UPDATE 10:34AM, 4/16 SEE END OF POST
Right now, India has more cell phones than toilets. That’s the headline buzzing over the wires today, thanks to the latest phones-to-toilets ratio released by the United Nations. It’s certainly a dramatic factoid. But it’s not just true of India’s 1.2 billion-strong population — this lopsided statistic is true around the globe, as well.
This is from the Change.org Global Poverty blog. The most obvious explanation:
And though the mobile sector has seen massive private investment — thanks in many countries to telecommunications deregulation — few corporations are clamoring to provide better sanitation for the poor.
(This picture is from an earlier Aid Watch blog reporting a happy encounter with the private sector toilet service industry in Ghana.)
UPDATE 10:34AM: I had underestimated the amount of interest and effort devoted to poor people’s toilets in the story above. Somehow I had missed one of the hottest stories in the burgeoning lavatory sector (covered in the NYT, HT IdealistNYC): the Peepoo :
A Swedish entrepreneur is trying to market and sell a biodegradable plastic bag that acts as a single-use toilet for urban slums in the developing world.
Once used, the bag can be knotted and buried, and a layer of urea crystals breaks down the waste into fertilizer, killing off disease-producing pathogens found in feces.
The bag, called the Peepoo, is the brainchild of Anders Wilhelmson, an architect and professor in Stockholm.
“Not only is it sanitary,” said Mr. Wilhelmson, who has patented the bag, “they can reuse this to grow crops.”
The Peepoo is even endorsed by the WTO. No, not THAT one, I mean of course the World Toilet Organization.
Please continue to forward me links for this rapidly exploding story.
15 Comments
“India has more cell phones than toilets”
In Germany the public toilets are privatized – and you have to pay for it. Normally between 30 and 50 cents. But – TANSTAAFL – they are much cleaner than before privatization. You also have to pay for gas station bathrooms (between 50 cents and one Euro if you’re driving the Autobahn) – and they’re also very clean.
I would say toilet privatization worked well in Germany – if you prefer clean over cheap.
You do shift topics on this site.
The Peepoo is interesting and I can see a personal use for it when hiking in the wilderness, as I do for recreation; I gather from its web site that Peepoo does not have a larger multi-use version for ‘Johnnie-on-the Spots’ and other small public toilets.
Canada has a large cottage industry and what is popular are composting toilets which use bacteria to break down the waste. A friend of mine had one in his cottage, it did not smell at all but it was quite the exercise sometimes to climb up onto to the darn thing.
I have never seen a composting toilet when overseas.
And they say that US growth is going to come with the aid of either India or China … BOTH, probably having more cell phones than toilets. Interesting.
I smell what you are stepping in (pardon the pun), but a cell phone is an individual item and toilets are shared. Sanitation issues are huge but does this statistic really help us communicate that?
“rapidly exploding” is not a phrase I care to think about when discussing sanitation….
An NGO pamphlet on proper sanitation in developing countries: http://www.drytoilet.org/pdf/Sanitation_Guide.pdf. It includes an enjoyable section on religion and waste, discussing how different world religions view excrement.
“Islam determines specific rules on how to handle with excreta. Only left can be used for washing purposes after defecation (right hand is used for eating purposes) and in some cases dry latrines are forbidden by law.” The Hindu section is also noteworthy, discussing different toilet practices by caste.
You can buy a new cellphone for $30. Digging a toilet will cost you $200.
Lol…I know I would love pooping in a bag!
Sanitation in India = can of worms. Definitely a can of worms worth opening. Interesting innovation, but does it fulfill the criteria of being decent? Safety is also an issue when dealing with toilets.
Just some thoughts,
Scott
“The Peepoo is interesting and I can see a personal use for it when hiking in the wilderness, as I do for recreation”
Ok that is just silly, do not animals do this in the wilderness? As long as you use and bury bio-degradable toilet paper it does not matter (and stay away from water but then again animals due not care about this either). I should preface the above with the exception of frequently used camp sites. It is just like the ridicules idea of burning fallen logs is somehow bad for the environment. Pointless acts which only are to make one feel good in a religious way.
It is the high concentration of human sewage in a given area that is the problem. Maybe I am missing something, but I fail to see how this is better than using a properly made latrine when it comes to cost. How many of your would actual use a bag to go to the bathroom even if it was more sanitary? This is just a silly product, with the only use being in city were people just use the streets when there are no public restroom. In that case good luck in getting anyone to use it.
