In many dense, low income areas of Southeast Asia and elsewhere, effective sanitation solutions are difficult to come by. These areas are often largely unserviced by sewerage systems and the residents may not have had the income available during their home’s construction to install a proper septic tank. Even if they did, unless a subsidized tank desludging program exists in the area, it is likely that the septic tanks in these areas have rarely, if ever, been desludged. Their correspondingly dangerous effluent therefore pollutes the groundwater or discharges into a nearby drainage canal. Other, even poorer, residents often rely on unsanitary methods instead, such as defecation into a nearby waterway, either directly or via the ‘flying saucer’ technique of defecating into a plastic bag that is then thrown into the waterway.

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