Moderated: 25 June – 20 July.
According to the SDG 6 Synthesis Report on Water and Sanitation, the world is not on track to reach Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6) on Water and Sanitation by the deadline set for 2030.
Billions of people lack safe water, sanitation and handwashing facilities. Ecosystems and water sources are becoming more polluted, and funding for water and sanitation services is inadequate. In addition, governance and delivery systems are weak and fragmented.
In view of the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) that starts on Monday 9 July in New York, the report provides insight into how countries can plan and act to ensure that no one is left behind when implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
This part of the Public Dialogue will focus on the main messages coming from the report.
- What messages do you think should be emphasised at the HLPF?
- What additions or modifications would you make on the messaging?
- What experience from SDG 6 implementation would you like to share?
Useful for the discussions are especially the highlights and the executive summary of the report. All languages of these documents are also available in the Resources section.
Survey: SDG 6 Synthesis Report on Water and Sanitation
By answering this questionnaire (takes approximately 10 minutes), you may increase the knowledge on the main challenges your region and country are facing.
To the Forum on Sustainable Development – HLPF,
Greetings to all who focus on the vital tasks of the SDGs! This regards main message 3. What experience from SDG 6 implementation would you like to share? *Consider as an urgent matter the lives of small children who die as a result of pathogens in their drinking water!* TAM Ceramics, Niagara Falls, NY USA, submits in all due immodesty a truly sustainable, inexpensive approach to implementation for remediation of this dire situation!
Please look into the content of the following three links: 1) Details of TAM Ceramics water filter media and systems of granulated ceramics, 2) TAM’s newsletter, Veritable Niagara, first issue, 3) The Veritable Niagara second issue.
Respectfully submitted,
A.Reid Harvey, Senior Scientist, TAM Ceramics
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1tDvw5PIld95uCVGIcEoc05oBqBgKpk5s
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1k5rSz51FpLG8yKrsZsgEfwSwY44Ds8Fn
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1s4t2K026ho0kP_gA6KSyTYZuqo7JcQxb
Incidentally, while I personally did the initial development of the water treatment technology of granulated ceramic filter media, I’m somewhat at fault that up to now this hasn’t been verified or officially accepted. In 2009, I was approached at a conference by representatives of both the WHO and USAID to meet with them afterwards in order that implementation may begin.
I’m chagrined and embarrassed to say (though I must!), that at the time I was traumatized as a result of bad relations with my ex-wife and didn’t have the strength or the good judgement to be present at this all important meeting. As a result there’s been a lot of upset at the WHO, that persists right up to now, nine years later, and because of this, this wonderful technology has not come to light. Staff there do not like to discuss this.
I’m supposing that there would be a lot of concern that stakeholders with other technologies of water treatment would feel threatened that they would find it difficult to compete. The fact remains, however, that as a thoroughly sustainable technology, implementation of the filter systems of granulated ceramics, would cost something like 15% (fifteen percent) of any of the other technologies. That would allow a lot more money to go to implementation of other SDGs.
Dear Reid,
Water quality is tremendously critical for human health, the environment and also the cost of water management. Poor water quality diminishes the potential uses of that same water and can add significantly to the effects of water stress.
Treatment and technology is critically important to develop. Also the quality consciousness and management throughout the production (and consumption) chain.
Added to the challenge of water quality is that its preservation is a collective interest, and we need to act collectively to ‘regulate’ ourselves or our society to adhere to the safeguarding of water quality.
Thank you for your contribution!
Marianne
Hi Marianne,
I appreciate your response, and need to say more, this time about TAM Ceramics water treatment using household filter systems, *per the following link.* Regarding your observation that “…Poor water quality diminishes the potential uses of that same water…” please know that TAM’s filter media and systems meet the highest standards, with both maximum pathogen reduction and negligible silver leaching.
About your observation that, “…we need to act collectively to ‘regulate’ ourselves or our society to adhere to the safeguarding of water quality…” while TAM pays all necessary attention to this, we will not be implementers per se. Rather we will make recommendation to those who do implement, while suggesting that they follow such guidelines as those of the WHO. Otherwise there’s a serious need to familiarize community water committees with best practice of maintenance and monitoring and evaluation.
As to household water treatment, while we at TAM recommend large scale water filters to maximize numbers of beneficiaries, we do recognize that many will prefer the household approach. Do check out the following link, noting that TAM’s household filter design will give *the lowest cost approach,* while adhering to the highest standards; very important!
https://drive.google.com/open?id=19D-WjnQojQ8OH5JNFHuFCFyZ8a5kgrK6
The urgent need for sustainability dictates this, lest we forget: low cost, user-friendliness and widespread replicability of design.
Reid
Hello everyone!
Greetings from Nagpur, India!
Here we are facing the problem of ground water contamination; in such case Rain Water Harvesting will help. Any specific suggestion for this issue.
Hi Mr. Aprup,
Just a thought on the rainwater harvesting concerns safe storage. There are likely to be those who would not understand the importance of a clean container for storage, that if the inner walls are pathogen contaminated there will be regrowth of this in the rainwater. Thus the water will be recontaminated.
Dear colleagues, it’s a great opportunity here to discuss importance of effective and efficient methodologies and practices of saving water and managing water resources in a smarter way, especially during the production cycle by SMEs and business companies, which are polluting our environment. We would like to suggest to raise the issue of mainstreaming green economic development and green/clean technologies which we have used throughout our Resource efficiency and cleaner production demonstration project, which helped around 55 SMEs to save and reduce loss of water within production of food, beverages, electric batteries, in chemical production, and elsewhere. Reducing loss of water, or using recycled water within production cycle has proved economically beneficial , environmentally clean and efficient. We are ready to share our best practices on reducing water loss, and water contamination sharing business cases by SMEs.