Praise for the Toilets – Global Issues - Health & Fitness Journal

A Dalit woman stands in front of a dry toilet at the home of an upper caste villager in Mainpuri, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Credit: Shai Venkatraman/IPSby Baher Kamal (Madrid)Monday 14 November 2022Inter Press Service

MADRID, Nov. 14 (IPS) — For those who have it, a toilet is the “thing” in the bathroom, along with the bidet, the wash-hand basin with hot and cold water faucets, and the bathtub.

Given their “unrepresentative” function, some billionaires, particularly in the Gulf oil-producing kingdoms, like to rest their buttocks on a solid gold toilet. If they are there, why not solid gold fittings too?

Many others prefer a more comfortable use of their toilets and therefore equip them with both automatic heating and flushing. And anyway, no one would think about the great importance of all these “things”.

The other side of the coin shows a very different picture. A shocking one, by the way.

Billions of people without one

And the fact is that almost 4 billion people – or about half of the world’s 8 billion population – still live without access to safe toilets and other sanitation facilities.

Almost a decade ago, the international community represented in the United Nations General Assembly decided to declare November 19 every year as World Day to address such a distressing issue.

And year after year, the UN continues to be “politically correct” by saying that progress and achievements have been made, however much remains to be done.

Despite this “correctness,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres declared on the day that the world is “seriously off course on delivering on our promise of safe toilets for all by 2030 – a crucial indicator in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.” Investment in sanitation systems is under-invested and progress remains too slow.”

Photo Courtesy: Shelter Associates

The facts

Well, this year’s World Toilet Day (November 19) brings some shocking facts:

Child Deaths: Every day, more than 800 children under the age of five die from diarrhea caused by unsafe water, sanitation and poor hygiene.

Poor hygiene has been linked to the transmission of diarrheal diseases such as cholera and dysentery, as well as typhoid, intestinal worm infections and polio. It exacerbates growth retardation and contributes to the spread of antibiotic resistance.

Globally, 1 in 3 schools do not have adequate toilets and 23% of schools have no toilets at all. Schools without toilets can result in girls missing out on their education. Without proper sanitation, many are forced to miss school when they have their periods.

Open defecation: About 900 million people worldwide practice open defecation, which means they go outside – on the roadside, in bushes or in garbage heaps. It often depends on where you live: 90% of people who practice open bowel movements live in rural areas.

Of these, 494 million still empty themselves outdoors, for example in street gullies, behind bushes or in open water.

Additionally, in 2020 alone, the lack of sanitation was behind the fact that 45% of domestic wastewater generated worldwide was discharged without safe treatment.

Consequently, it is estimated that at least 10% of the world’s population consumes food irrigated by wastewater.

Safely managed wastewater disposal protects the groundwater from contamination by human waste. Credit: Lova Rabary-Rakontodravony/IPS

The impact on groundwater

If all of that weren’t enough, World Toilet Day 2022 will focus on another invisible fact: the severe impact of such a sanitation crisis on groundwater, which provides up to 99% of the world’s freshwater.

The 2022 Making the Invisible Visible campaign examines how inadequate sanitation systems disperse human waste into rivers, lakes and soil, and pollutes underground water resources.

However, this problem seems to be invisible. Invisible because it happens underground. Invisible because it happens in the poorest and most marginalized communities.

Groundwater is the most abundant freshwater source in the world. It supports drinking water supply, sewage systems, agriculture, industry and ecosystems. In view of the worsening climate change and population growth, groundwater is essential for human survival.

The invisible dangers

The key message of World Toilet Day 2022 is that safely managed sanitation protects groundwater from pollution from human waste.

Do you see why:

Safe sanitation protects groundwater. Properly located and connected to safely managed sanitation systems, toilets collect, treat and dispose of human waste and help prevent human waste from spreading into groundwater.

Sanitary facilities must withstand climate change. Toilets and sanitary facilities must be built or adapted for extreme weather events so that the supply always works and the groundwater is protected.

The above shows how these “things” in the bathroom can be life-saving.

Furthermore, for those obsessed with measuring human suffering solely in terms of money-making, it should be enough to know that providing proper sanitation is good business: every $1 invested in it translates to $5 Dollars saved in healthcare.

Where next?

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