> Unfortunately, in many places, it’s not
> feasible to lay down sewer pipes or build
> treatment facilities. [...] But giving
> people access to toilets isn’t enough. You
> also have to persuade them to use the
> toilets.
I can't find it now, but there was a news video making the rounds a year or two ago that showed that this problem is much more fundamental than that.
It showed a Indians in a tiny village who were falling ill because they were literally taking a shit in the same river that they were getting their drinking water from, just a few meters away.
These people all knew each other, and even if they didn't have any toilets or basic infrastructure I would have thought that something as basic as "if you shit where you drink, you get cholera" would be common knowledge anywhere in the world by now.
Of course it would have been nice for those people to have sewer pipes, toilets etc. But in that case the problem could have been solved with a few shovels, and a marked area indicating where you should be going to do your business, preferable in some open field far from the drinking water.
For those people toilets would be nice, but unnecessary. They clearly all have a shared interest in not drinking each other's shit. If by some magic they aren't aware that mixing shit with water leads to bad consequences that seemed to be solvable by some one-time government presentation on the consequences of them keeping doing what they were doing.
But somehow the problem persists, it's unbelievable.
The first or second chapter of Diffusion of Innovation covers a case where a health organization official tried to convince people to boil their water. No one did it. The concept of "germs" was so foreign to them, and their beliefs about water were already so ingrained. It was a complete failure.
It seems obvious to say "if you drink dirty water you will get sick" but you're assuming that people can make so many connections - what makes it dirty? What makes you sick? What is illness?
In many places there is no connection between 'germs' and illness because germs are not a concrete concept to them.
Check out how we, the 'wise modern civilization' splash all our chemicals and shit into the rivers and oceans, and then eat fish from there.
I bet we will be looked at as 'these savage guys were totally dumb, look at them, it's unbelievable' about 50 - 150 years later.
Also, you americans take away your babies from your mothers after few weeks, putting them to a cold hearted institutions, making them frustrated for life? In exchange for what, extra 1 % of GDP from working mothers? That's a pretty bad deal I must say.
Most people in Europe would see this as a barbaric practice, as we know children need a close contact with parents till at least 2.5 years (don't you study developmental psychology there?), and our social systems support that.
(wanted to show that we both are 'those dumb indians' from some more civilized point of view)
> But somehow the problem persists, it's unbelievable.
Before you get too high and mighty there....
Not long ago (1996) here in the USA, they were still removing all the outhouses that had been positioned directly over fresh-water streams all over Appalachia. See "Straight Piping". [1]
Its easy to judge poor people in other countries, we forget how recently we were (and maybe still are) making similar mistakes.
I wonder how long it took for westerners to stop throwing their "night soil" out the window and start installing and using toilets.
What always struck me as strange is that the Romans had and used public toilets, but afterwards Europe went back to shitting in a bucket and throwing it out the window. Puzzling.
I will bet that most of the comments in this thread are from people who have never lived in rural India.
I have, and will tell you the real reason. It has little to do with literacy or education. It is because (warning, this is going ironic) Indian people are incredibly disgusted about shit and want to not think about dealing with it.
I'm Indian myself. For example, we think toilet paper is a horrible idea. You just clean your shit with...paper...and just leave it like that? That would not fly, even in any of the villages you mention. They have to have water to clean their shit, usually supplied in a small bucket or vessel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lota_(vessel)
Now think about temperatures. The current temperature at many places in India is more than a 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Your average restroom or shovel pit or whatever is going to smell incredibly bad and be full of flies and a horrible smell. That is why some people prefer the river, and don't use the toilets that are built for them (links elsewhere in this thread).
Solutions? It's a usability problem. Bidets for poop washing that can be filled up instead of using piped water, super hydrophobic coatings, really large pits (so you don't smell the waste) –- things like that are going to be the solution. Unfortunately, no one approaches it in that way, and prefers to go the route of "Let's teach these uneducated savages not to shit where they eat." This is very unfortunate and I hope it will change in the future.
> It showed a Indians in a tiny village who were falling ill because they were literally taking a shit in the same river that they were getting their drinking water from, just a few meters away.
Could it be an example of a tragedy of the commons?
No one wants to drink water where someone shit but everyone would rather shit in the water than in a field somewhere far and away from the ability to clean oneself.
Agreed, this is quite baffling. The only answer I can think of is that India hasn't been prioritizing education in rural communities. Population is not a valid excuse: do people still shit where they drink in China?
I'm more understanding when it comes to the lack of basic sanitation facilities, but lack of education is inexcusable in this day and age!
Ok. "Educated" people don't shit where they drink from.
But they do much worse. Things like dumping toxic industrial waste that can make a whole region of people chronically ill to a river..Or drive machines that spew toxic gases literally to the face of fellow human beings..
Part of the problem is also because of lack of education. Unlike in the west, literacy rate is not as high, hence they miss out on the knowledge and awareness that can come from being able to read. But, India is making progress even on that front, so eventually I think both these improvements will complement one another nicely and things may be much different 10 years down the line.
I am originally from India(now I live in US) and my grandfather who was a doctor in India back then in the 1950s would advise people who often fell ill to eat healthy and eat apple. People would ask him what Apple was and to describe it so that they can buy it in the market. My dad who also turned out to be a doctor said he didnt meet any patients who didnt know what Apple was...so yes, things change...but they take time.
