Main causes of poor environmental sanitation practices
The most pronounced cause of poor sanitation globally is simply the lack of education. Even the simple act of washing hands regularly can have a huge impact on the overall health of a community. The actual acts of people being aware of why their environment should be clean and tidy is very important. Without the knowledge, it becomes very difficult to practice the aspect of safety.
This article will focus on the causes of poor sanitation practices within our community.
1. Open defecation
This is caused when people of the community use open space and road areas for defecation. The capacity to help communities with composting toilets will alleviate many of the issues surrounding open defecation. Put simply, open defecation fouls surrounding environments and is a major cause for the spread of preventable diseases. Those diseases are communicable and transferable. Apart from the impact of this on humans and animals, the environment also becomes attacked, which often contributes to environmental hazards.
2. Absence of teaching and adequate knowledge
Lack of education and training that makes people have the awareness of the effect of poor sanitation practices is often one of the causes of poor environmental practices. This is a relatively easy issue to combat as education starts typically in the form of school programs teaching children the importance of healthy habits when it comes to sanitation, waste control, clean drinking water, and washing their hands.
3. Populated/cluttered area
In areas where informal or temporary/ semi-permanent settlements crop up, the high-density nature of these areas along with less access to sanitation programs and products means thereās a high likelihood of sewage and waste not being dealt with properly. People who live in a cluttered community tend to have a more unsanitized environment due to their large population.
4. Unavailability of medical personnel/ care
Area – where people do not have access to proper health care is more prone to poor sanitation practices. Untreated and contaminated drinking water is estimated to cause more than 500,000 diarrhoeal deaths each year. Many of these could be prevented with simple sanitary practices and clean drinking water. Diseases like diarrhea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid, and polio are rife in areas where clean drinking water isnāt available.
