New machine aims to end India's sewer death shame

Yahoo – AFP, 19 November 2018

World Toilet Day is held on November 19 each year and is a campaign to raise
awareness of issues surrounding health and sanitation

Hundreds of "manual scavengers" die each year cleaning out sewers in cities across India but a machine unveiled for Monday's World Toilet Day could help to end that tragic record.

Thousands of mostly low-caste Indians are employed in one of the world's dirtiest jobs unclogging human waste from underground pipes.

More than 1,300 have died, mainly suffocated, in the past three years, according to the Sulabh International charity.

The men are called "manual scavengers" because they mainly scrape the waste with their bare hands without any protective gear or masks.

The machine launched by Sulabh injects high pressure water into the tunnels and tanks and then collects the waste with a mechanical bucket operated from ground level.

A remote control inspection camera generates high-resolution images of the sewer system.

Bindeshwar Pathak, the Sulabh International founder, said that forcing humans into the sewers was "demeaning".

"We hear so often the tragic news about sewer workers losing their lives," he said.

"This machine can safely clean the waste matter and it will gradually make manual scavenging redundant.

"With this machine we hope no person will die in the sewers any more."

Indian lawmakers have passed several laws aiming to stamp out the age-old practice of manual scavenging, the latest in 2013. But many scavengers are still used through subcontractors.

In rural areas, women "scavengers" clean out primitive non-flush toilets with basic tools, although the practice is now on the wane.

Pathak also unveiled a giant Indian-style toilet pot to raise awareness about sanitation in a country where some 150 million people do not have home toilets.

Xi orders China's 'toilet revolution' to march on

Yahoo – AFP,  November 27, 2017

China's 'toilet revolution' was launched in 2015 as part of efforts to make restrooms --
often squat toilets with no paper -- more tourist-friendly (AFP Photo/WANG ZHAO)

Beijing (AFP) - China's president has ordered the country to march on in its "revolution" to clean up notoriously dirty and foul-smelling public bathrooms in a bid to improve quality of life and boost tourism.

The so-dubbed "toilet revolution" was launched in 2015 as part of efforts to make restrooms -- often squat toilets with no paper -- more tourist-friendly.

President Xi Jinping said the toilet problem "is not a small thing" and cleaning up is necessary to create a "civilised" urban and rural environment, China's state news agency Xinhua reported Monday.

The country expects to have added or upgraded more than 70,000 toilets by the end of this year.

Another 64,000 will be built or enhanced between 2018 and 2020, the National Tourism Administration has said in an action plan.

According to Xinhua, since taking office in 2012, Xi has made a point on rural tours to ask villagers whether they did their business in flushable toilets or pits dug into the ground.

"In rural areas, some toilets were little more than makeshift shelters surrounded by bunches of corn stalks, and some were open pits next to pigsties," the agency said.

"Local authorities are now more aware of the important role toilets play, believing better toilets are not only beneficial for tourism, but can also... enhance the overall level of civilisation of society."

China's infamous "squatty potties" arouse fear in some would-be tourists, with several tourism blog posts dedicated to the subject.

While studies have indicated that squatting may have health benefits over sitting, the position is still hard to accept for those accustomed to porcelain thrones.

Public bathrooms in China have also been known to be bereft of toilet paper thanks to enterprising crooks sneaking out entire rolls for their personal use. Facial recognition is now employed in some places to limit individual toilet paper portions.

Internet commenters applauded the restroom remodelling movement on Chinese microblogging site Weibo on Monday.

"Support the toilet revolution," one user wrote. "Seriously, whether it's in a city or the countryside, when nature calls, it's always a hassle to find a decent bathroom."

Indian woman wins divorce over lack of toilet

Yahoo – AFP, August 20, 2017

An Indian urinates on a wall in front of a poster in Hyderabad for the Hindi film
"Toilet", about one man's battle to build toilets in his village (AFP Photo/NOAH SEELAM)

Jaipur (India) (AFP) - An Indian court has given a woman permission to divorce her husband because their home did not have a toilet, forcing her to seek relief outdoors.

