Impactos sociais, econômicos e ambientais da melhoria no saneamento básico rural no Brasil[Social, economic and environmental impacts of basic rural sanitation improvements in Brasil]

Brazil has more than 23 million rural people with unimproved sanitation, which corresponds to about 75% of rural population. One reflection of this situation is observed in health, where there is an index of mortality caused by diarrhea (the main disease caused by unimproved sanitation) similar to the poorer countries of Africa and it is the third largest in South America, according to the WHO (2004). This study aimed to measure the social, environmental and economic impacts caused by implementation of a technological proposal for sanitation: “septic cesspool biodigester”, as an alternative for the rural environment. It was found that the implementation of this technology in rural homes with unimproved sanitation could: reduce about 250 deaths and 5.5 million infections caused by diarrheal diseases each year in the country; reduce pollution of waterways by about 250 thousand tons per year of BOD and; that every R$1.00 invested in the implementation of alternative technology evaluated could cause a return to the economy of R$4.69 in production and R$2.55 in GDP. Moreover, the imports would decrease from R$122 million and occur an increase of 51 thousand jobs.