Global Health and Human Waste

Forty percent of the world doesn’t use toilets, says UNICEF, resulting in disease carried by dust and flies and contaminated food and water supplies — the toll is 2 million dead annually. The first solution, says Mitchell Koss of the L.A. Times, is to talk about this taboo subject because the problem is relatively easy to solve: install toilets. Even pit toilets will do, Koss says. “Health organizations worldwide are realizing they must create a demand for toilets before the problem can be solved. The goal is to link the lack of toilets to health problems. In a part of India’s Haryana state, a campaign called ‘No toilet, no bride’ sends the message that a man without a toilet should not be considered successful enough to marry your daughter.”