The family court in the northwestern state of Rajasthan ruled on Friday in favour of the woman, who argued that her husband's failure to provide an indoor toilet during their five years of marriage amounted to cruelty.

Justice Rajendra Kumar Sharma said women in villages often endured physical pain waiting until darkness to relieve themselves outdoors.

The judge labelled open defecation -- a major health problem in India -- disgraceful and deemed it torture to deny women a safe environment for relief, the woman's lawyer Rajesh Sharma told AFP.

Divorce is only granted in India if proof such as cruelty, violence or undue financial demands are shown in court.

It is not the first time a marriage has been called off over a toilet.

Last year a woman refused to tie the knot in Uttar Pradesh state after her fiancé refused to build a toilet for the couple.

In June another woman refused to return to the home of her in-laws until they constructed a toilet.

Nearly half of India's population -- almost 600 million people -- defecate in the open, according to UNICEF.

Some 70 percent of Indian households do not have toilets, although 90 percent have access to mobile phones.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised to build a toilet in every home by 2019 in a bid to stamp out open defecation.

The government says 20 million toilets have been constructed since the start of the scheme in 2014.

But experts say open defecation not only stems from poverty but a belief that toilets inside the home are unclean.

Hongkongers pooh-pooh waste treatment plant, despite free spa

Yahoo – AFP, May 26, 2016

The three mineral-infused pools in the glass-walled spa, each with a different
temperature, are powered by the heat from the burning sludge (AFP Photo/
Isaac Lawrence)

Hong Kong (AFP) - It is billed as a groundbreaking way to deal with Hong Kong's human waste, and even includes an onsite spa free to residents, but a new eco-friendly sludge treatment plant has not washed with some locals.

The sustainable T-Park development blends into coastal hills near the town of Tuen Mun in the north of Hong Kong, a sleek low-rise building with a roof shaped like a wave.

Each day, the HK$5 billion ($644 million) plant treats 1,200 tonnes of sludge from the city's wastewater treatment plants to avoid it being dumped in Hong Kong's overflowing landfills.

"We can live together in a dense city 

without making the planet dirty," said 

Antoine Frerot, chairman of Veolia 

(AFP Photo/Isaac Lawrence)

The plant desalinates its own seawater and powers itself by the energy created from burning organic waste in what is the world's largest sludge incinerator.

Built by French management giant Veolia, city officials say it is "one of the most technologically advanced facilities" of its kind and will not emit pollutants.

But locals who already complain about smells emanating from a nearby landfill have protested against bringing yet more waste into the area.

And the building of a free onsite spa has been dismissed by some as a rubbish idea.

The three mineral-infused pools in the glass-walled spa, each with a different temperature, are powered by the heat from the burning sludge.

Seawater used for the pools is first desalinated at the plant and visitors can look out over ocean views as they soak.

They can also have a tour of the plant as part of their trip.

"Pure water is a symbol of purity," Antoine Frerot, chairman of Veolia, told AFP during a tour of the plant by French minister for foreign trade Matthias Fekl Wednesday.

"We can live together in a dense city without making the planet dirty."

However, Cheng Wai-kwan, 49, who lives in a village close to the plant said the spa was less than tempting.

"If I tell you I have a spa near home which is powered by burning rubbish, I don't think anyone would come," he told AFP.

He was among 40 villagers who protested at the site during the plant's official opening ceremony last week.

T-Park, the new sludge treatment facility in Tuen Mun in Hong Kong (AFP

 Photo/Isaac Lawrence)

The spa is due to open to the public next month.

Cheng said hundreds of villagers living nearby were fed up with the smell of the nearby landfill, and he worried it would get worse.

"Basically, you will have tonnes of shit brought to our district every single day. However beautifully it is being packaged, I don't think it is benefiting us," Cheng added.

A Tuen Mun district councillor said locals had never agreed to have the plant being built in their backyard.

