A/68/264 Lessons learned from experiences in community-led total sanitation demonstrate how important it is for communities to be entirely open-defecation-free. As long as faeces are still found in the community environment, risks to health will remain (see www.communityledtotalsanitation.org). The same holds true when wastewater ends up in the nearby or larger environment: the community, or other communities living downstream, can be negatively affected. Not dealing with emptying, disposing of and treating sludge puts at risk the benefits of increased sanitation coverage. 17 28. The Special Rapporteur wishes to emphasize the fact that she does not call for efforts to be diverted away from ensuring access to sanitation, which must remain a priority. She has repeatedly stressed the crucial role of adequate sanitation in ensuring human health, privacy and dignity. At the same time, she considers that efforts need to go beyond ensuring access to basic sanitation, in particular in countries that have already achieved (almost) universal coverage, but lack adequate wastewater management. The imperative of wastewater management and pollution control is even more apparent for contamination stemming from large-scale agriculture and industry. 29. Calling for increased attention to wastewater management from a human rights perspective does not necessarily imply that everyone should be connected to sewage treatment, nor that adequate wastewater management must be achieved overnight. The human rights framework calls for measures and technologies that are appropriate for a given context, including on-site sanitation solutions, and requires such measures to be taken progressively to achieve phased progress illustrated by the concept of a wastewater ladder. III. Contamination from different sources A. Wastewater from households 30. Increasing water consumption also means increasing discharge of wastewater. The confinement, transport and treatment of excreta and associated wastewater are highly problematic in many urban agglomerations. Owing to the sheer quantities of wastewater and densities in urban areas resulting in less space to discharge waste safely, the impact of water pollution from domestic sources tends to be more pronounced in urban than in rural areas. 31. Domestic wastewater management starts from an array of technological solutions, including dry toilets, pit latrines or septic tanks, and single flush or conventional flush toilets as well as basins, roof and yard drains. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, septic tanks are estimated to represent roughly 25 per cent of all urban sanitation facilities, while pit latrines serve another 50 per cent. 18 Although a large proportion of the global population does not use flush toilets, attention of decision makers is often on these, together with piped networks of sewers and sewage treatment plants. Policies for the collection and treatment of __________________ 17 18 13-41825 A. Opel, “Challenge critical: absence of faecal sludge management shatters the gains of improved sanitation coverage in Bangladesh”, Second Faecal Sludge Management Conference (Durban, South Africa, 2012). M. Kjellén and others, “Global Review of Sanitation System Trends and Interactions with Menstrual Management Practices”, p. 4 (Stockholm, Stockholm Environment Institute (2012)). 9/23