A/68/264 www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/WaterAndSanitation/SRWater/Pages/ContributionsWasteWater). This process has provided her with valuable guidance, and she is grateful to all those who contributed. 7. The section below contains an explanation of the concept of wastewater, outlines the impact of water pollution on the realization of human rights, and explores the interface between access to sanitation and wastewater management. Section III describes how households, agriculture and industry contribute to water pollution. Section IV describes how human rights can be integrated into wastewater management and water pollution control. II. Setting the scene A. Concept of wastewater 8. Wastewater can be defined as “a combination of one or more of: domestic effluent consisting of blackwater (excreta, urine and faecal sludge) and greywater (kitchen and bathing wastewater); water from commercial establishments and institutions, including hospitals; industrial effluent, stormwater and other urban run-off; and agricultural, horticultural and aquaculture effluent, either dissolved or as suspended matter”. 1 Wastewater contains pathogens, heavy metals, chemical contaminants such as acids, but it also contains valuable nutrients. 2 9. Wastewater should be understood to include not just sewage, but also faecal sludge and septage originating from pit latrines and septic tanks. 3 Finding the appropriate terminology to cover all those types of wastewater is difficult, and an all-encompassing neutral term is yet to be found. However, in following the definition of wastewater as it is emerging in the sector, and seeing the need for a term that encompasses all forms of sewage, sludge and septage, the Special Rapporteur will use this broad understanding of the term “wastewater”. 10. Wastewater should not be seen as “waste” without further use. When properly treated, 4 it can be reused for industrial cooling and processing, irrigation in agriculture, parks, and horticulture, and even drinking purposes. 5 Wastewater also contains many resources that can be recovered, such as nutrients and organic matter. __________________ 1 2 3 4 5 4/23 United Nations Environment Programme and United Nations Human Settlements Programme, Sick Water: the central role of wastewater management in sustainable development (2010), p. 15. UN-Water, background discussion paper on wastewater and water quality targets and indicators (2013) (unpublished), p. 9. Economic Commission for Europe and UN-Water, “The Wastewater and Water Quality Framing Paper, p. 3 (2013). Akiça Bahri, “Managing the other side of the water cycle: Making wastewater an asset”, p. 32 (Mölnlycke, Sweden, Global Water Partnership Technical Committee Background Paper No. 13, 2009). UN-Habitat, Global atlas of excreta, wastewater sludge, and biosolids management: Moving forward the sustainable and welcome use of a global resource, p. 26 (Nairobi, 2008). 13-41825