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PHOTOS: We're flush with pictures of toilets. They're what the world needs now!

This photo was taken in a café in Obour city, a neighborhood in greater Cairo, Egypt. The photographer says: "I saw the signs of the bathroom as I was entering, and I kept thinking about how we may look different but at the end of the day, we all have the same needs and reactions. My photo celebrates that all-too-relatable struggle."
Aly Hazzaa / @EverydayEgypt
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The Everyday Projects
This photo was taken in a café in Obour city, a neighborhood in greater Cairo, Egypt. The photographer says: "I saw the signs of the bathroom as I was entering, and I kept thinking about how we may look different but at the end of the day, we all have the same needs and reactions. My photo celebrates that all-too-relatable struggle."

Updated November 22, 2024 at 07:15 AM ET

"Hey, what are you working on?" a colleague asked me.

"A story on World Toilet Day," I said.

My colleague thought I was kidding.

But this is not a joke. There truly is a World Toilet Day — and its goal is not to boost loo sales. The U.N. declared the day in 2013 to promote public health and "raise awareness about the lack of access to safe sanitation and toilets for billions of people worldwide." They call it an "international observance" and it took place this past Tuesday, November 19.

At a time when toilets can heat their seats, spray your butt with water and I dunno probably play songs like "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go," how can so many people be "toilet insecure"? In fact 3.6 billion people have no potty at home and no easy access to affordable public toilets (which often charge a usage fee). What's more, a joint report by WHO and UNICEF says 673 million people engage in open defecation, delicately defined as "squatting outdoors."

Then there's the so-called a "flying toilet" — a euphemism for defecating in a plastic bag or container of some sort and then tossing the container, feces and all, to get rid of it.

Two toilet views. At left: You can admire art while you pee at these urinals in the building of a cultural association called La Teinturerie in Madagascar's capital, Antananarivo. At right: On a tour of a 16th-century mansion in Mexico City that is now the Casa de la Bola Museum, you can get a glimpse of how the glitterati of long ago lived — and urinated.
Henitsoa Rafalia; Vayunamu Bawa /
Two toilet perspectives. At left: You can admire art while you pee at these urinals in the building of a cultural association called La Teinturerie in Madagascar's capital, Antananarivo. At right: On a tour of a 16th-century mansion in Mexico City that is now the Casa de la Bola Museum, you can get a glimpse of how the glitterati of long ago lived — and urinated.

(Flying toilets are often associated with the world's impoverished neighborhoods. But they're not a modern invention. Hope Randall, a spokeswoman for the Defeat Diarrheal Disease (DefeatDD) Initiative at the health nonprofit PATH, was just in Scotland for a conference and learned that back in the Middle Ages, Scots did it. Only they had to use buckets for the fecal fling because of plastic not being invented yet.)

The world's dramatic lack of toilets means that people suffer a loss of privacy and dignity. But there's a huge public health consequence as well. Human feces are rich in pathogens. When fecal matter infiltrates the soil, children who play in the dirt can come in contact with it. And when it enters the water stream, that's a recipe for disease spread.

Makeshift toilets, known as "long drops," are a common scene along the roads of the Eastern Cape in South Africa. This set of toilets at a school in Mathanga village near Newlands makes it clear who can use each potty.
Alan Eason/Alan Eason /
Makeshift toilets, known as "long drops," are a common scene along the roads of the Eastern Cape in South Africa. This set of toilets at a school in Mathanga village near Newlands makes it clear who can use each potty.

Fecal contamination is not just a problem for lower-income countries where sanitation systems may be weak or non-existent. Catastrophic floods from heavy rains and hurricanes can bring the same result in any corner of Earth. This summer, for example, various Florida health departments issued warnings about fecal contamination in a number of beaches. The Naples Daily News reported: "Swimming is not recommended because bacteria from street flooding and storm surge can be carried back into the Gulf after flooding recedes."

In addition to the health repercussions, the lack of toilets has other consequences. Jane Otai, who does public health research in Nairobi, Kenya, says that when schools lack safe and sanitary toilets, girls who are on their period may stay home since there is nowhere to go to address menstrual needs. And at a time when Kenya is reporting a disturbing trend of attacks on women, Otai notes that seeking a public toilet after dark can put a woman at risk.