"The government is using the spa as a compensation but I don't think it's enough," said Ho Hang-mui.

"Residents already have to shut their windows (because of the landfill). Even if the spa is free I don't think people will be able to enjoy it," she added.

Related Articles:

UK's first 'poo bus' goes into regular service

Poo power celebrated as solar toilet wins sanitation prize

Bill Gates drinks cup of water that used to be human poop (VIDEO)

European toilets a mystery to many refugees

Refugees often find European toilets mystifying. Pictograms and instructions in Arabic don't always have the desired effect - but help is on the way in the form of a novel kind of toilet for all.

Deutsche Welle, 17 February 2016

The influx of more than 1 million refugees last year is German society's "rendezvous with globalization," according to Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble.

It's undoubtedly a rendezvous of different cultures. And in the rush to provide housing, cots, clothing, food, language training and health care for the thousands of newcomers, no one thought to explain Western-style flush toilets.

The mayor of Hardheim, a small town in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, raised the issue in October - and was ridiculed for thinking it necessary to admonish the town's asylum-seekers not to relieve themselves in gardens, parks, behind hedges and behind bushes.

European sanitation norms

The difficult and often tense situation in overcrowded emergency refugee shelters, tents and gyms isn't made easier by different toilet standards and rituals.

Squat toilets are traditional in many parts of the Muslim world. Baffled by ordinary Western-style flush toilets, refugees nationwide have squatted on toilet rims or the floor of the bathroom when nature called; others have relieved themselves in the shower stalls, leaving behind human excrement on the floors.

It's not a central problem, says Manfred Nowak of Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO), a social welfare organization in Berlin that currently looks after 4,000 refugees in six initial reception facilities in the capital. But it does exist, he told DW, adding that the severity of the problem depended on where the refugees were from.

Many refugees find themselves confronted with outside portable toilets

Many migrants will have never seen toilet paper before, and even if they have, water-free wiping is widely thought to be an unsanitary way of cleaning oneself. Sit-down flush toilets are a mystery despite the pictogram instructions that have meanwhile been put up.

Co-existence of cultures

A remedy is in the works, however: Sanitary specialists at the Global Fliegenschmidt toilet manufacturers in Coswig in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt have come up with a portable "multicultural toilet."

It's been on the market for just a few days, company head Peter Fliegenschmidt told DW. His company has sold squat toilet units for years, he said, but in the wake of the refugee crisis in Germany, the challenge was to come up with a combined Western-style/squat toilet. He has already received queries from organizations that run refugee shelters.

His firm specializes in portable toilets, which are currently in high demand for use in emergency refugee shelters. "Generally, about 60 percent of our toilets are found on construction sites, and about 30 percent are used at special events like fairs and concerts," he said. Equipping refugee shelters is a new development that's bound to be "temporary," he said, adding that he saw a market for the new portable squat toilet abroad and at construction sites, which often employ foreigners.

Fliegenschmidt's design is actually surprisingly simple. It's a regular Western-style toilet bowl with a sizeable squatting platform to the left and the right.

Different body hygiene standards

Toilet routines differ, and Islamic culture has detailed toilet etiquette.

Islamic countries traditionally use water to wash. The myreligionislam.com website lists 20 rules and practices "to be followed when answering the call of nature." One rule stipulates using fingers to clean oneself, and "if there are still traces," washing them with water. Cleaning the private parts "with stones and similar materials" is regarded as an "acceptable substitute for cleaning them with water."

Other rules forbid talking, singing, smoking or reading the paper while on the toilet. People are also advised to enter the bathroom left foot first, while exiting with the right.

Strong public health message on UN World Toilet Day

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has been leading calls for improved sanitation on World Toilet Day. Billions still suffer from a lack of proper toilets and the accompanying, heightened risk of serious illness.

Deutsche Welle, 19 Nov 2015

The United Nations says 2.4 billion people around the world don't have access to decent sanitation and more than a billion are forced to defecate out in the open. The world's population is currently just under 7.5 billion.