It's a little more complicated than digging a hole in the ground. You have to ensure you don't poison the water table with run off or monsoons. Protect them from pests. Aerobic composting is simple when liquids are removed (urine separator and no black water). Pumping air through toilet chambers can help remove smells.
I live in the UK, and as I age, I seem to be loosing control of certain physical faculties. And we have a distinct lack of public toilets, which is ridiculous. You need toilets dotted everywhere which you are comfortable using.
In very highly populated areas using water as a transport has been somewhat miraculous. But it's not always appropriate. Recycling waste locally is probably a good idea where you can.
Night soil sounds primitive, but is pretty neat. Problems arise when raw sewage comes into contact with foods etc. Composting sewage, delays usage, but removes health risks and improves the resulting output.
I actually resent flushing my own turds down the toilet when my garden really could do with the input. But when two thirds of my water bill is for waste, you think twice about constructing alternatives.
>> "Among other things, they contain the world's earliest known system of flush toilets." [1]
>> "With a number of courtyard houses having both a washing platform and a dedicated toilet / waste disposal hole. The toilet holes would be flushed by emptying a jar of water, drawn from the house's central well, through a clay brick pipe and into a shared brick drain" [1]
Amazing. This was about the Indus Valley Civilization in 3300–1300 BCE.
It's interesting to note that how much a civilization, like Rome after the collapse as shown in the below thread, can lose much of cultural or technical advances it made earlier.
There are other aspects to the problem that make it more complicated. A lack of decent bathrooms has been correlated with a risk of sexual violence in India - perhaps these people are going somewhere they feel safe?
You are thinking of the problem in a sciencey, evidence based way. In particular for illiterate, uneducated people there is often a huge weight given to superstition and traditional/existing ways of doing things even in the face of evidence.
It is a surprisingly hard nut to crack, sometimes even among literate educated people. If it weren't a lot of religious extremism and bigotry would not exist.
The problem is that is a billion people, and they aren't the only ones who live next to that river. It's the people upstream who are also defecating into the river that are likely causing them to get sick. And digging a hole in the field for the village to go in can be a bad idea because that area becomes a breeding ground for all kinds of bad stuff. This isn't like when you went camping and pooped in the bushes one time. This is millions of people, every day, for decades. The waste builds up unless it's taken care of, and putting your waste into the river where it will be washed away starts to look like a viable strategy. Maybe these people aren't as dumb as you think, they just live in a very different environment and didn't have your education.
You're right - in this case technology is not the solution. Building a simple outhouse is not that complicated and people in other parts of the world have been doing this for millennia.
There are many things that are unbelievable you would be surprised, POTUS and many educated Americans not believing in Climate change. believing that they are waging a war on terror, religious/racial discrimination existing in modern society.
Don't need much in the way of sewer pipes. I live in the US, in NY, 70 miles north of Wall Street, in a house with two bathtubs, four sinks, three toilets, one washing machine, and one dish washer, with nearly no use of "sewer pipes". Right, no city sewer. Instead there is some PVC pipe, cheap, super simple to work with, darned rugged, and, presto, bingo, a big concrete box in the ground just behind the main piece of big, white PVC pipe. That box is the septic tank. It's been working great, with essentially zero maintenance, for 20+ years.
So, all the water used in the house, from the toilets, sinks, etc. is collected via PVC pipe and fed into the septic tank. The water from the septic tank flows into a "drain field" in the back yard.
Works great.
With the septic tank, there
was only one problem only once: I had an infection on the edge of the nail on my left big toe and daily applied triple antibiotic cream (eventually cleared up the infection). Soon I had water, etc. bubbling up near the back of the back yard.
Why? The antibiotic cream was powerful stuff; some of it got on my socks; when I washed the socks in the washing machine, some of the cream got into the septic tank and basically killed off the crucial bacteria that was eating everything not just H2O (right, and creating CO2 and methane which bubbled out, rarely noticeable).
Solution? Sure, the grocery store sells a box of little, dry granules. So, flush about half of the box down any one of the toilets. Then the bacteria in the septic tank are alive and working again; the spot in the backyard dried up again, and no more problems!
Just need a septic tank, a little PVC pipe, and no sewer pipe or sewer treatment plant, etc.
For water, nope, I get nothing from the city. Instead I have a well. Well, the septic tank is in the back yard and the well, in the front yard -- not sure that makes much difference since the well is deep enough, likely 100+ feet, not to use "surface water".
So, how do I get "pure water"? Hmm. Running out of a faucet or standing in a glass, the water looks fine. Eventually discover that the water is saturated with calcium carbonate, that is, limestone, if you will, marble. Why? Down there, maybe 100 feet, where the water comes from, there are some old, dead sea shells, however many hundreds of millions of years old.
Otherwise I have a filter in the line: The filter is a tube about one foot long and 3 inches in diameter and made from some kind of foam or a lot of string wrapped tightly. My hardware store sells these for not very much, and they have several varieties that filter out everything down to some number of microns, different number for different varieties. One filter lasts for over a year.
No evidence of disease in or from the water.
