Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Delaware, 2006. / Principal faculty advisor: Raymond A. Callahan, Master of Arts in Liberal Studies (MALS) program. Includes bibliographical references.

In mid-to-late Victorian fiction, pollution and waste drip, ooze, and seep through the built environment, threatening the boundaries between public and private, rich and poor, healthy and ill. Refuse and dirt held a paradoxical place in nineteenth-century society, as matter that was economically valuable, yet had the capacity to contaminate. My dissertation moves from this tension to ask three questions: What roles did dirt and waste play in critiques of capitalism? How did industrial and organic pollution shape the way that the Victorians imagined the natural world in the latter half of the nineteenth century? And how did changing views of the environment transform what constituted a “natural” social order? The project focuses on four Victorian authors fascinated by pollution and waste – Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Charles Dickens, Robert Browning, and Richard Jefferies – and contextualizes their work in a broader discourse on waste by such figures as John Ruskin, John Stuart Mill, Henry Mayhew, and Charles Darwin. For the Victorians, questions of nature and pollution were not only environmental or scientific. They also had serious implications for the way that society was structured. I argue that for some nineteenth-century writers, visions of strange, contaminated environments offered novel versions of the “natural” order, which in turn allowed them to depict alternative social orders that emphasized stewardship and care while challenging the logic of industrial capitalism. Scholars of the Victorian period have largely discussed depictions of filth in the context of England’s public health movement of the 1840s, identifying links between the containment of dirt and social boundaries. My dissertation builds on this work by arguing that pollution undermined Victorian efforts to distinguish the natural from the unnatural, enabling writers to portray different “natural” models of social, political, and economic organization. Taken together, the works of Mayhew, Braddon, Dickens, Browning, and Jefferies reflect a strain of Victorian thought that saw dirt and waste as central to the development of a just and compassionate social order. Rather than expressing an unmitigated disgust for contaminated spaces, these writers move beyond the nineteenth-century desire for the containment of filth to inscribe otherwise monstrous spaces with possibility.

Magister Philosophiae - MPhil / Child mortality in Sierra Leone is the highest ranked in the world. Government officials and researchers have tried to understand how and why this has become such a big phenomenon in Sierra Leone. Researchers have come up with three main causes for child mortality in Sierra Leone: maternal factors, environmental factors and health factors. The majority of research has been carried out on maternal, as well as environmental factors. However, minimal research has been carried out on health factors in Sierra Leone. Therefore, the objective of this study is to see how maternal and environmental factors have an effect on health factors, which in turn causes child mortality. The data used was from the 2008 Sierra Leone Demographic and Household Survey (SLDHS). The child dataset was used as it contained the information required from both the mother and the child. Of the three categories that were used, the first was maternal factors, which included the mother’s age, the mother's occupation, the mother's education, the sex of the child, the birth number and religion. The second category was environmental factors, which included the source of water, type of toilet, place of residence, source of energy and the dwelling material used for the household. The final category was health factors, which included whether the child had a fever in the last 2 weeks, short rapid breaths, a cough or fever, a problem in the chest or runny nose and whether the child had Diarrhoea recently and still has Diarrhoea. The study showed that child mortality had four statistically significant factors associated with it: place of residence, birth number, religion and type of toilet facility. Furthermore, when it came to diseases affecting children, the SLDHS had not given much information, so we looked only at the effects it had on children. From our results, we concluded that ARI, Diarrhoea and Measles each had one variable that was statistically significant to it. As for Pneumonia, there were no variables associated with children contracting the disease.

Diarrheal disease is one of the leading causes of mortality of children under 5 years of age. Despite this, diarrheal disease is easily preventable through adequate water, sanitation and hygiene. Sanitation access is currently classified as “improved” or “unimproved” based on level of latrine access. This does not account for differences in human behaviors, or differences in exposure risk. A sanitation score was built using behavioral and access data in order to better classify the sanitation environment of a household. Due to low levels of sanitation access and practice of open defecation in Ghana, households in four neighborhoods in Accra, Ghana were selected to participate in the data collection. Data was collected through a survey, environmental sanitary inspections and collection of hand rinse and environmental swab samples. These samples were then tested for fecal indicators, by measuring presence and concentration of E. coli and human Adenovirus. A novel sanitation score based on latrine access and use for each household was created. Hierarchical linear and logistic regression was used to compare the sanitation score to the environmental contamination as indicated by the E. coli and Adenovirus. Higher sanitation scores were significantly associated with increases in Adenovirus concentration (PR=1.6, 95%CI=1.1, 2.2). The sanitation score was not significantly associated with E. coli or presence of Adenovirus. Further development of a sanitation score variable could help to better understand sanitation environments.