What's the solution?

I put that question to Sasha Kramer, executive director of SOIL Haiti, a group that seeks to bring toilets to families in Haiti who have none.

Toto toilets are known for their amenities — a heated seat, a mist-generated to remove fecal particles, a butt-washing spray. Here, an employee checks the water functions of various types of toilets in Toto's research laboratories in Kokura, Japan.
Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert / @Everyda/Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert / @Everyda / The Everyday Projects
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The Everyday Projects
Toto toilets are known for their amenities — a heated seat, a mist-generated to remove fecal particles, a butt-washing spray. Here, an employee checks the water functions of various types of toilets in Toto's research laboratories in Kokura, Japan.

Now let's say there was a job called "World Toilet Czar" and you got it, I said to her. What next?

For starters, her agenda would be … well, let's say bureaucratic. In Haiti, where her organization works, she says there is no government budget line for sanitation. So as toilet czar, she would want every country to have a) a sanitation budget line and b) ample funds to provide safe and sanitary toilets.

Because it shouldn't be up to the private sector to make sanitation work, Kramer believes — that would likely exacerbate the divide between the toilet haves and the toilet have-nots, in her view.

Urinals on the long, steep road between Chiang Mai and Pai in northern Thailand. This restroom with a view is at the top of the mountain between the two cities.
Anastas Tarpanov/Anastas Tarpanov / @EverydayEast / The Everyday Projects
/
The Everyday Projects
Urinals on the long, steep road between Chiang Mai and Pai in northern Thailand. This restroom with a view is at the top of the mountain between the two cities.

The work of SOIL is connected to another big discussion point in the world of toilets. Human fecal matter can be … hmm, let's say "harvested" … and turned into something of value.

Nutrients we consume come out in the end, says Kramer. Certain elements in human poop — like nitrogen — make it an effective fertilizer. In SOIL's Haiti project, 3,200 families were given a special toilet. It's not connected to a sewage system. When a person poops, the feces goes into into a 5-gallon container, where it's mixed with ground-up plant matter left over from the harvesting of sugar cane, creating what locals call "une bonne odeur" — a good aroma!

Once a week, SOIL collects the poop, which is then slow cooked — 122 degrees Fahrenheit for 7 days — to wipe out pathogens without disturbing beneficial nutrients. And voila — fertilizer! The end product, says Kramer, is sold and/or donated to farmer collectives and agricultural and reforestation projects and also sold by the bag in stores.

This man is stepping out from a van that offers showers and bathroom facilities to the homeless. Known for his elegant garb, he is one of the 2,000 or so people who live on the streets in Milan, Italy — the number comes from a city survey. An Italian charity called Alatha sponsors the "solidarity shower" van.
Luca Meola / @EverydayBrasil / The Everyday Projects
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The Everyday Projects
This man is stepping out from a van that offers showers and bathroom facilities to the homeless. Known for his elegant garb, he is one of the 2,000 or so people who live on the streets in Milan, Italy — the number comes from a city survey. An Italian charity called Alatha sponsors the "solidarity shower" van.

The cost to the family for the toilet and poop pickup services: about $2.50 a month.

In other projects to turn poop into a precious commodity, human waste — aka "biosolids" — is being used as an ingredient to make bricks.

It'll take some doing to scale up these kinds of projects and to figure out what kinds of toilets work best in what parts of the world.

"It can't be one system fits all," says Kellogg Schwab, a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who specializes in wastewater contaminants. "Our societies have developed different cultural approaches to defecation and urination."

And finding the right systems for various places requires talking about the problem. Only people don't necessarily want to discuss toilets (unless they're the Property Brothers doing a bathroom reno). So a goofy-sounding event like "World Toilet Day" can perhaps bring attention to the troubling lack of toilets, say the commode campaigners I interviewed.

"Toilets have a PR problem. And we've long known that the squeamishness in talking about these things has held back progress," says Randall. "So I'm thankful for the opportunity to elevate these issues."

Copyright 2024 NPR

Marc Silver