Fig. 6: Respondents’ perception of community norms for emptying onsite sanitation systems/non-sewered sanitation systems (OSS/NSS) in the study area.

Four-hundred households were surveyed using structured questionnaires to determine prevalent perceptions of the community’s’ emptying norms for onsite sanitation systems/non-sewered sanitation systems (OSS/NSS) in Khulna Ward 9 community. The respondent’s perceived that community members sometimes practiced scheduled (timely and safe) emptying while 14% were not sure; 6% agreed that community norms that disapprove of inappropriate faecal sludge discharge exist and adhered to all the time while 10% believed adherence was only sometimes and 26% were not sure such norms existed; 50% of the respondents considered that their reference/preference (i.e., influencers/peers) groups would disapprove of inappropriate discharge of effluents from OSS/NSS all the time; 8% believed they would only disapprove sometimes and 42% were not sure if they would disapprove at all. Only 10% of them believed that enforcement and monitoring of OSS/NSS laws and regulations were adequate all the time, while 42% considered them to be adequate sometimes and 48% were not sure of their adequacy.