Water and sanitation services have been on the international agenda since the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. But long-term financial investments into the necessary infrastructure have been insufficient, and international targets were initially set too low. (The International Institute for Sustainable Development – IISD).
Foreign governments have always been generous to Third World countries in terms of medical supplies, vaccines, food, infrastructure and finances. They espouse support for these countries, mainly in large infrastructure projects, and there is always an underlying reason for this concern.
Call it strategic alliances, geopolitical partnerships and/or an effort to show off their ‘generosity’ to others. Global hegemony is typically at the forefront of foreign aid, and it’s accomplished with support. The rich countries see aid to Third World nations as a function of world domination, be it China, Russia, America or the UK.
Infrastructure Aid
Governments are not the only player in foreign aid. Charities, often based in the USA, follow government’s lead in pushing for funding infrastructure in the less fortunate ‘developing’ countries. I’ve always thought that it’s nice to have a water treatment plant in the Sudan, but when it needs regular maintenance, there are no technicians to do it. Or when your local church installs a water pump to supply water to a village, it’s lack of a piping system provides water for a very few while people only a mile away have little access to its abundant water.
The creating of complicated infrastructure always comes with the assertion that if you ‘teach people to fish, they will feed themselves.’ It is a magnanimous thing to do, but is usually overdone to make everyone involved look good. It’s not as if those foreign governments are buying the infrastructure materials from the country they are helping, it’s always coming from American, UK, Russian, Chinese manufacturers. It’s called keeping the economy rolling along at home.
While governments seek geographic control and influence, charities want to give that ‘feel good’ emotion to their parishioners.
Imagine giving a community in Africa a truck to move supplies from the nearest city, but not supplying the gasoline to run it. Without the skilled technicians to run a large sanitation system, people will almost always revert to the way they used to deal with bio-waste – pit defecation.
Big Goals
In 2000, UN Member States adopted the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to halve the proportion of the world’s population lacking sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015. They claimed in 2010 to have accomplished most of the goals. The claim that almost 2.6 billion people had access to “improved” drinking water did not consider the water quality. The new pumps and wells were delivering contaminated water (Weststrate et al., 2019).
While Weststrate noted the UN’s efforts, he also noted that the improvement of safe treatment and disposal of waste water and fecal matter was less than 40% of the goal.
Developing countries discharge almost 90% of their untreated sewage into the water systems or the very least into groundwater (Bhaduri et al., 2016).
According to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, nearly 250 years after the invention of the flush toilet, 3.5 billion people—almost half the world’s population—have no choice but to use unsafe sanitation facilities. As a result, half a million children under age 5 perish every year from diseases like typhoid, diarrhea, and cholera.
Reinvent the Toilet Fair
At the first ‘Reinvent the Toilet Fair’ (yes, there was one) in Seattle in 2012, participants from 29 countries showed off a variety of inspired designs, from a solar-powered toilet that generated hydrogen and electricity to others that turned human waste into charcoal or fuel gas. Today, there are about 25 different toilet systems operating, all requiring major production values and significant cost. The end result? More talk, no action.
The thought of selling a simple toilet idea that needs to be embraced by hundreds if not thousands of people to be sustainable belies the fact that using a simple, effective composting system can take the most basic human function to a personal one.
In an article in The Guardian, (Keesey, 2015), it starts with, “Most people don’t know how easy it is to compost human waste. All it takes is a container with a lid, a toilet seat, and a regular supply of natural dry materials. In short, you need the humble composting toilet – a much better solution to the global sanitation crisis than installing water-flush loos for the billions of those without a toilet.”
Revolutionary – but is it too simple a solution? It appears so!
Is Composting the Answer?
It appears that in the developing countries, water shortages go hand in hand with sanitation issues. The practice of composting takes no water, if done correctly it does not smell, and the resulting compost can be used in farming. It’s a no-brainer!
Now, don’t get me wrong, what the governments, charities, private corporations and foundations are trying to accomplish is admirable. It just seems like the push to modernize (and colonize) makes attaining the goal too complicated. Whether their rationale for their involvement in finding a solution is grounded in control, passion, financial, or empathy, the goal is worth pursuing.
I believe that the result of sanitation for everyone is as simple as composting human waste. Whether it’s a bucket with dirt thrown on top or a sophisticated composting toilet, the solution in already here.
Imagine if the funders of these vast initiatives providing solutions to thousands bought one manual composting toilet per family, so they would be responsible for themselves at a cost of $500-1000 each, how quickly things would change.
Ahh, change starts one person at a time. I have a composting toilet, and it’s called an OGO!
Ohio-based OGO Toilets produce one product – a high quality composting toilet.
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