Episode 1: Occupational safety of desludging operators

The safety of sanitation workers remains an often-ignored aspect of fecal sludge management. This paper, using an inductive, unbiased approach to highlight a number of safety issues faced by sanitation workers, including exposure of sludge,  even in a mechanized context. The paper identifies three safety concerns: inhalation of harmful gasses, contact with sludge, and physical injury. When it comes to measures to mitigate these risks, the paper looks broadly at elimination, substituting, controlling, and finally personal protective equipment (PPE). The bigger discussion is about who is responsible. Often there are high expectations of these sanitation workers to address all the risks, when in fact the responsibility should fall elsewhere--on households and even at the policy/ standard level.