Yes, the calcium carbonate ruined the dishwasher, so I wash dishes in the sink and dry them a traditional dish drain rack. I have the rack on a plastic base designed for that purpose, tilted, and set in an aluminum tray to catch the runoff water.
So, after some months I can notice that, while the dishes dry nicely and look just squeaky clean, from all the water that ran into the aluminum tray and evaporated, some mud was left behind. So, the water seems to have calcium carbonate plus some additional dissolved solids that, after enough water has evaporated, look like mud. Or for all I know, the "mud" is left over dish detergent? Naw, I suspect the mud is dissolved solids. Maybe if I used a finer filter I would get less mud, but I doubt it.
But the mud is doing me no harm. The usual remark from the local plumbers is that the water is safe to drink, won't hurt you.
On the calcium carbonate in the water, yes I could use a water softener. Actually, I have one. To use it, have to buy big bags, maybe 40 pounds each, of rock salt, that is NaCl. The softener takes the water and converts the calcium carbonate to calcium chloride which is more soluable (doesn't settle out on hot water pipes), doesn't create the scum with old style soap does with calcium carbonate, and feels soapy or slippery in the water. For the chloride in the calcium chloride, that comes from the salt, the NaCl. For the carbonate from the calcium carbonate, that goes out the drain as sodium carbonate. The water softener has a big barrel with ion exchange resins, little beads that, when flushed with water with a high concentration of NaCl, grab some of the Cl. Then when flushed with water with calcium carbonate grab the carbonate and replace it with the chloride, thus converting the incoming calcium carbonate to calcium chloride. But the big tank with the beads gave trouble; I paid to have the tank serviced, etc. And the automatic unit with that tank that flushed the beads with salt water, from the big barrel of salt from the big bags of salt, gave trouble. So, I pushed a big red button that had the water bypass the softener and unplugged the softener control unit from the wall A/C power. So much for the water softener.
Also, it does appear that calcium chloride from the softener can corrode the solder used in the copper pipes -- bummer.
For the calcium carbonate, it is a curious chemical since hot water dissolves less of it than cold water, the opposite of most solids. So, when the water is heated in the hot water coils of my furnace [here I'm talking about the coils for the domestic hot water and not the hot water for heating the house], the calcium carbonate settles out on the inside of the coils and after six months or so lowers the flow rate of the domestic hot water.
So, I went shopping and got a length of copper water pipe, the tools to work with copper water pipe, some shutoff valves, some faucet valves, some connection fittings, some lengths of garden hose with fittings and intended as supply and drain hoses for a washing machine, a drill pump with connections for garden hoses, some plastic cups, a plastic bucket, a gallon bottle of muriatic acid, and a big, several pound size, bag of baking soda.
So, I used the tools and the copper pipe to install the faucet and shutoff valves at appropriate places in the copper pipes leading to and from the domestic hot water coils of the furnace and attached garden hoses to the faucet valves. Then one of the garden hoses goes to one side of the drill pump, and a hose from the pump and another hose from the faucets go to the bucket.
So, using the valves, I run some water into the bucket, nearly fill the bucket. Using an old 1/4" electric drill, I turn on the drill pump and get water flowing from the bucket, into the coils, and back to the bucket. I put one of the little copper pipe fittings, a right angle elbow, in the bucket.
Then I pour about 4 ounces of the muriatic acid into one of the plastic cups, maybe the same cups apparently so popular at college frat parties or on Spring Break, and pour that acid into the bucket. Soon I get, sure CO2 bubbles in the bucket. Also, right, review high school chemistry, I get some calcium chloride in the bucket. Why? Secret: Muriatic acid is hydrochloric acid, that is, HCl, about 28%. In the residential construction industry, the acid is commonly used to remove, right, lime from concrete off bricks. It also nearly instantly removes lime from the inside of copper pipes.
When the rate of the bubbles slows down, I add another 4 ounces of muriatic acid to the water and observe that the rate of bubbles does not increase again. Guess: All the calcium carbonate is out of the copper pipes. Then I add maybe one teaspoon of the baking soda to the water and observe that I get bubbles: Guess: There is still plenty of hydrochloric acid in the water. So, conclusion: The domestic hot water pipes in the furnace are clean.
Then I turn off the drill pump, place the ends of the hoses that were in the bucket in a plastic tray intended for kitty litter, remove the little copper elbow from the bucket, carry the bucket to the back yard, and throw the water with the acid in a wide sweep onto the grass (I never see any effect on the grass).
I look at the little copper elbow for evidence that my use of the hydrochloric acid is corroding the copper pipe -- so far I have seen no such evidence. Actually, inside the furnace, the coil for domestic hot water is lined with Teflon so that calcium carbonate will be less likely to stick; no doubt the Teflon would also protect that pipe from the acid.
Back in the house with the bucket, I insert the hoses into the bucket again, use the valves to fill the bucket nearly full again, adjust the valves, turn on the drill pump, and get water flowing again from the bucket to the coils and back.
Then I add to the water in the bucket baking soda, about 1/2 cup at a time, until there are no more bubbles. Then I add another 1/2 cup of baking soda to the water to be more sure.
