Innovative Sanitation System for Disaster Victims and Social Sanitation Challenges

In the history of human beings, natural hazards have been causing significant negative impacts on human lives. In addition to the losses of human lives, natural hazards have been threats to basic infrastructure such as water supply, drainage, power supply, telecommunication, and logistics in our society. In the past disasters in Japan, the damage to the infrastructure seriously disturbs the survival of the disaster-affected people and resulted in harsh living conditions at the refugee centers. Among a lot of challenges in the refugee centers, the issue of toilets always appeared in the past emergencies in Japan. In the refugee center, the management of toilets is one of the most important points, which influences the protection of human dignity, the prevention of diseases, the security of females and children, and evacuation behaviors. In addition, proper sanitation management is imperative not only for the disaster-affected people but for the external relief workers. While the importance of the toilet in emergencies has been recognized in Japan and there is a growing concern about the occurrence of future catastrophic disasters. In addition to the future mega-disasters, in Japan, the aging of infrastructure that can be called “the silent disaster” is increasing the vulnerability of the communities to natural hazards. Therefore, this chapter presents the development and deployment of innovative movable flush toilets that offer the same quality of sanitation service without relying on existing infrastructure such as the water supply, drainage, and sewage treatment system in our daily lives. The movable flush toilets were deployed for the past three different flood operations. In addition, the movable flush toilets have been installed as a new tool to solve the sanitation challenges in islands and other public places in Japan. The movable flush toilet contributes to enhance the resilience of basic infrastructure again disasters while solving the daily sanitation challenges in Japan.