By World Toilet Organization, curated by Sammy Ginsberg
A clean and safe toilet ensures health, dignity and well-being – yet 40% of the world’s population does not have access to toilets.
- Some 297,000 children – more than 800 every day – under five die annually from diarrhoeal diseases due to poor sanitation, poor hygiene, or unsafe drinking water. These deaths are preventable with toilets! (WHO 2019)
- Almost half of the schools in the world do not have handwashing facilities with soap and water available to students. What does that mean in COVID times?! (WHO/UNICEF 2020)
- Clean and safe toilets help keep more girls in school and increase attendance rates. Far too many girls miss out on education just because of the lack of a clean and safe toilet. Miss out on EDUCATION because of a TOILET! (WHO / UNICEF 2020)
- Over half of the population or 4.2 billion people lack safe sanitation. Globally, at least 2 billion people use a drinking water source contaminated with faeces (WHO / UNICEF 2019). Imagine instead of fruit infused water you were drinking faeces infused water. Go and thank your toilet right now!
- For every $1 invested in basic sanitation, the return is $2.5. In the case of basic sanitation in rural areas, every $1 returns on average more than $5 in saved medical costs and increased productivity. (Hutton et al. 2015). Prevention instead of reaction!
The facts above are from the World Toilet Organization, a global non-profit committed to improving toilet and sanitation conditions worldwide. They believe in empowering individuals through education, training, and building local marketplace opportunities to advocate for clean and safe sanitation facilities in their communities.
The World Toilet Organization was founded by Jack Sim, and was instrumental in creating World Toilet Day in partnership with UN Water.
This piece is from The Feminist Toilet #1. To go back and read more, click here.
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