Sunday, February 10, 2013

Living in a World of Shit


            Try to imagine, if you can, sleeping within mere feet of all of your neighbors excrement. Imagine getting your drinking water directly out of the open sewer that you, and everyone you know, uses as a toilet. Imagine bathing with this water, washing your clothing in this water, or cooking with this water. Now imagine your children having no other choice but to do the same. This tragedy is the reality for billions around the world.


For those of us living in the more fortunate parts of the world, it is often easy to forget that most people don’t have access to basic every day necessities that we couldn’t imagine going without. To the credit of the many activists working tirelessly around the world some of these issues have become part of our society’s consciousness. Many now know of millions of annual deaths caused by rampant starvation and lack of access to clean water. There is one issue, equal in its scope of devastation that has been left aside. Currently up to 2.6 BILLION people do not have access to a sanitary bathroom; 1.5 billion don’t have access to a toilet at all. That is more than 1/3 of the world without access to proper facilities. I understand why this issue has yet to come to the world’s attention. I mean, who wants to talk about going to the bathroom? It’s an incredibly uncomfortable concept, so much so that many of the people who have this problem don’t want to talk about it either. Despite the rather uncomfortable nature of the subject matter the time has come for us to have a global conversation and come up with solutions to this dire issue.

 
            It’s easy to want to push this issue aside; there are plenty of others that deserve attention and resources. The fact however, is that the death toll due to this issue is astoundingly high. Over 700,000 children per year die directly because their communities lack access to sanitary facilities. Millions more die because of the combination of a lack of facilities and another cause such as lack of access to fresh water. By not having access to proper facilities people are forced to come into contact with their own and many other people’s feces. A small amount of feces can contain millions of viruses and bacteria as well as thousands of parasites, any one of which finding its way into a person could result in death. The most common illness people get because of a lack of facilities is diarrhea. To those of us that are fortunate enough to live with a toilet in our own home this isn’t such a big deal, but to millions of children, in the last few years alone, diarrhea is a death sentence.

In the capital of India, New Delhi, many of its citizens don’t have access to a toilet so they use the river that runs through the heart of the city. This major river, the Yamuna, has become so polluted with shit that the water has turned ink black and you can visibly see methane bubbling out of the river. 

 

       The scale of this global tragedy is unacceptable. We have everything we need to begin solving this crisis right now. We don’t have to invent new technologies; the only obstacles are finances and political will. Most of us don’t have the finances to make a difference but many of us are in a position to petition our political leaders to make an impactful difference. So wherever you are in the world speak out; talk to your friends, family, and tell whomever represents you in government that this issue is important to you. Tell them that you care for the 2.5 billion people who suffer through this every day. Tell them that you believe that our species is better than this, that we’re capable of so much more, and solving this basic human need should be a top priority.

 A woman getting drinking water from an open sewer

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