The UN launched World Toilet Day (19.11.2015) with a strong public health message. Poor sanitation, it said, increases the risk of illness and malnutrition, especially for children.

The UN also said that women and girls in particular need safe, clean facilities.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement that one in three women around the world had no access to safe toilets. "As a result they face disease, shame and potential violence when they seek a place to defecate."

In Ghana's Northern region, it's estimated that seven out of ten people - men, women and children - have no access to toilet facilities, neither in their home nor in public spaces.

But some people who have access to public toilets prefer the bush. "Inside the toilet it is always hot, it is better to consider the forest. Also they don't keep them clean. That's the main reason why I won't use a public toilet," one man in Tamale told DW.

DW visited a public toilet in Tamale where people pay a small gratuity. It was in a filthy condition.

"Toilets can't always be cleaned. Sometimes the caretaker will have additional work somewhere else so he has no time to keep things clean," the toilet attendant said.

Ban Ki-moon:'We have a moral
imperative to end open defecation'

An estimated 18,000 Ghanaians, including 5,000 children under the age of five, die every year from ailments related to poor sanitation.

Convention and customs?

The UN Millennium Development Goals, which are supposed to be achieved this year, call for the halving of the proportion of the population without access to basic sanitation.

Ban said that by many accounts, this will be "the most-missed target."

In 2013, the UN launched a campaign to end defecation in the open by 2025. In sub-Sharan Africa, 36 percent of the population were not using toilets in 1990. Twenty-five years later that figure now stands at 25 percent.

In a World Toilet Day press release, the UN says open defecation is deeply rooted in poverty, but has also been linked to convention and customs in some countries and societies. It represents some of the only times other than worship where women from rigid family circumstances may meet one another.

Maxwell Suuk in Tamale contributed to this report.

Beijing tasked with crap job of creating 'toilet revolution' in rural China

Want China Times, Xinhua 2015-07-18

Outhouses in Quzhou, Zhejiang province. (Internet photo)

Toilets in the Chinese countryside have earned a nasty reputation, with some little more than ramshackle shelters surrounded by bunches of cornstalk and others just open pits next to pigsties.

However, a toilet revolution is under way as the Chinese government scrambles to meet a UN health target requiring 75% of rural areas to have sanitary toilets by this year.

China's national standard require toilets in rural homes to have walls, roofs, doors and windows and to be at least two square meters in size. They may be flush toilets or dry toilets with underground storage tanks.

Provincial officials around the country said they have been urged to renovate sub-standard toilets and build new ones for farmers.

"Toilets seem like quite an insignificant thing, easily overlooked, but we find it to be an important and quite difficult task," Chen Xiaojin, deputy chief of the health department in eastern China's Jiangsu province, told Xinhua.

Currently, 94% of rural Jiangsu homes have these "sanitary" toilets. Chen said Jiangsu boasts the highest number of up-to-standard toilets in the country, thanks to persistent work in persuading and assisting rural residents to upgrade their facilities.

Sanitary toilets are a health priority for Jiangsu officials. The provincial health department publishes a ranking of cities each month based on their work to build new toilets. Officials who have slacked off risk being reprimanded.

According to the National Health and Family Planning Commission, a national figure on rural toilets will not be available until the end of the year. But the commission said China should have no problem meeting the UN target, as the 2014 figure had already reached 74%. China will set an additional national target of 85% for 2020.

"We must realize the period from now to 2020 is crucial. We are under a lot of pressure, and officials at every level must advance with the campaign," said Li Bin, head of the commission, at a national conference last December.

In Yongkang Village in central Jiangsu, villager Bu has just finished building a flush toilet.

"This kind of new, high-quality toilet is much better and cleaner with no smell," he said. His old one was a thatched space full of flies and maggots. "In the countryside, toilets used to be the dirtiest places. Now they have become the cleanest spots," he said.

