Sanitation in Moria : The Sphere minimum standards and sustainability in a protracted crisis

Sammanfattning: With over 19,200 asylum seekers living on its premises, the Moria refugee camp is operating way over its capacity of 3000 residents. Due to the uncontrolled, rapid growth of the camp, the existing sanitation infrastructure has fallen into disrepair under excessive usage. While the old toilets and showers are breaking down and lacking maintenance, creating new facilities has been slow, resulting in hundreds of people sharing one latrine. In this thesis, I analyze whether Moria‟s sanitation services meet the Sphere minimum standards and propose improvements based on the sustainable settlements framework. I argue that Moria is midst a protracted crisis. This means that in addition to meeting the minimum standards, the camp needs sustainable settlement planning for the many years it still has ahead of it. As a method, I use integrative literature review. The thesis finds that Moria cannot meet any of the Sphere standards as people live in a degrading, dangerous and unhealthy environment. Women and disabled people face additional challenges when using the few latrines, which are far away and have long queues. There is a risk of SGBV for vulnerable groups. Wastewater from Moria used to pollute a local stream until the sewage system was connected to a waste-processing plant in 2019, which is the only positive aspect that was found in the literature. However, broken pipes still create significant problems inside the camp. Seeing that waste is a problem on the tightly-packed camp, it is important that when new toilets are built they process excreta safely while saving space. I have introduced sustainable sanitation solutions that turn excreta into soil improver and energy. These toilets have long life-spans and are optimized to save space. They solve the problem of pollution and ideally, enhance the independence of their users, as excreta is turned into safe-to-handle products. To ensure that the users accept the new technologies, their engagement in the planning of the services is essential.