Bathing and Toilet Facilities

8.8.1 Toilet facility used by household Table 8.11 reveals that majority of households have no toilet facilities and, therefore, resort to using the bush/beach/field (92.1%). We also find that only 3.0 percent of the households use public toilet (WC, KVIP, Pit, Pan etc.) and 3.8 percent uses KVIP.

The proportion of households in the urban areas that have no toilet facilities is 78.9 percent compared to as high as 94.5 percent in the rural areas in the District. Public toilet use forms 16.8 percent in the urban areas and less than one percent in the rural localities. In addition, KVIP is used by 2.2 percent of households in the urban areas in comparison with 4.1 percent in the rural areas. It is also clear from the table that the most improved toilet facility (water closet) is almost absent in the District with only 0.1 percent of households making use of it either in the urban or rural areas.

Bathing facility used by household

Table 8.10 further indicates that 23.5 percent of the households have bathrooms for their exclusive use, 22.5 percent shares separate bathrooms in the same house and 17.0 percent also uses shared open cubicles. In the urban areas, 4.8 percent of the households have their own bathroom for their exclusive use, 2.0 percent share separate bathrooms in the same house and 3.1 percent share open cubicles. In the rural areas, however, 26.9 percent have bathrooms for their exclusive use, 24.1 percent share separate bathrooms in the same house and 16.4 percent share open cubicles.

Method of Waste Disposal Proper

Waste disposal is important to every household and this section deals with method of waste, both solid and liquid disposal in North Gonja District. 8.9.1 Solid waste Table 8.12 provides information on methods of solid and liquid waste disposal in the various localities in the District. It reveals that 59.0 percent of households use public dumping sites (open space), 33.7 percent dumps indiscriminately and 3.2 percent of them burn their waste.

The proportion of households in the rural areas that dump their waste indiscriminately is 35.6 percent compared to 23.6 percent in the urban areas. There is also 56.2 percent of rural households that use public dumping sites (open space) and 3.7 percent burn by household. In the urban areas, 74.9 percent practice public dumping (open space), and 0.5 percent use public dump (container).

Liquid waste

From Table 8.12, majority of the households throw their waste onto the street or outside (58.8%), followed by those who throw onto the compound (31.2%) and drainage into a pit or soak away (5.7%). Some variations exist between the urban and rural areas where 62.3 percent of urban households in the District throw their liquid waste onto the street or outside compared to 58.2 percent in the rural localities.

The table also shows that less than one percent of either the rural (0.2%) or urban (0.1%) households dispose their liquid waste through the drainage system into a gutter. The table further indicates that 32.9 percent of the urban households throw their waste on the compound, which compares with 30.9 percent of the rural households.