Population grow in recent years requires an extension of the current pipeline sanitary system. For this purpose, granular excavation and landfill works are associated with pedestrian traffic congestion. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an innovative and sustainable alternative to reduce the problems generated during the execution of the conventional process. This research proposes the use of flowable fill due to the multiple advantages offered by this material. On the one hand, it is economical for medium to large trench fill volumes, considering savings in labor (it is done with a small number of workers), in equipment (does not require the rental or purchase of compaction equipment) and in time (the pouring is done by directly pumping the mixture, from the mixing machines to the excavation). On the other hand, being self-compacting and self-leveling decreases the width of the trenches, reducing excavation and filling volumes; which, in turn, incur money savings. Also, this material guarantees work safety, since people are not required inside the excavation and fill in poorly accessible areas without any problem. Dosages were established for ten flowable fill mixtures with cement contents of 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90 kg of cement and a range of admixture from 1.75 to 2.00%; The results indicated that decreasing the fine aggregate - coarse aggregate ratio, the compressive strength of the mixtures increases and the slumps of the mixtures decreases, and the compressive strength increases directly proportional to the cement content.

Thesis (MPA.) -- University of Limpopo, 2017 / The purpose of the study was to explore public perception on how sanitation has effects on the environment in the Polokwane Local Municipality. Quantitative, analytical research was conducted to determine community perceptions regarding the state of sanitation in Polokwane, that is to establish the perception of the effectiveness of the waste and refuse removal programme and to determine the extent of land pollution in the Polokwane Local Municipality. Data collection was done using structured questionnaires in which community members participated in the study. The total number of respondents, who were community members sampled randomly, was N = 136. The study has highlighted the areas of potential on perceptions of the community regarding the state of sanitation in Polokwane and the relationship of the perception, sanitation practices, the effectiveness of the waste and refuse removal programme and the extent of land pollution in Polokwane and settlement type. The findings of the research study include the following:  The study reveals that the Polokwane Local Municipality does not provide adequate sanitation throughout the municipality especially in the rural settlements;  The results reveal that the Polokwane Local Municipality still has a long way in the prevention and control of land pollution and river streams;  The study further finds that there is no frequent waste removal in the municipality especially in the suburban and rural settlement;  Furthermore, results reveal that there is no adequate hygiene education provision in the Polokwane Local Municipality. In conclusion, it is evident that the Polokwane Local Municipality experiences challenges of the provision of sanitation to the communities especially those who live in rural settlements. In the 21st century and two decades after democracy in South Africa, the residents of Polokwane still experiences sanitation challenges that were promised to be addressed in the dawn of democracy in 1994. Those challenges are land pollution, infrequent waste removal, illegal waste dumping, air and land pollution, river and stream pollution, inadequate hygiene education, inadequate sanitation provision in the rural settlement, lack of waste sorting options. The study recommends that the Polokwane local Municipality should provide adequate sanitation services in rural settlement. It should further develop measures to prevent environmental pollution and to foster communities to have a litter-free environment. The study further recommends that the municipality should have a frequent waste removal programme throughout the municipality even in the rural settlement and suburban areas. The municipality should prioritise community awareness campaigns to educate community members about the negative impact of littering. It is further recommended that, in addition to public awareness against littering, rubbish bins should be made available at all public places and street corners.

The purpose of this thesis is to determine the relative numbers of colon bacteria in the water of Lake Dallas.

