{"id":18397,"date":"2015-02-09T12:15:46","date_gmt":"2015-02-09T17:15:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=18397"},"modified":"2015-02-09T13:06:30","modified_gmt":"2015-02-09T18:06:30","slug":"clean-drinking-water-just-one-benefit-better-toilets-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/clean-drinking-water-just-one-benefit-better-toilets-video\/","title":{"rendered":"Clean Drinking Water Just One Benefit Of Better Toilets [Video]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you ran across someone defecating in the street, you&#8217;d probably call the police (and get a response from them). In <a href=\"http:\/\/cleantechnica.com\/2014\/10\/23\/indian-company-launches-solar-powered-self-cleaning-toilets\/\">India<\/a>, however, this is a very common practice in rural areas: according to Joe Madiath of non-governmental organization <a href=\"http:\/\/gramvikas.org\/\">Gram Vikas<\/a>, 70% of Indians take care of &#8220;#2&#8221; right out in the open. This leads to much bigger problems than some embarrassment: that human waste gets into <a href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/2015\/01\/omniprocessor-makes-drinking-water-from-sewage\/\">the water<\/a> that people clean with, bathe with, and drink, leading to all sorts of health problems.<\/p>\n<p>Madiath and his organization developed plans for small toilet and shower buildings that could be easily constructed in India&#8217;s rural areas. With such amenities standard in every home in the developed world, we generally don&#8217;t give much thought to the multiple benefits created by sanitation; Madiath lays them out in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/joe_madiath_better_toilets_better_life\">his TED Talk from last Fall<\/a>, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Greater availability of clean drinking water;<\/li>\n<li>Much less water-borne disease;<\/li>\n<li>Much less water-focused labor for women;<\/li>\n<li>Expanded economic opportunities for villages&#8217; poorest people;<\/li>\n<li>Increased school attendance (really!)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These are water-based toilets, but Gram Vikas isn&#8217;t building 1st-world style sewer systems to support them. Rather, waste water is treated at the source; Madiath even notes that banana and papaya trees planted near the waste water collection spots grow like crazy, and produce really good fruit.<\/p>\n<p>Take 12 minutes to listen to Madiath&#8217;s talk (or, if you prefer, read <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/joe_madiath_better_toilets_better_life\/transcript\">the interactive transcript<\/a>). It&#8217;s very inspiring to see how one small organization can address such a ubiquitous problem with a simple, even elegant solution. Know of other innovative ideas for handling the multiple issues associated with human waste (besides the Gates&#8217; foundation challenge &#8211; we know about that)? Share them with us in the comments&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Featured image credit:<\/strong> Screen capture from &#8220;Joe Madiath: Better Toilets, Better Life&#8221; video<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you ran across someone defecating in the street, you&#8217;d probably call the police (and get a response from them). In India, however, this is a very common practice in&nbsp;[ &hellip; ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":18398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[7789,404,7790,469,7788,4316,3428,5938,4317],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Better Toilets Lead To Clean Drinking Water, Better Health<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Social entrepreneur Joe Madiath discusses the many benefits created by simple toilets in rural India, including clean drinking water and reduced disease.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/clean-drinking-water-just-one-benefit-better-toilets-video\/\" \/>\n<meta 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