Ecological Sanitation in Urban China : A case study of the Dongsheng project on applying ecological sanitation in multi-storey buildings

From the analysis of the Dongsheng project which applied ecological sanitation in multi-storey buildings in China, we found that technical deficiencies, managerial problems and incorrect usage of the urine-diverting toilets resulted in the poor performance of the Dongsheng ecological sanitation system. Lack of standards or guidelines, and lack of policies or regulations are significant challenges in implementing the ecological sanitation system. Residents in the Dongsheng eco-town have positive attitudes toward reusing human faeces and urine in agriculture since China has a long tradition of this. However, the residents did not know very well about the value of urine, and the local farmers did not want urine. Women in China are more concerned with sanitation from a health aspect than men. Higher education level is connected to more positive attitudes towards human faeces and urine and their reuse. However, there is no link between income status and the attitudes of users. The supply chain for ecological sanitation systems is weak in urban China and needs to be improved. Apart from the demand side and supply side of ecological sanitation, enabling ecological sanitationto go to scale in an urban context depends on physical, environmental, technical and policy factors