Then, doing the right things with the drill pump, valves, and hoses again, I dump the water in the bucket again, fill the bucket again, use the drill pump to circulate relatively fresh water, turn off the drill pump, set the valves back for ordinary use, and again dump out the water in the bucket.
At the kitchen sink, I let the hot water run for a while to be more sure I've removed all the hydrochloric acid or baking soda from the water, and declare the project done -- lots of hot water flow rate now for months!
Of course, I don't have a wife and six daughters in the house with each of them each day taking three baths, washing six changes of clothes, and washing their hair!
But, still, I have no city water, no city sewer, no sewer pipe, and no big problems.
Sure, when my startup is successful, I will look into getting, say, reverse osmosis to give me domestic hot/cold water that is much closer to pure, distilled water, that is, just good, old H2O and nothing else.
But for India, in a place rural enough to permit the women to walk to the woods at night and use the woods as a toilet, septic tanks and wells should be a really big step up and solution to the problem.
About India, I've long suspected that such really bad aspects of their living conditions have been so common, even standard, for so long that they have long since just accepted that living like that is okay with little or no desire or effort to do anything about it.
> It showed a Indians in a tiny village who were falling ill because they were literally taking a shit in the same river that they were getting their drinking water from, just a few meters away.
Take the western media's portrayal of India's poverty with a little grain of salt. India is very poor and I lived in a village where people use to shit in open but then there is something like "poverty porn" that western media often engages in to get more eyeballs.
In rural areas open shitting has its own unwritten rules. You shit far from water sources, temples and other places where people gather. You shit away from water wells. Sick people shit in a separate area.
People do shit at riverside because easy availability of water but it is essentially tragedy of commons issue and it was very common to beatup people who took a dump near potable water sources.
Two of the most forward thinking folks I believe are Bill Gates and Elon Musk. While Elon wants to carve way into science fiction, Bill wants to ensure no one gets left behind. Exciting time to be alive.
In this case big kudos goes to Narendra Modi and the Indian govt to ensure this happens. I believe such fundamental things are the most effective when govt pushes for it rather than individuals.
Two internet celebrities I follow (John and Hank Green) call those two approaches to making the world better "decreasing worldsuck" and "increasing awesome", and I really like that model of thinking. Obviously there are a lot of awesome things we can be doing in the world, but we can't let society leave people behind either.
To be sure, it is a combined effort. The part I really like about this is that they are really serious about solving the problem and are thinking outside the box in many situations. If it was a purely government directive, I don't think it would have made much difference.
But yes, it does help immensely when the country's leader declares it as a top priority.
I like to put it this way. Elon Musk is working on the cutting edge (make new tech), Bill Gates on the spine edge (make existing tech available to everyone).
You can't carve away at science fiction without the human capital to do the science. Lifting huge populations out of disease and poverty is going to have a larger effect on scientific progress than spending money on directing the few who can do science right now.
People who want to do "good" to boost their (and their nations') egos are rather dangerous. When you fight a war for "righteousness" rather than greed, you're one awful enemy to have.
Then again, Steve was a Zen student. No surprises there.
It's outlined in the article, but I think it's worth saying again: the most difficult part of what they're doing seems to be getting people to change their habits.
It's the same psychology involved in pollution and climate change. Because people don't see an immediate reaction to for instance plastic-pollution, it's harder to get them to understand the serious effects that it is having.
The reason toilets don't get used even when available in India is that Indian version of toilets are not very maintainable. First every one needs to get water from somewhere and carry it all the way with them to toilet. If water turns out not to be enough then toilet retains the waste, start becoming smelly and unhygienic. Also because of extensive water use, its unpleasant place to walk around. Toilets with flushing system uses 1950s mechanical system and often breaks down easily or gets plugged easily with no way to unplug it unless maintainer comes around (who often doesn't exist).
So the basic problem is Indian toilet tech and the whole process has not been evolved. In Western world and especially places like Japan, there are lots of people working on innovations in this area and things keep improving. In India, this area is considered to be assigned to lowest members of social cast system and thinking about it or working on it by intellectuals is considered taboo.
The article talks about various people contributing to the regular cleaning. I think one solution to the developing job/motivation crisis is some sort of Civilian Conservation Corps providing a base wage to people in exchange for a few hours each week of easy, non-essential work contributing to the general decency of a locale. Pruning, sweeping an area, weeding a verge, removing litter from a roadside. The sort of work you see gardeners doing at dawn throughout Asia, especially in resorts.
There could be many older men for example keen to have a sense of purpose, doing a task they're capable of and staying active, rather than putting in 40+ hours/week at a desk.
I recall seeing a video of a property owner who has a piece of land with a long, approx 2.5 meter height wall facing a street in a suburb of Delhi. He had a significant problem with the wall becoming an unofficial "designated pissing wall" and the whole place reeked of urine. Problem was solved by first power washing the wall and then hiring a few local mural painters to paint images of various Hindu gods (Hanuman, Ganesh, etc) on the wall. No more pissing problem.
I hope that all these toilets being built are actually being used, serviced and maintained by the people of the community. I have seen TV reports where these toilets were being built to achieve targets and end up being either filthy because no one maintained them, or used as storage(?). This, along with a massive awareness drive(the govt has some ads running on tv) to push people towards using these toilets. Many challenges ahead, and I can only hope for the best for the motherland.