HEAVY FUNDING

In Bu's village, each household received 800 yuan (about US$130) from the government to rebuild or renovate their toilets during the first half of 2015. The average home toilet upgrade costs about 3,000 yuan (about US$485), and the farmers must make up the costs not covered by the subsidies.

From 2004 to 2013, China's central government earmarked 8.27 billion yuan (US$1.33 billion) to build toilets in rural areas. Farmers who have agreed to build new toilets are eligible to receive the funds. The amounts vary from 150 yuan (US$24) in central and western China to 500 yuan (US$80) in the eastern and southern regions, where building materials are more expensive. Local governments with deeper pockets may also offer additional subsidies to villagers.

However, officials claim convincing rural residents to change their toilets is a challenge. "Most villagers are used to their way of using the toilet. It is hard to change," said Wang Zhigang, Communist Party secretary in Tanggou township in northern Jiangsu.

Farmers collect feces to be composted on their farmland. If they use flush toilets, no compost will be left behind. Dry toilets with tanks bring the extra task of regular cleaning.

"We had to build a few toilets first and take villagers to visit, and then encourage them to build new ones," he said. Slogans such as "sanitary toilets improve lives" are painted on walls of rural homes. TV stations are told to air videos promoting the use of better toilet facilities.

Fu Yanfen, a researcher at China Disease Prevention and Control, warned that about 80% of contagious diseases such as diarrhea and cholera in rural China are caused by contamination from toilets.

"The improvement of rural health has a profound impact on rural life and the rural economy. The local government must keep up with their work. We should continue to help the villagers in the repair, cleaning and maintenance of these facilities," Health Minister Li Bin said.

A renovated bathroom at Guilin Central Square, Guangxi, Feb. 26. (File photo/Xinhua)

Related Articles:

Toilets to be upgraded at tourist sites in China

'Toilet revolution' set to transform China's tourist sites

A cleaner at work at a toilet in Xujiahui Park in Shanghai, Oct. 21, 2014.

(File photo/Xinhua

Indian children asked to blow whistle on open defecation

This Man Is Modi's Best Chance To Make India Sanitary

University installs prototype 'pee power' toilet

Urinal at University of the West of England can generate electricity to power indoor lighting, which Oxfam says show potential for use in refugee camps

The Guardian, Rebecca Smithers, Thursday 5 March 2015

A toilet at the University of the West of England is proving urine can
generate electricity. Photograph: UWE Bristol

A prototype toilet has been launched on a UK university campus to prove that urine can generate electricity, and show its potential for helping to light cubicles in international refugee camps.

Students and staff at the Bristol-based University of the West of England are being asked to use the working urinal to feed microbial fuel cell (MFC) stacks that generate electricity to power indoor lighting.

The project is the result of a partnership between researchers at the university and Oxfam, who hope the technology can be developed by aid agencies on a larger scale to bring light to refugee camp toilets in disaster zones.

“We have already proved that this way of generating electricity works,” said research lead Professor Ioannis Ieropoulos, director of the Bristol BioEnergy Centre, which in 2013 demonstrated MCF stacks generating enough electricity to power a phone. “The project with Oxfam could have a huge impact in refugee camps.”

The technology uses microbes which feed on urine for their own growth and maintenance. “The MFC is in effect a system which taps a portion of that biochemical energy used for microbial growth, and converts that directly into electricity - what we are calling urine-tricity or pee power. This technology is about as green as it gets, as we do not need to utilise fossil fuels and we are effectively using a waste product that will be in plentiful supply,” said Ieropoulos.

The urinal - conveniently located near the Student Union bar - resembles toilets used in refugee camps to make the trial as realistic as possible. The equipment that converts the urine into power sits underneath the urinal and can be viewed through a clear screen.

Andy Bastable, Head of Water and Sanitation at Oxfam, commented: “Oxfam is an expert at providing sanitation in disaster zones, and it is always a challenge to light inaccessible areas far from a power supply. This technology is a huge step forward. Living in a refugee camp is hard enough without the added threat of being assaulted in dark places at night. The potential of this invention is huge.”

