The UN World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), held in 2002, adopted the target of halving the population that have no access to toilet or similar sanitation facilities by 2015, based on the understanding that access to sanitation facilities constitutes a basic human right and foundation of sustainable development. Bangladesh, in South Asia, is one of the most densely populated countries in the world having a population of more than 140 million. This country has many difficulties and vulnerabilities. Natural disasters such as annually occurring floods and cyclone are typical examples. Arsenic contamination of more than 30% of tubewells which is prevalent in this country as main drinking water source may another serious difficulty. Social vulnerabilities in this country such as high population density, poverty and low literacy rate extends the impacts on a variety of parts of society. At present, struggling against these difficulties, vulnerabilities prevent the solutions. As for the access to toilet, more than 60% of people in Bangladesh have not any toilets or using quite unhygienic type of toilets which has no sub-structure. Although the government is now promoting to spread a type of toilet named pit latrine, which stores human excreta in the hole made on the ground, this type of toilet is presenting problems in sanitary and environmental aspects. It does not have any treatment on the pit's bottom, polluted water is prone to seep into groundwater. As most people do not have a system of transporting human excreta in the pit or a place to bury them, people are compelled to build a new pit once it is full. The life cycle of pit latrine is considerably short, consequently it can be said that pit latrine is not sustainable. In order for communities in a developing country to be able to make sanitary latrines and better human excreta management available to themselves, it must be made clear which technologies would be acceptable to local residents and how these technologies might be implemented. In this paper, the authors proposed a process for local communities to accept appropriate technologies as their own initiative, installing and maintaining toilets in a sustainable manner, based on the discussion about current problems on sanitation and toilets as well as on the constraints that prevent them from improving the current situation. In this process, authors identified necessary factors for their decision making on sanitation improvement. Moreover, authors suggest some alternatives on locally appropriate technologies for rural people to cope with the problems such as improving toilets, sanitary management and utilization of human excreta derived resources.

JEL classification : I31, O33, O53