This has nothing to do with building toilets. Its with education. The northern parts of India has very low literacy rate. High literacy + HDI states like Kerala and Meghalaya was already clean. The dashboard of 2014 data proves that.
This is probably the single best way to reduce rape in India as well. I remember in one Indian tv serial episode, the plot was a woman who refused to marry a man (in a village) until he got indoor plumbing in the house so she didn't have to go to a field at night to use the bathroom.
India was one of the first countries in the world to emphasize regular bathing -- this was thousands of years ago, even the kings among the Europeans started bathing daily fewer than 300 years ago. We need to get hygiene country-wide to the world standards it created.
Heh, I think Gates might have inadvertently DDoS'd the dashboard detailing toilet coverage in Rural India. I won't post the link here but its at the end of the article.
I have had and have two issues in my village especially for poor.
1. Keeping the toilet in home, this is no issue(99% of my village is fine with it)but having exhaust and running it is still an issue
2. Running water with pipe , if you ask a must if you need good toilet. A big issue for 6 months in our village so able people built storage tank , pump up water when water comes in pipe from village tank but for the ones who keep in vessels , it is big issue
3. Space for septic tank, in many plots house is built on full land available to them so no more space for septic tank
4. Last but not least, if you have issue septic there is not a possibility to clean like in city using that special lorry that come with pump and tank
If govt can do something about 2/3/4 then it is possible to have more toilets.
I'd say take this data with a healthy pinch of salt. I have friends currently working in conjunction with the Health and Sanitation department who say that the ground reality is very different.
As someone else noted in another thread, toilet maintenance and water availability continue to remain a very real problem.
The dashboard data reflects only the number of new toilets being built (and their corresponding 'expected' coverage). This doesn't take into account how many of them are actually being used as toilets.
In some districts in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, less than 1 out of 15 households actually use the newly built toilets. Elsewhere, they have already been converted into mini-grocery stores and storage facilities. All these instances are being conveniently ignored.
I guess I'm confused as to why this is only a problem for women and girls. Are there toilets that the men use that they don't let the women use? Or is it that Indian men don't have a problem with themselves defecating anywhere?
[+] [-] avar|9 years ago|reply
It showed a Indians in a tiny village who were falling ill because they were literally taking a shit in the same river that they were getting their drinking water from, just a few meters away.
These people all knew each other, and even if they didn't have any toilets or basic infrastructure I would have thought that something as basic as "if you shit where you drink, you get cholera" would be common knowledge anywhere in the world by now.
Of course it would have been nice for those people to have sewer pipes, toilets etc. But in that case the problem could have been solved with a few shovels, and a marked area indicating where you should be going to do your business, preferable in some open field far from the drinking water.
For those people toilets would be nice, but unnecessary. They clearly all have a shared interest in not drinking each other's shit. If by some magic they aren't aware that mixing shit with water leads to bad consequences that seemed to be solvable by some one-time government presentation on the consequences of them keeping doing what they were doing.
But somehow the problem persists, it's unbelievable.
[+] [-] staticassertion|9 years ago|reply
It seems obvious to say "if you drink dirty water you will get sick" but you're assuming that people can make so many connections - what makes it dirty? What makes you sick? What is illness?
In many places there is no connection between 'germs' and illness because germs are not a concrete concept to them.
[+] [-] abandonliberty|9 years ago|reply
To help iron deficiency in Cambodians, they were encouraged to cook with iron ingots. No one used them.
So they shaped the ingot into a lotus flower. Dice.
Cultural investigation showed that fish were symbols of luck, health, and happiness. Fish-shaped ingots worked out!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_iron_fish
[+] [-] tomaskafka|9 years ago|reply
I bet we will be looked at as 'these savage guys were totally dumb, look at them, it's unbelievable' about 50 - 150 years later.
Also, you americans take away your babies from your mothers after few weeks, putting them to a cold hearted institutions, making them frustrated for life? In exchange for what, extra 1 % of GDP from working mothers? That's a pretty bad deal I must say.
Most people in Europe would see this as a barbaric practice, as we know children need a close contact with parents till at least 2.5 years (don't you study developmental psychology there?), and our social systems support that.
(wanted to show that we both are 'those dumb indians' from some more civilized point of view)
[+] [-] up_and_up|9 years ago|reply
Before you get too high and mighty there....
Not long ago (1996) here in the USA, they were still removing all the outhouses that had been positioned directly over fresh-water streams all over Appalachia. See "Straight Piping". [1]
Its easy to judge poor people in other countries, we forget how recently we were (and maybe still are) making similar mistakes.
[1] - https://www.arc.gov/magazine/articles.asp?ARTICLE_ID=94
[+] [-] Tharkun|9 years ago|reply
What always struck me as strange is that the Romans had and used public toilets, but afterwards Europe went back to shitting in a bucket and throwing it out the window. Puzzling.
[+] [-] parennoob|9 years ago|reply
I have, and will tell you the real reason. It has little to do with literacy or education. It is because (warning, this is going ironic) Indian people are incredibly disgusted about shit and want to not think about dealing with it.