An estimated 6.4tn litres of urine is produced by humans across the globe every year, so researchers believe it has great potential as a cheap and readily available source of energy. Ieropoulos said the unit installed at the university would cost around £600 to set up.

A solar powered toilet designed by the California Institute of Technology for
 the Reinvent the Toilet challenge. Photograph: Michael Hanson/Gates Foundation 

Related Articles:

Poo power celebrated as solar toilet wins sanitation prize

Bill Gates drinks cup of water that used to be human poop (VIDEO)

Toilets to be upgraded at tourist sites in China

Want China Times, Xinhua 2015-03-01

A renovated bathroom at Guilin Central Square, Guangxi,
Feb. 26. (File photo/Xinhua)

China will build 13,000 new toilets and renovate another 9,000 in 2015 at tourist sites to upgrade the notorious facilities, tourism authorities announced on Thursday.

The campaign is part of China's three-year "toilet revolution" aimed at building a total of 33,000 restrooms and renovating 24,000 by 2017, said Li Jinzao, head of the China National Tourism Administration.

Li released the target at a national kick-off meeting, adding that insufficient and unhygienic toilets have damaged China's national image and left tourists unhappy.

The official urged local tourism authorities to consider the special needs of the elderly, women, children and disabled when building and renovating toilets.

Over 3.7 billion trips were made to China's tourist sites last year, and some 128 million were from overseas visitors.

A cleaner at work at a toilet in Xujiahui Park in Shanghai, Oct. 21, 2014.
(File photo/Xinhua)

Related Articles:

'Toilet revolution' set to transform China's tourist sites

Indian children asked to blow whistle on open defecation
This Man Is Modi's Best Chance To Make India Sanitary

Bill Gates drinks cup of water that used to be human poop (VIDEO)

RT.com, January 07, 2015

Screenshot from YouTube user thegatesnotes

Billionaire activist Bill Gates is backing an innovation in water filtration that turns human poop into drinking water. The OmniProcessor could bring clean water to millions of people and help solve the problem of debilitating diseases.

The OmniProcessor, designed and built by Seattle engineering firm Janicki Bioenergy, burns human waste to produce electricity and water. The processor powers itself through the use of a steam engine and does not emit an odor. The machine could handle 14 tons of waste from 100,000 people, producing up to 86,000 liters of drinkable water a day, and net 250 kw of electricity.

At a demonstration of the OmniProcessor shown on GatesNotes, a smiling Bill Gates drank water from the machine, which was previously untreated sewage.

“It’s water,” said Gates in the video.

He wrote on his blog: "The water tasted as good as any I’ve had out of a bottle. And having studied the engineering behind it, I would happily drink it every day. It’s that safe."

Gates said that 2.5 billion people – or 40 percent of the global population – have no access to safe sanitation, and many people use facilities that do not safely dispose of human waste. About 1.5 million children die every year from contaminated food and water, and half of all patients in hospitals are there because of problems with water and sanitation. It is extremely costly to try and create sewage infrastructure in cities and towns that already exist, so Gates thinks the low cost water treatment machine could be revolutionary.

Screenshot from YouTube user thegatesnotes

“If you can get thousands of these things out there, then you’ve ensured the people really will grow up in a healthy way,” Gates told Wired. “They’ll live much higher quality lives. You will save a lot of lives. And you’ll have local entrepreneurs who are maintaining these things.”

The OmniProcessor, which costs $1.5 million, will undergo a pilot launch in Dakar, Senegal later this year.

Related Articles:

Indian children asked to blow whistle on open defecation

Indian villages lit up by off-grid power

Rural India's low-cost sanitary pad revolution


"2013 - What Now ?" – Jan 6, 2013 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) - (Text version)

“… New ideas are things you never thought of. These ideas will be given to you so you will have answers to the most profound questions that your societies have had since you were born. Inventions will bring clean water to every Human on the planet, cheaply and everywhere. Inventions will give you power, cheaply and everywhere. These ideas will wipe out all of the reasons you now have for pollution, and when you look back on it, you'll go, "This solution was always there. Why didn't we think of that? Why didn't we do this sooner?" Because it wasn't time and you were not ready. You hadn't planted the seeds and you were still battling the old energy, deciding whether you were going to terminate yourselves before 2012. Now you didn't…. and now you didn't.

