The 12th World Toilet Summit, a first for Africa, yesterday called for toilets to become an “aspirational product” that all communities would want to fight for.

The founder of the World Toilet Organisation, Jack Sim, told delegates to the three-day summit that 40% of the world’s population did not have a toilet and that a billion needed to be made available globally.
“An average person goes to a toilet six times a day but they do not want to talk about it. Previously, politicians would not want to take pictures next to a toilet but this has changed dramatically.

“Sanitation is a behavioural change. We need to make it a status symbol to have a toilet. The situation is grossly problematic – so much so that 90% of surface water in India is contaminated by faeces. This would not be the case if each and every household had a toilet,” Sim said.

Human settlements portfolio committee chairman Beauty Dambuza said a “large percentage” of South Africans did not have access to a toilet at home and that rural areas were the most deprived.
“There remain huge disparities between urban and rural communities, with 90% of households in Western Cape having access to sanitation compared to 37% in Limpopo.

“About 5.2% of people do not have access to sanitation nationally, but Eastern Cape alone has about 12.7% of residents without sanitation.”

Deputy Minister of Human Settlements Zou Kota-Fredericks said: “Less than 20% of citizens are currently served by a public sewer, with the vast majority reliant on various forms of on-site sanitation.”
The founder of the SA Toilet Foundation, Alfie Heeger, said: “Over 1.5million children under the age of five months die each year because of diarrhoea, simply because most of them do not enjoy access to a toilet.”

Source: Times Live