I'm Indian myself. For example, we think toilet paper is a horrible idea. You just clean your shit with...paper...and just leave it like that? That would not fly, even in any of the villages you mention. They have to have water to clean their shit, usually supplied in a small bucket or vessel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lota_(vessel)
Now think about temperatures. The current temperature at many places in India is more than a 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Your average restroom or shovel pit or whatever is going to smell incredibly bad and be full of flies and a horrible smell. That is why some people prefer the river, and don't use the toilets that are built for them (links elsewhere in this thread).
Solutions? It's a usability problem. Bidets for poop washing that can be filled up instead of using piped water, super hydrophobic coatings, really large pits (so you don't smell the waste) –- things like that are going to be the solution. Unfortunately, no one approaches it in that way, and prefers to go the route of "Let's teach these uneducated savages not to shit where they eat." This is very unfortunate and I hope it will change in the future.
[+] [-] newsat13|9 years ago|reply
Many things that are obvious to now are not obvious unless we are rightly educated. You might like to read http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/01/12/37566392... which believe it or not is not even 150 years old.
[+] [-] politicalthrow|9 years ago|reply
No one wants to drink water where someone shit but everyone would rather shit in the water than in a field somewhere far and away from the ability to clean oneself.
[+] [-] Cyph0n|9 years ago|reply
I'm more understanding when it comes to the lack of basic sanitation facilities, but lack of education is inexcusable in this day and age!
[+] [-] babyrainbow|9 years ago|reply
But they do much worse. Things like dumping toxic industrial waste that can make a whole region of people chronically ill to a river..Or drive machines that spew toxic gases literally to the face of fellow human beings..
I mean, is anyone really any better?
[+] [-] thetruthseeker1|9 years ago|reply
I am originally from India(now I live in US) and my grandfather who was a doctor in India back then in the 1950s would advise people who often fell ill to eat healthy and eat apple. People would ask him what Apple was and to describe it so that they can buy it in the market. My dad who also turned out to be a doctor said he didnt meet any patients who didnt know what Apple was...so yes, things change...but they take time.
[+] [-] keypress|9 years ago|reply
I live in the UK, and as I age, I seem to be loosing control of certain physical faculties. And we have a distinct lack of public toilets, which is ridiculous. You need toilets dotted everywhere which you are comfortable using.
In very highly populated areas using water as a transport has been somewhat miraculous. But it's not always appropriate. Recycling waste locally is probably a good idea where you can.
Night soil sounds primitive, but is pretty neat. Problems arise when raw sewage comes into contact with foods etc. Composting sewage, delays usage, but removes health risks and improves the resulting output.
I actually resent flushing my own turds down the toilet when my garden really could do with the input. But when two thirds of my water bill is for waste, you think twice about constructing alternatives.
[+] [-] throw_away_elec|9 years ago|reply
>> "With a number of courtyard houses having both a washing platform and a dedicated toilet / waste disposal hole. The toilet holes would be flushed by emptying a jar of water, drawn from the house's central well, through a clay brick pipe and into a shared brick drain" [1]
Amazing. This was about the Indus Valley Civilization in 3300–1300 BCE.
It's interesting to note that how much a civilization, like Rome after the collapse as shown in the below thread, can lose much of cultural or technical advances it made earlier.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanitation_of_the_Indus_Valley...
[+] [-] lostlogin|9 years ago|reply
There are millions of links on this problem, here is one. https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/tribune.com.pk/story/1265016/...
[+] [-] trprog|9 years ago|reply
It is a surprisingly hard nut to crack, sometimes even among literate educated people. If it weren't a lot of religious extremism and bigotry would not exist.
[+] [-] keypusher|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 6d6b73|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] BurningFrog|9 years ago|reply
Solve those, and the toilet problem will disappear by itself.
[+] [-] bahularora|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] balls187|9 years ago|reply
And these aren't Indians from a rural indian village.
[+] [-] graycat|9 years ago|reply
So, all the water used in the house, from the toilets, sinks, etc. is collected via PVC pipe and fed into the septic tank. The water from the septic tank flows into a "drain field" in the back yard.
Works great.
With the septic tank, there was only one problem only once: I had an infection on the edge of the nail on my left big toe and daily applied triple antibiotic cream (eventually cleared up the infection). Soon I had water, etc. bubbling up near the back of the back yard.
Why? The antibiotic cream was powerful stuff; some of it got on my socks; when I washed the socks in the washing machine, some of the cream got into the septic tank and basically killed off the crucial bacteria that was eating everything not just H2O (right, and creating CO2 and methane which bubbled out, rarely noticeable).
Solution? Sure, the grocery store sells a box of little, dry granules. So, flush about half of the box down any one of the toilets. Then the bacteria in the septic tank are alive and working again; the spot in the backyard dried up again, and no more problems!
Just need a septic tank, a little PVC pipe, and no sewer pipe or sewer treatment plant, etc.
For water, nope, I get nothing from the city. Instead I have a well. Well, the septic tank is in the back yard and the well, in the front yard -- not sure that makes much difference since the well is deep enough, likely 100+ feet, not to use "surface water".
So, how do I get "pure water"? Hmm. Running out of a faucet or standing in a glass, the water looks fine. Eventually discover that the water is saturated with calcium carbonate, that is, limestone, if you will, marble. Why? Down there, maybe 100 feet, where the water comes from, there are some old, dead sea shells, however many hundreds of millions of years old.
