Sanitation and hygiene

Waste, washing and pests, when nothing is being collected.

• SH1 Run a twin-bucket composting toiletTwo buckets, sawdust, and a compost heap you do not touch for a year. Simple, odourless when done right, and the one number that must not be softened is the curing time.Quick actions, 8 steps
• SH2 Dig and site a latrineSixty metres from any water, and only 15 to 20 cm deep. Deeper is worse, not better, and the reason is the thing most people get wrong about burying waste.Quick actions, 8 steps
• SH3 Getting rid of greywater in a small gardenThe companion problem to reusing it. A household without mains drainage produces well over a hundred litres a day, and a small British garden in winter cannot absorb it without turning into a bog.Quick actions, 8 steps
• SH4 Handwashing and making soap lastSoap works by friction and removal, not by killing, which is why it beats hand sanitiser against exactly the illnesses a sanitation failure produces. Most households stockpile the wrong one.Quick actions, 8 steps
• SH5 Wash clothes without powerAgitation, time and temperature do the work, and only one of the three is expensive. Boiling is disinfection rather than cleaning, and knowing which loads need it is what makes the fuel last.Quick actions, 9 steps
• SH6 Clearing bedbugs from a householdNot a treatment, a campaign. They hide in cracks, survive months without feeding, and any half-measure leaves survivors who repopulate. The winning approach is heat, applied systematically, repeated on a schedule.Quick actions, 8 steps
• SH7 Household waste with no collectionBins stop being emptied within days of most disruptions. The answer is to stop producing most of it, because the two things that actually cause trouble are food waste and anything wet.Quick actions, 8 steps
• SH8 Pest-proof food and waste storageSeal every gap over 6 mm and you exclude mice; over 13 mm and you exclude rats. Expanding foam and sealant do not work, because rodents chew straight through both.Quick actions, 9 steps
• SH9 Mosquitoes and the water storeEvery water store you build is a breeding site unless you stop it being one. A fine mesh over every opening solves it permanently, and the mistake is remembering the lid and forgetting the overflow.Quick actions, 8 steps