In February 2000, there has been an experts consultation arranged by the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) which resulted in the formulation of the so-called "Bellagio Statement" ("Clean, healthy and productive living: a new approach to environmental sanitation"), which gives some insight into philosophy and basics of Resource management sanitation. The statement contains the following principles (EAWAG/SANDEC 2000):

1^st: “Human dignity, quality of life and environmental security at household level should be at the centre of the new approach, which should be responsive and accountable to needs and demands in the local and national setting.“

2^nd: “In line with good governance principles, decision-making should involve participation of all stakeholders, especially the consumers and providers of services.“

3^rd: “Waste should be considered a resource, and its management should be holistic and form part of integrated water resources, nutrient flows and waste management processes.“

• “Inputs should be reduced so as to promote efficiency and water and environmental security.“

• “Exports of waste should be minimised to promote efficiency and reduce the spread of pollution.“

• “Wastewater should be recycled and added to the water budget.“

4^th: “The domain in which environmental sanitation problems are resolved should be kept to the minimum practicable size (household, community, town, district, catchment, city) and wastes diluted as little as possible.“

Also a Workshop on "Ecological Sanitation in a Recycling Society" in August 2000 organized by the associations Sida, UNDP, and SIWI addressed the potential of resource management sanitation to overcome water scarcity and wasting resources:

• "Water is an increasingly scarce resource and to continue to use clean drinking water as a means to transport human waste is not environmentally sustainable."

• "Linear approaches to problems, in which resources are used and converted into wastes, only to be disposed of, represent a failure in human ingenuity and a flaw in technology design."

This statement emphasizes that linear matter flows (i.e. they end in disposing of any matters as waste in the end instead of organizing matter flows in cycles realizing reuse achieving almost "zero emission" scenarios) should be changed - also in sanitation schemes.

• "In order to create a recycling society, we need to capture the wastes, render them safe and return them to productive resources again. Resource management sanitation is based on natural ecosystems. It contributes to environmental health and human well-being by reducing disease transmission and disposal of wastes, by recovering and recycling water and nutrients for increasing food security."

• "Most cities and towns in the Third World will neither have access to the required quantities of water, nor will they be able to generate financial resources for investments in extensive sewerage networks and treatment plants. Resource management sanitation is far more feasible financially and ecologically than conventional approaches to sanitation by reducing external inputs into a closed-loop system and by empowering people, providing for local livelihoods, and enhancing community cohesion."

This statement also points out that resource management sanitation helps to save financial resources, because it is a closed-loop system.

• "If coverage can be increased, resource management sanitation can serve as the missing link to sustainable urban development, reverse the unconscious pattern of linear thinking and actions, and be a technical solution that protects ecosystems and harmonises with natural systems."

• "There is a big need for research to further develop affordable and sustainable solutions, based on an eco-system approach, for the management of human excreta."

As resource management sanitation scenarios are discussed since last few years, it is clear that research is needed in this field. However, how many research activities have been developed in conventional sanitation?

Finally, an introduction to Resource management sanitation given by Steven A. Esrey also renders the most important characteristics of Resource management sanitation:

“Why do people want sanitation today? The most common reason given is for better health. People also want it for convenience, privacy, efficiency, dignity and status among other reasons. We want cars too for transportation. We want convenience, privacy, efficiency, dignity and status as well.

Just like a car and a highway system reflect our culture and values, the toilets and sanitation systems installed around the world also reflect our culture and values. Unfortunately, they reflect a culture of linear flow of resources, waste generation and disposal.

Resource management sanitation is also reflective of a culture and values, albeit an alternative one. It is an alternative philosophy, one with ecological design and systems thinking. Thus, resource management sanitation is more than a toilet or a technology. It is an alternative view of life of how we should live on this planet. It is about restoring communities, protecting cultures, preserving resources, and protecting biodiversity. This is how most of humanity lived until last century.

Resource management sanitation systems are designed on the cyclical principles of natural ecosystems. External inputs into the system, like water, and ‘wastes‘ that exit the system, like nutrients, are reduced to a minimum or eliminated. Thus, resource management sanitation systems are designed to render pathogens harmless close to where people excrete them, use no or little water, and recover and recycle nutrients.

By adhering to these principles, resource management sanitation systems help to solve some of society's most pressing problems - infectious disease, environmental degradation, water scarcity and the need to recover and recycle nutrients for plant growth. In doing so, it also helps to restore soil fertility, conserve fresh water and protect marine environments.

Those promoting and resource management sanitation systems take an ecosystems approach to the problem of human excreta. Urine and faeces are considered valuable resources, with distinct qualities, that are needed to restore soil fertility and increase food production. Prior to recycling nutrients, urine and/or faeces may need to be processed. Many of the plant nutrients in urine are readily available to be taken up by plants, while most of the pathogens causing illness are in the faeces. Thus, it makes sense to divert urine from faeces to keep urine relatively sterile, while making it easy to process and treat feaces to render them harmless. Faeces, which contain most of the carbon in excreta, can be rendered harmless by several processes and returned to the land as a soil conditioner as well as returning other valuable nutrients."