World Toilet Day

Today we celebrate World Toilet Day. I'm going to talk a little about why it exists, why it's important and wrap up by situating it as best I can within the development discourse and this blog as a whole.

World Toilet Day was first established on the 19th of November 2001 by the World Toilet Organisation and has been observed by the United Nations since 2013 (UN, 2020). It is a day designed to bring awareness to the fact that 4.2 billion people still do not have access to safe sanitation. As far as the UN is concerned it is also a key cog in tackling Sustainable Development Goal 6 (water and sanitation for all by 2030). 

Source

This year's theme is ‘Sustainable sanitation and climate change’. Climate change stands to affect the operation of sanitation systems. Toilets, pipes, tanks, treatment plants, sewer networks and more can all be damaged by drought, flooding and rising sea levels. Many of those that have sanitation systems have ones that are weak and vulnerable to the extreme weather events. Therefore, it is important to make sure that sanitation systems being built now and in the future have robustness and resilience in mind. 

Toilets can also contribute to fighting climate change. Waste water, sludge and biogas have valuable water and nutrients, as well as being a potential source of energy. Making productive use of these so called waste products could ease pressure on non-renewable and polluting resources. There should also be a concerted effort to make water and sanitation services more efficient. Most around the world are both energy and water intensive. It is also true that around 80% of the world's waste water goes back into ecosystems without being treated, sustainable sanitation solutions should treat and safely reuse human waste in ways that do not negatively impact our environment. 

World Toilet Day may seem like a strange name for a day of celebration given the generally taboo nature of human waste, however this can be seen as part of a changing discourse around sanitation and excrement that not only draws attention to the importance of safe sanitation within the development discourse but also nods to the politics of 'shit' as well. Demonstrations in Cape Town have been a prime example of the politicisation of excrement and its 'poolitics' highlight the historical 'sanitisation' (pun fully intended) of issues that are paradoxically private but with wide reaching public repercussions. These issues of unsafe sanitation disproportionately affect poor and informal communities, many of which are ignored completely by urban planning authorities. The olfactory disturbance caused by pouring shit outside city hall subverted lazy, malignant associations of dirt and 'undesirability' with informal and subaltern communities and brought attention to the ways that they negatively affect peoples' lives. 

World Toilet Day links nicely with the wider intentions of this blog for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because even after a few blog posts we know that issues of sanitation continue to affect women, girls and people who menstruate disproportionately. An observation recognised by the UN in target 6.2 of SDG 6 which mandates "paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations". Secondly, and this might seem like a more tenuous link, I think that World Toilet Day's spotlighting of the issue of shit, one that is nuanced, largely ignored, poorly understood and considered taboo, reflects some of the goals, tenets and work of feminist activism and feminist geographic research (think of work to normalise talking about menstruation or sexual liberation/sex positivity as well as the attention paid to varied, individual and embodied experiences that other approaches have typically overlooked). 

My next post will expand on issues of gender based violence created by poor WaSH conditions. In the meantime, next time you visit the wizz palace (shoutout to anyone that got the 'Parks and Rec' reference) have a think about the politics of the infrastructure you're connected to. Happy World Toilet Day!