage and flooding damage to septic tanks poses risk to the surrounding area. What innovative ideas can you come up with to protect the environment from blackwater discharge?

5. Homeland sanitation

Homeland and outstations generally have good access to hygiene and sanitation. While there is typically limited supply in the homeland and outstations, people will travel to discrete communities to purchase any hygiene and sanitation products they need. Culturally, traditional gender norms often apply to sanitation and hygiene access and knowledge, as it is very personal. Toilets and showers for men and women are kept apart in the remote communities as much as possible. Without access to centralised sewage systems, homelands rely on costly septic tanks and collection trucks. What alternatives to septic tanks can you come up with for the remote homelands and Ranger bases?

6. Water-saving sanitation

Sanitation and hygiene, such as portable showers and flush toilets, can use significant amounts of water to operate. What solutions can you come up with to conserve water use for sanitation and hygiene in the remote areas of Cape York?

7. Ranger camp sanitation

When groups or Rangers camp on Country there is a limited amount of greywater that can be discharged in the environment. It is also illegal to release greywater and other forms of waste into National Parks. Indigenous ranger programmes often require Rangers to camp on Country for weeks at a time and without basic infrastructure for hygiene and sanitation. Greywater can negatively impact the surrounding environment. What ideas can you come up with to protect the environment from greywater discharge?

8. Automated disease surveillance service [*1]

Mosquito-borne diseases such as Dengue fever, Australian encephalitis, Ross River virus and Barmah forest virus [1] are present in Australia. Can you design a system that alerts people, when there is a risk of contracting a disease (when, where and which disease)?

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[*1] This project spans several design areas

[1]https://medent.usyd.edu.au/arbovirus/mosquit/mosqfact.htm