The relationships between water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions and malnutrition markers such as stunting, wasting, and underweight have been poorly characterized until recently. There is a need to identify interventions that may play a role in these relationships to improve nutritional status of children under 5 years old. In 2013, Zambia was not on track to meet MDG 7c, to halve the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. To address this goal, the Zambian government implemented the Zambia Sanitation and Hygiene Program (ZSHP). The goal of the program was to reduce WASH-related diseases in rural areas by promoting community wide sanitation using community-led total sanitation (CLTS), legal enforcement, and hygiene promotion. An important component of the ZSHP is CLTS, which has been implemented in a majority of districts. The overall study aims to explore the effectiveness of a CLTS intervention on coverage and quality of household sanitation facilities, defecation behavior, and child health in a rural setting in Zambia. A secondary outcome that was measured in the analysis of the overall study was the effect of CLTS on stunting, wasting, and underweight in children under the age of 5. These three outcomes are the focus of this thesis. It was hypothesized that these three outcomes would decrease in prevalence with an increase in sanitation coverage resulting from the CLTS program. Cross-sectional anthropometric and household data for Zambian children under 5 and their households from baseline and end line surveys were analyzed to determine any association between multiple WASH indicators and nutritional status. The baseline survey was conducted in 2013 and the end line in 2016. Only households with at least one child under the age of 5 were surveyed at both baseline and end line. Primary caretakers were interviewed during home visits to assess sanitation resources, child-feeding practices, and the health status of their children under the age of 5. In addition, anthropometric data of children under the age of 5 was taken to assess their nutritional status of their children. The prevalence of underweight, stunting, and wasting at end line was 12.9%, 40.9%, and 7.4% respectively, all of which showed statistically significant decreases from baseline measurements (p=≤0.001, 0.03, and ≤0.001 respectively). Predictors of undernutrition were analyzed using logistic regression controlling for age and sex. Nutritional status of children under 5 years of age was found to be associated with several WASH indicators. Children who were taken to a clinic during an episode of diarrhea and children who lived in households with an improved water source had 46% and 26%, respectively, decreased odds of being stunted. Children who lived in households that were close (<4 min walk) to a water source had a 73% decrease in odds of being wasted. Finally, children who had diarrhea in the two weeks before the survey had 63% and 42% increased odds of being underweight or wasted respectively. Focus areas of the program have increased coverage of key indicators of sanitation and hygiene but a relatively high prevalence of sanitation- and hygiene-related diseases remain. These rural areas have high rates of reported diarrhea, acute respiratory illness, and stunting among young children even though most have had exposure to the ZSHP activities. With increased focus, not only on better human sanitation, but also on household environment sanitation, the prevalence of disease and malnutrition will start to decrease and we will begin to see healthier communities in Zambia.

Microbial recovery methods for frozen blueberries, and postharvest sanitation treatments on microbial load and sensory attributes of berries were studied. Previously frozen rabbiteye blueberries were subjected to hand-mixing, machine-mixing, stomaching, vortexing, and homogenization. Aerobic (APC) and yeast and mold (YMC) counts did not differ amongst treatments but homogenization, stomaching, and vortexing tended to yield a higher recovery, with vortexing resulting in the choice method for YMC possibly due to cell disruption and colony breakage. Fresh highbush blueberries were treated with hot water (60 - 90°C) with an oxidizing agent (0 - 0.1% Boxyl®) for 10 – 30s. Water temperature was the most influential (p<0.05) factor on microbial reduction, wax/bloom and color. Holding berries at 75°C for 20s (without antimicrobial) or dipping in 200ppm chlorine for 10s resulted in 0.90 and 1.80 log reduction of APC and yeast, respectively; and 0.80 (200ppm/10s) and 2.90 (75°C/20s hot water) log reduction in mold counts.

The purpose of this study was to determine the quality and microbial load of blueberries at different maturity stages, to develop the effective microbial recovery method and to compare sanitation postharvest treatments on microbial counts of blueberries. The soluble solids and the sugar to acid ratio increased, while pH and TA decreased with maturity. Ripe berries had lower yeast and mold counts (YMC) at other maturity stages, but there were no differences on aerobic plate counts (APC). The medium pH was lower for stomaching and blending than hand massaged samples. This leads to higher recovery of microorganisms by massaging. Sodium hypochlorite at 400 ppm was effective in reducing APC but not YMC. Acidified sodium chloride was very effective, lowering APC and YMC below detectable level. All sanitation treatment did not influence sensory attributes of blueberries.