Otherwise I have a filter in the line: The filter is a tube about one foot long and 3 inches in diameter and made from some kind of foam or a lot of string wrapped tightly. My hardware store sells these for not very much, and they have several varieties that filter out everything down to some number of microns, different number for different varieties. One filter lasts for over a year.
No evidence of disease in or from the water.
Yes, the calcium carbonate ruined the dishwasher, so I wash dishes in the sink and dry them a traditional dish drain rack. I have the rack on a plastic base designed for that purpose, tilted, and set in an aluminum tray to catch the runoff water.
So, after some months I can notice that, while the dishes dry nicely and look just squeaky clean, from all the water that ran into the aluminum tray and evaporated, some mud was left behind. So, the water seems to have calcium carbonate plus some additional dissolved solids that, after enough water has evaporated, look like mud. Or for all I know, the "mud" is left over dish detergent? Naw, I suspect the mud is dissolved solids. Maybe if I used a finer filter I would get less mud, but I doubt it.
But the mud is doing me no harm. The usual remark from the local plumbers is that the water is safe to drink, won't hurt you.
On the calcium carbonate in the water, yes I could use a water softener. Actually, I have one. To use it, have to buy big bags, maybe 40 pounds each, of rock salt, that is NaCl. The softener takes the water and converts the calcium carbonate to calcium chloride which is more soluable (doesn't settle out on hot water pipes), doesn't create the scum with old style soap does with calcium carbonate, and feels soapy or slippery in the water. For the chloride in the calcium chloride, that comes from the salt, the NaCl. For the carbonate from the calcium carbonate, that goes out the drain as sodium carbonate. The water softener has a big barrel with ion exchange resins, little beads that, when flushed with water with a high concentration of NaCl, grab some of the Cl. Then when flushed with water with calcium carbonate grab the carbonate and replace it with the chloride, thus converting the incoming calcium carbonate to calcium chloride. But the big tank with the beads gave trouble; I paid to have the tank serviced, etc. And the automatic unit with that tank that flushed the beads with salt water, from the big barrel of salt from the big bags of salt, gave trouble. So, I pushed a big red button that had the water bypass the softener and unplugged the softener control unit from the wall A/C power. So much for the water softener.
Also, it does appear that calcium chloride from the softener can corrode the solder used in the copper pipes -- bummer.
For the calcium carbonate, it is a curious chemical since hot water dissolves less of it than cold water, the opposite of most solids. So, when the water is heated in the hot water coils of my furnace [here I'm talking about the coils for the domestic hot water and not the hot water for heating the house], the calcium carbonate settles out on the inside of the coils and after six months or so lowers the flow rate of the domestic hot water.
So, I went shopping and got a length of copper water pipe, the tools to work with copper water pipe, some shutoff valves, some faucet valves, some connection fittings, some lengths of garden hose with fittings and intended as supply and drain hoses for a washing machine, a drill pump with connections for garden hoses, some plastic cups, a plastic bucket, a gallon bottle of muriatic acid, and a big, several pound size, bag of baking soda.
So, I used the tools and the copper pipe to install the faucet and shutoff valves at appropriate places in the copper pipes leading to and from the domestic hot water coils of the furnace and attached garden hoses to the faucet valves. Then one of the garden hoses goes to one side of the drill pump, and a hose from the pump and another hose from the faucets go to the bucket.
So, using the valves, I run some water into the bucket, nearly fill the bucket. Using an old 1/4" electric drill, I turn on the drill pump and get water flowing from the bucket, into the coils, and back to the bucket. I put one of the little copper pipe fittings, a right angle elbow, in the bucket.
Then I pour about 4 ounces of the muriatic acid into one of the plastic cups, maybe the same cups apparently so popular at college frat parties or on Spring Break, and pour that acid into the bucket. Soon I get, sure CO2 bubbles in the bucket. Also, right, review high school chemistry, I get some calcium chloride in the bucket. Why? Secret: Muriatic acid is hydrochloric acid, that is, HCl, about 28%. In the residential construction industry, the acid is commonly used to remove, right, lime from concrete off bricks. It also nearly instantly removes lime from the inside of copper pipes.
When the rate of the bubbles slows down, I add another 4 ounces of muriatic acid to the water and observe that the rate of bubbles does not increase again. Guess: All the calcium carbonate is out of the copper pipes. Then I add maybe one teaspoon of the baking soda to the water and observe that I get bubbles: Guess: There is still plenty of hydrochloric acid in the water. So, conclusion: The domestic hot water pipes in the furnace are clean.
Then I turn off the drill pump, place the ends of the hoses that were in the bucket in a plastic tray intended for kitty litter, remove the little copper elbow from the bucket, carry the bucket to the back yard, and throw the water with the acid in a wide sweep onto the grass (I never see any effect on the grass).
I look at the little copper elbow for evidence that my use of the hydrochloric acid is corroding the copper pipe -- so far I have seen no such evidence. Actually, inside the furnace, the coil for domestic hot water is lined with Teflon so that calcium carbonate will be less likely to stick; no doubt the Teflon would also protect that pipe from the acid.