There was another one about a $30 U.S. dollar toilet that is supposed to separate the liquid from the solid so one can make compost. As long as one does not need have anything but water to clean it, this sounds like a really great product to push. The only down side if it is to small, it might be less practical if one has to keep cleaning it for a large family. Sound like a great useful and practical product.
I always hate it when First World people do not understand poverty mind sets, and design products with their behavior in mind. Spend a few months in the villages/streets with the people you are trying to make a product for. That way you get a lot better understanding of what is going on and can make products that are more practical for the intended consumers. The whole development industry really need get a lot better at actually spending time around to understanding the very people they are trying help.
For example, I know one South African lady who goes to rule villages in East Africa and refuses to give the villagers any candy, balloons or really anything. Why because it under minds what she is trying to due. Her observation is the villagers come to view white’s as some Santa Clause who is there to give them free things. It under minds the goals of self reliance and changing behavior.
Developmental Aid will continue, at least in Africa, to cause more harm than good until people really begin to start understanding the sociology by spending time in the trenches learning. The Peepoo is a prime example.
The worse I have seen in the past few years on a large scale was the $100 dollar laptop. I will not even get into the idiocy of spending money on that verse basic infrastructure for development.
I was involved in a feasibility study done in Bangladesh to see if anyone would actually want use Peepoos, so I’ve been involved in many discussions about the controversial ‘disposable toilet’. Understandably, many people tend to turn up their nose at the idea, but I can assure you that there are lots of people (in Bangladesh at least) that would love to be able to use them on a regular basis.
Like composting toilets, the Peepoo addresses the issue of water supply and converts waste into valuable fertiliser. But its unique advantage (I believe) is that it also addresses the limitations of infrastructure-based solutions, which are particularly profound in urban areas and emergency situations. And, in some parts of the world, it actually builds on the prevailing practice of going to the toilet in a bag.
For a more detailed discussion of pros and cons, check out this Acumen Fund discussion page.
I also blogged about the Peepoo here.
And there are many more Peepoo ponderings going on in cyberspace. I’d be happy to provide anyone who is interested with more info.
Sanitation is a public good, subject to market failure, whereas telecoms provide a simple profit method. Economic rate of return of improved sanitation is extremely high, but taboos around hygiene, and the difficulty of privatising shit management in poor countries, make market approaches difficult. The example of the Sanitarians who established London’s sewerage system in the nineteenth century is a shining light for effective development. London was motivated by the ‘great stink’ and had the advantage of sound municipal governance with interest in the public good. Improved sanitation has immense spillover benefits for all the MDGs.
@Clendinen re: ‘silly”
Giardiasis is both a back country and developing country hazard. Back country protocol is to burn used toilet paper; when an open fire is not an option, you pack the paper out. Animals are curious and will dig up buried toilet paper.
I looked at the Peepoo site again and apart from the phrase ‘self-sanitizing’ there is no indication as to whether the bag is impregnated with the parasite killer. If so or possible, that would be great.
The main issue I see with the product is its mass use and disposal in a densely populated area.
Peepoo is a patented product and the holder is welcome to receive the benefit for a limited period of time of his invention and risk.
Evidently effective sanitation is something to be celebrated in some locations:
http://www.nextbillion.net/blog/2010/03/04/kenya-dispatch-toilet-parties-in-the-nairobi-slums
More cell phones than latrines… is anyone really surprised by this? I get why this is so alarming to some but there is alot we can learn from cell phone sales and services that could actually help with sanitation provision.
Peepoo, interesting debate hosted by Acumen at http://community.acumenfund.org/forum/topics/what-are-people-saying-about?commentId=3957399%3AComment%3A24223&xg_source=activity
An interview with Jack Sim, CEO of the World Toilet Organization and also, an Ashoka Fellow: http://tech.ashoka.org/ashokatech_podcast_episode1
A video also here: http://tech.ashoka.org/jack_sim_wto
2 Trackbacks
[...] Bill Easterly reminds us that around the globe … there are more cell phones than toilets. My only comment, aside from what he says is, is it not completely insane that we choose to use our water systems as sanitation systems? I mean really, in the year 2010, is there any reason our human waste could and should not be handled outside of our water system? I don’t have any research or data to point to, but I would be willing to bet a great deal of money that we could handle our human waste a lot more cheaply and cleanly if we did not ever flush it into the lakes, rivers, seas and oceans (so to speak). [...]
[...] more on the subject, see William Easterly’s comments here. (Note: The image above is provided by Titanas / / CC BY-SA 2.0) [...]