Posted on 03/17/2003 7:36:36 AM PST by cogitator
"Taboo of poo" blocking progress on global sanitation crisis: Kyoto forum
[slightly edited]
KYOTO, Japan (AFP) Mar 17, 2003
Embarrassment and inhibitions over discussing human waste is one of the prime obstacles to resolving the global sanitation crisis, experts gathered at the Third World Water Forum said here Monday.
Ensuring access to fresh water for 1.4 billion people is dominating discussions at the forum gathering 10,000 participants from 165 countries, but equally important is what to do with the waste generated by six billion people worldwide.
Only one billion people use flush toilets that are connected to sewage systems.
Another 2.8 billion people use pit latrines, but "there is a huge fraction of the planet -- 2.4 billion people -- that has no place to go and sh*t," said Doctor Jamie Bartram, the coordinator of water, sanitation and health for the World Health Organization.
Pathogens and parasites that breed in human waste quickly contaminate ground and surface water supplies if feces are not disposed of properly, causing illnesses that result in the deaths of as many as two million children annually, said Carol Bellamy, the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund.
Waste is also a major source of pollution; in India, for example, 70 percent of the river pollution is a direct result of human waste.
But the "psychology of excrement" inhibits real and effective solutions from being discussed on a local, national or global level, said Arno Rosemarin of the Stockholm Environment Institute, a non-governmental organization that is one of the key innovators in ecological sanitation research.
"We are entrenched in a global sanitation crisis but no one knows how to talk about it," he said.
Countries such as India and those in the "Victorian" west should take their cue from China, he said, which is "fearless" in discussing how to deal with its "horrible" sewage systems and using human excrement as an agricultural fertilizer.
"Until we can discuss sh*t and p*ss without squirming or giggling, we will not resolve this crisis," said Rosemarin. "Everybody's going to be downstream from someone else real soon."
Central to UN plans to halve the number of people without access to sanitation by 2015 are awareness campaigns, including the WASH initiative by the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council that uses posters, stickers and television ads to remind people to wash their hands after using the toilet.
Low-cost, smart toilets are also making inroads in both developed and developing nations.
El Salvador and Mozambique use flush-free earth toilets that produce rich fertilizers, while Sweden and Norway are installing hundreds of dry toilets with urine diversion in public buildings and private homes.
For island nations, the need for effective and low-impact sanitation is particularly pressing as their fragile coastal ecosystems and marginalized economies cannot support massive sewage systems.
But "cultural sensitivities about sanitation are much more of a challenge than technology issues," said Clive Carpenter, the head of water resources for the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission.
Composting toilets might be the "panacea" for the sanitation problems in the South Pacific, but accepting them as an alternative to gleaming white porcelain toilet bowls will take time, he said.
"Any attempt to introduce alternative sanitation must first be preceded, or at the very least accompanied by, a massive effort in community awareness," he said. "There is a major need to move beyond the taboo of poo."
And: cleaning up water might do more to reduce fatal disease overall than dumping millions of dollars on the AIDS crisis in Africa. Not that AIDS doesn't need money, but cholera and dysentery kill, too: and they kill more children.
probably, eh?
I wonder how much human feces it tales to amount to that of all the creatures in the ocean.
"Health of the coral reefs" indeed.
What's stopping the other 2.4 billion from picking up a shovel and digging a latrine?
The main thing connecting them is the economic level of the areas that lack sanitation. Another characteristic of these areas (particularly in China) is that humans and domestic animals (chickens, pigs, goats, etc.) share the domicile. This close proximity of humans and animals has been pointed out as one of the main reasons that new flu strains tend to originate in Asia. So while the lack of sewage treatment is a health problem, it's probably not the cause of new diseases, but the conditions that foster new diseases are endemic and related to the overall "health" situation.
Might be lack of a suitable site, in some cases. I.e., the people are so cheek-by-jowl that there's no place to dig except your neighbor's 20x20 space. (Ever seen a picture of Mexico City's high-density neighborhoods?)
Yes. Good point!
It's not the "whole" ocean. What's happening in many of these countries (particularly island nations) is that concentrated sewage outflow is getting dumped directly on the reefs that lie right offshore the coasts. This is a lot more waste (and nutrients) than are produced by the aquatic inhabitants of the reef themselves. Corals need very clear, low-nutrient water to survive, and the input of untreated sewage right on top of them is obviously not good.
Probably, because bubonic plague is spread by rats.
In an interesting side note, the first "epidemiologic" study was of cholera; a doctor mapped cholera incidence and fingered a contaminated well in London.
Yes.
That sort of squalor is hard for me to understand so I'll admit ignorance when it comes to third world sanitation.
One would think that living with cholera, dysentery and hepatitis ridden sewage would motivate these poor wretches to reach a consensus for a remedial solution to the problem.
Tear down selected areas of shacks for communal latrines. Burn the waste with diesel or kerosene. Bury it, pour lime on it, compost it, generate methane with it, anything but live with it flowing down the street or stream.
It doesn't sound like an insurmountable problem that requires first-world monies to solve.
I'd make a fortune if I could convince these poor slobs that living on a pile of feces is bad for their health.
How is something that has been taking place since the beginning of human existance(pooping in the woods/fields) a 'crisis'?
Nonsense. When you gotta go, you gotta go, and when you gotta go badly enough, you'll find a place, whether it's sanitary or not. The problem's not that two and a half billion have no place to sh*t, it's that they have no good place to sh*t.
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