It's funny, what you ponder about, and what your sociologists consider the "great current problems of mankind", for your new ideas will simply eliminate the very concepts of the questions just as they did in the past. Do you remember? Two hundred years ago, the predictions of sociologists said that you would run out of food, since there wasn't enough land to sustain a greater population. Then you discovered crop rotation and fertilizer. Suddenly, each plot of land could produce many times what it could before. Do you remember the predictions that you would run out of wood to heat your homes? Probably not. That was before electricity. It goes on and on.

So today's puzzles are just as quaint, as you will see. (1)How do you strengthen the power grids of your great nations so that they are not vulnerable to failure or don't require massive infrastructure improvement expenditures? Because cold is coming, and you are going to need more power. (2) What can you do about pollution? (3) What about world overpopulation? Some experts will tell you that a pandemic will be the answer; nature [Gaia] will kill off about one-third of the earth's population. The best minds of the century ponder these puzzles and tell you that you are headed for real problems. You have heard these things all your life.

Let me ask you this. (1) What if you could eliminate the power grid altogether? You can and will. (2) What if pollution-creating sources simply go away, due to new ideas and invention, and the environment starts to self-correct? (3) Overpopulation? You assume that humanity will continue to have children at an exponential rate since they are stupid and can't help themselves. This, dear ones, is a consciousness and education issue, and that is going to change. Imagine a zero growth attribute of many countries - something that will be common. Did you notice that some of your children today are actually starting to ponder if they should have any children at all? What a concept! ….”

Indian children asked to blow whistle on open defecation

Yahoo – AFP, 2 Nov 2014

Indian men wash in a toilet complex run by an NGO Sulabh International at
a railway station in New Delhi on April 23, 2011 (AFP file)

Children armed with whistles will soon be patrolling villages in central India to try to shame those defecating in the open, a report said Sunday.

Madhya Pradesh state government is expected soon to launch the unusual sanitation initiative, in which schoolchildren will blow their whistles loudly when they spot someone squatting in the open instead of using a toilet.

Open defecation has long been a major health and sanitation problem in India, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying every household should have a toilet within four years.

But a Madhya Pradesh official said many preferred to relieve themselves in the open rather than use a toilet, requiring unusual efforts to halt the practice which spreads disease.

"It is not just enough to make 'pucca' (proper) toilets to stop the practice of open defecation in rural areas," Sanjay Dubey, a divisional commissioner for Indore region, told the Press Trust of India (PTI).

"There is also a need to launch an effective social drive in such areas to check it," Dubey said.

Children in the Indore region will be educated about the need to keep their surroundings clean, before being handed the whistles and asked to roam their neighbourhoods, he told the news agency.

"This (blowing a whistle) would make that person feel shameful and would help to check this practice."

Modi has stressed the need to clean up India, which has a reputation for poor public hygiene and rudimentary sanitation.

A recent report by the UN children's fund UNICEF estimates almost 594 million -- or nearly 50 percent of India's population -- defecate in the open.

In addition to those who choose to do so, some 300 million women and girls are forced to squat in the open at night, exposing themselves to harassment and assault.

The issue was highlighted in May when two girls, aged 12 and 14, were attacked as they went into the fields to relieve themselves. Police are investigating if they were gang-raped before being lynched.

Related Article:

This Man Is Modi's Best Chance To Make India Sanitary

This Man Is Modi's Best Chance To Make India Sanitary

Business Insider –AFP, Abhaya Srivastava, Oct 2, 2014

Founder of Indian sanitation charity Sulabh International Bindeshwar Pathak (C)
demonstrates his low-cost two-pit toilet technology in New Delhi (AFP Sajjad Hussain)

New Delhi (AFP) - Surrounded by latrines and soap dispensers, sanitation charity founder Bindeshwar Pathak is most at home in the toilet, which he vows to build in every impoverished home in India.