Back in the house with the bucket, I insert the hoses into the bucket again, use the valves to fill the bucket nearly full again, adjust the valves, turn on the drill pump, and get water flowing again from the bucket to the coils and back.
Then I add to the water in the bucket baking soda, about 1/2 cup at a time, until there are no more bubbles. Then I add another 1/2 cup of baking soda to the water to be more sure.
Then, doing the right things with the drill pump, valves, and hoses again, I dump the water in the bucket again, fill the bucket again, use the drill pump to circulate relatively fresh water, turn off the drill pump, set the valves back for ordinary use, and again dump out the water in the bucket.
At the kitchen sink, I let the hot water run for a while to be more sure I've removed all the hydrochloric acid or baking soda from the water, and declare the project done -- lots of hot water flow rate now for months!
Of course, I don't have a wife and six daughters in the house with each of them each day taking three baths, washing six changes of clothes, and washing their hair!
But, still, I have no city water, no city sewer, no sewer pipe, and no big problems.
Sure, when my startup is successful, I will look into getting, say, reverse osmosis to give me domestic hot/cold water that is much closer to pure, distilled water, that is, just good, old H2O and nothing else.
But for India, in a place rural enough to permit the women to walk to the woods at night and use the woods as a toilet, septic tanks and wells should be a really big step up and solution to the problem.
About India, I've long suspected that such really bad aspects of their living conditions have been so common, even standard, for so long that they have long since just accepted that living like that is okay with little or no desire or effort to do anything about it.
[+] [-] bingomad123|9 years ago|reply
Take the western media's portrayal of India's poverty with a little grain of salt. India is very poor and I lived in a village where people use to shit in open but then there is something like "poverty porn" that western media often engages in to get more eyeballs.
In rural areas open shitting has its own unwritten rules. You shit far from water sources, temples and other places where people gather. You shit away from water wells. Sick people shit in a separate area.
People do shit at riverside because easy availability of water but it is essentially tragedy of commons issue and it was very common to beatup people who took a dump near potable water sources.
[+] [-] nojvek|9 years ago|reply
In this case big kudos goes to Narendra Modi and the Indian govt to ensure this happens. I believe such fundamental things are the most effective when govt pushes for it rather than individuals.
[+] [-] delecti|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pm90|9 years ago|reply
But yes, it does help immensely when the country's leader declares it as a top priority.
[+] [-] fizixer|9 years ago|reply
You need both for humanity to progress.
[+] [-] lern_too_spel|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] victor106|9 years ago|reply
Edit:- read the article.thanks...
[+] [-] throwaway12837|9 years ago|reply
People who want to do "good" to boost their (and their nations') egos are rather dangerous. When you fight a war for "righteousness" rather than greed, you're one awful enemy to have.
Then again, Steve was a Zen student. No surprises there.
[+] [-] blhack|9 years ago|reply
It's the same psychology involved in pollution and climate change. Because people don't see an immediate reaction to for instance plastic-pollution, it's harder to get them to understand the serious effects that it is having.
[+] [-] sytelus|9 years ago|reply
So the basic problem is Indian toilet tech and the whole process has not been evolved. In Western world and especially places like Japan, there are lots of people working on innovations in this area and things keep improving. In India, this area is considered to be assigned to lowest members of social cast system and thinking about it or working on it by intellectuals is considered taboo.
[+] [-] linux_devil|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prawn|9 years ago|reply
There could be many older men for example keen to have a sense of purpose, doing a task they're capable of and staying active, rather than putting in 40+ hours/week at a desk.
[+] [-] walrus01|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arcticbull|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vthallam|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agustamir|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thowbit9|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thowbit9|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blobbers|9 years ago|reply
... unfortunately San Francisco is losing that same war.
[+] [-] jwilk|9 years ago|reply
https://archive.fo/V1Vtq
[+] [-] criddell|9 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_peUxE_BKcU
[+] [-] AlwaysRock|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] theprop|9 years ago|reply
India was one of the first countries in the world to emphasize regular bathing -- this was thousands of years ago, even the kings among the Europeans started bathing daily fewer than 300 years ago. We need to get hygiene country-wide to the world standards it created.
[+] [-] pm90|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jsudhams|9 years ago|reply
1. Keeping the toilet in home, this is no issue(99% of my village is fine with it)but having exhaust and running it is still an issue 2. Running water with pipe , if you ask a must if you need good toilet. A big issue for 6 months in our village so able people built storage tank , pump up water when water comes in pipe from village tank but for the ones who keep in vessels , it is big issue 3. Space for septic tank, in many plots house is built on full land available to them so no more space for septic tank 4. Last but not least, if you have issue septic there is not a possibility to clean like in city using that special lorry that come with pump and tank
If govt can do something about 2/3/4 then it is possible to have more toilets.
[+] [-] rajitdasgupta|9 years ago|reply
As someone else noted in another thread, toilet maintenance and water availability continue to remain a very real problem.
The dashboard data reflects only the number of new toilets being built (and their corresponding 'expected' coverage). This doesn't take into account how many of them are actually being used as toilets.
In some districts in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, less than 1 out of 15 households actually use the newly built toilets. Elsewhere, they have already been converted into mini-grocery stores and storage facilities. All these instances are being conveniently ignored.
[+] [-] danellis|9 years ago|reply