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Oh no! Hold your noses and close your eyes. We’re talking about
the unmentionable, again! But why is it out of sight, out of mind? Do you know that every
time you pull that flush, you contribute your share to an evergrowing problem of water
pollution?
As water becomes increasingly scarce, environmentalists say that its high time we took a
closer look at our water-guzzling and dangerously polluting modern sewage systems. Systems
that take away our solid and liquid waste. Does it make sense to first use up so much
precious water, then pollute it by throwing our waste into it and then spend lots of money
and time to treat this dirty filthy water? |
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Can we afford to flush and forget?
No magic
We turn a tap and get water. So simple. Most of us have bathrooms. To get
rid of our chee-chee, we just pull the flush and away it goes. So easy. Like magic.
We take these things for granted. Now for a moment, try and imagine that you not only have
no piped water in your house, but no bathroom to go to! Mama...terrible isn’t it? But
that’s how the majority of people in the world live. They have no piped water supply
and nearly 70 percent don’t have means of getting rid of their waste safely, that is,
basic sanitation facilities. Most of them live in poor countries like India and a large
chunk of this deprived population lives in congested and overcrowded cities, in slums or
jhuggi-jhopris. No fancy taps and WCs (water closets) or pumps and pipes of a modern
sewerage system. No magic.
No Toilet Space
An organisation called the Voluntary Health Association of India found that 1 out of every
4 slumdwellers in our 4 major metros don’t have proper latrines. That means 6 million
people defecating in the open, along railway tracks, by the roadside. You see it all the
time. So imagine what happens to all the potty these millions of people produce. Over
20,00,000 tonnes of excrement is produced daily in cities around the world. Only 2% is
cleaned up. The rest freely flows onto land and into oceans, rivers, lakes and ponds. Everyone’s
muck pollutes our environment — the poor and the rich.
No Health
Now, don't just screw up your nose and walk away. Actually, its more death than life.
Cities and towns in developing countries are among the worst polluted and disease-ridden
places in the world. 15 kids for every 1000 babies born in developing world die before the
age of 5 from diarrhoea caused by drinking all this polluted water. 70% of Delhi’s
sewage flows into the Yamuna river untreated. Waterborne diseases kill 4 million children
every year in developing countries like ours. All that human poo lying around like
dangerous stink-bombs, creating extremely unhealthy conditions, an ideal breeding-ground
for deadly disease-causing germs that cause cholera, dysentery, typhoid, hepatitis,
hookworm, etc. Poor sanitation means poor health.
No water
How do we clean up this mess we’ve made? Provide every one with bathrooms, WCs and
piped water, right? Wrong, say the experts on 'ecological sanitation'. Modern sewage
systems are extremely expensive to build and difficult to maintain. Besides, they use up
lots of precious water, not to mention all the money and time required for expensive water
treatment plants to clean up the polluted sewage or wastewater thus produced.
With cities growing rapidly and bursting at their seams, we’re going to need more
water. To bring all this extra water to towns and cities, we’re going to build
monstrous dams and canals, dig deeper and deeper into the earth, suck the rural
countryside dry. Already water shortages are so bad in Indian towns and villages. With
water shortages everywhere, is it fair to flush 15-20 litres of water everytime you use
the toilet? Can we afford to flush and forget? Where is all that water going to come from?
Can we ever hope to have a sustainable sewage system for all the people on earth?
Some people, though, have thought and done a lot about this so-called
‘embarrassing’ or ‘disgusting’ issue.
In this issue of Gobar Times, we feature people who have come up with innovative
solutions and ideas. While we look ahead into the next century, maybe we should spare a
moment to turn back and take a serious look at how we deal with our own waste.
Potty isn’t a laughing matter when it kills 15
out of 1000 children every year in developing countries. Cause of death — diarrhoeal
diseases due to poor sanitation Sanitation |
A
Down To Earth Supplement