Affectionately known as India's "toilet guru", 71-year-old Pathak has spent four decades working to improve sanitation in a country where half of the population relieve themselves in the open air.

Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, a champion of cleanliness, Pathak has more recently been spurred on by new Prime Minister Narendra Modi who wants to make India free of open defecation by 2019.   

"India has the technology and the methodology. What we lack is infrastructure," Pathak said of Modi's vision, as he took AFP on a tour of cheap, eco-friendly toilets that his New Delhi-based charity has developed.

"We also need funds to the tune of $42.3 billion considering each toilet will cost about $320," he said, making quick calculations on a piece of paper.

"We can't claim to be the next superpower when we don't even have something as basic as a toilet for everyone," he said ahead of Thursday's national holiday to celebrate the birthday of India's independence hero Gandhi.

National hygiene drive

Modi is due to launch a national cleanliness drive on Thursday, after pledging in August to ensure all households have toilets in the next five years.

From top ministers to lowly officials, all are expected to turn up to work on Thursday to clean up their government buildings -- including their toilets -- many of which stink of stale urine and are littered with rubbish and spit.

"This mission ... aspires to realise Gandhi-ji's dream of a clean India," Modi said recently after pledging during the May election campaign to build "toilets first, temples later".

"Together we can make a big difference," the Hindu nationalist said.

UNICEF estimates that almost 594 million -- or nearly 50 percent of India's population -- defecate in the open, with the situation acute in dirt-poor rural areas.

Some 300 million women and girls are forced to squat outside normally under the cover of darkness, exposed not only to the risks of disease and bacterial infection, but also harassment and assault by men.

The issue was thrown into the spotlight in late May when two girls, aged 12 and 14, were allegedly attacked as they went into the fields to relieve themselves. Police are investigating if they were gang-raped before being lynched.  

Two-pit toilet technology

Pathak, the founder of sanitation charity Sulabh International, has already constructed 1.3 million toilets for households using his cheap, two-pit technology.

When one pit is filled, it is covered, and the other pit is used. Within two years, the waste in the covered pit dries up, ridding itself of pathogens and ready for use as fertiliser.

Such toilets use less than a gallon of water per flush compared to 2.6 gallons (10 litres) for conventional latrines and do not require attachment to underground sewer lines, which are nonexistent in most villages.

Pit toilets also eliminate the need for the degrading task of manually removing toilet waste by workers who are seen as the "ultimate untouchables" in caste-ridden India.

Pathak is determined to banish the need for such "manual scavengers", who often scoop out excrement with their hands into wicker baskets, a campaign also pushed by Gandhi before his death in 1948.   

Himself an upper-class Brahmin, Pathak recounted how he was made to consume cow dung and urine as part of a "purification ritual" after he touched a woman, who used to clean latrines, as a 10-year-old boy.

"This moment has stayed with me," he said.

Pathak's charity has also harnessed "bio-gas' produced from human waste which is used to generate electricity to power the charity's offices. The gas has also been bottled for use as fuel for cooking.

Despite his achievements, Pathak said his task is far from complete, and he was determined to change cultural and social attitudes against toilets. Many people in India consider toilets unhygienic and prefer to squat in the open, believing it is more sanitary to leave waste far from your home.

"Many people (also) find toilets stifling," said Pathak. "We tell them that you can keep the top of the toilet uncovered if you want to have a feel of defecating in the open."

Employees hang just-washed donated cotton clothes that will be used

 to make cloth sanitary napkins at non-profit organisation 'Goonj' 
(Echo) in New Delhi on April 22, 2014 (AFP Photo/Sajjad Hussain)

Related Article:

US consumer giant seeks to smash India menstruation taboos