When we think about the positive impact of toilets, we normally couch it in terms of healthy populations – the number of lives saved, reducing disease burden, empowering women in the workforce, improving productivity due to fewer days lost to disease, improved outcomes in schools and so on.
Because these benefits are immense in themselves, they tend to outshine the benefits to the environment at large. However, since we respond to what’s most relevant to ourselves, let’s look at it through the human lens first.
The Human Cost of Poor Sanitation
Improper waste disposal, particularly in the context of toilets and sanitation, has significant environmental impacts. When waste is not managed properly, it can lead to pollution of water sources, posing risks to human health and ecosystems. Waterborne diseases like Diarrhoea, Cholera, Typhoid, Amoebic Dysentery, Hepatitis A, Shigellosis, Giardiasis, etc run rampant when wastes pollute water sources, as do vector borne diseases like Malaria, Dengue Fever, Yellow fever, Chikungunya and others.
This perpetuates a cycle of disease and poverty. Think about it. You live in an urban slum, because you can’t afford to live anywhere else. You’re working hard to improve your family’s situation, but because you live in a slum where access to clean water and sanitation is a problem, you and your family members are sick very often. This means you miss work, often unexpectedly, hurting your ability to climb the ladder, and maybe even keep the job you have. It also means that you can’t save – especially as each change of season brings its wave of diseases around to your family and medical expenses are, well, expensive.
When you can’t grow at work, and you can’t save, you stay stuck right where you are.
The Environmental Cost of Poor Sanitation
Improper disposal of toilet waste can have significant environmental impacts beyond human health concerns. When human waste is not managed properly, it can lead to contamination of water sources, soil, and air.
Water pollution is a major issue, as untreated sewage can introduce harmful pathogens, toxic chemicals, and excess nutrients into rivers, lakes, and oceans. Pathogens are disease-causing microorganisms like bacteria, viruses, and parasites present in human waste. When released into water, they can infect humans and aquatic life, leading to diseases. As humans, we sit near the top of the food chain and a number of pollutants build up in our bodies, and in our wastes. These chemicals, when released in the water, can cause significant harm to aquatic organisms that can’t tolerate them as well as we can, creating massive die-offs.
On the flip side, our wastes often contain high levels of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus. When these nutrients enter water bodies, they can cause imbalances, leading to issues like eutrophication. Eutrophication is a process where algae and aquatic plants grow rapidly. This leads to algal blooms, which can block sunlight and deplete oxygen in the water. When algae die and decompose, they consume oxygen, further reducing oxygen levels in the water. This can suffocate fish and other aquatic organisms. Large algal blooms can create “dead zones”.
The same toxins that leach into water and kill off aquatic organisms also affect organisms in the soil that maintain soil health. As we are learning, the soil is a living system and contains billions of creatures. Beneficial bacteria and fungi work together with nematodes, arthropods and earthworms to cycle nutrients within the soil matrix. Many of these creatures are sensitive to certain toxins and pathogens we regularly excrete, which means that our ‘traditional’ way of going to the toilet in our fields actually harms the soil structure, balance and fertility. In some cases, toxins we excrete can make their way back into our plates through contaminated food grown on contaminated soil.
When toilet wastes aren’t properly disposed of, they also pollute the air. As human waste decomposes in open dumps or landfills without proper management, it can release methane, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change and air pollution. When this waste dries up, it can be easily stirred up by wind, contributing to particulate matter pollution in the air. You read that right: faecal matter in dust form, in the air we breathe.
Mitigating These Impacts
Fortunately, the Swachh Bharat Mission has made a giant leap in mitigating these impacts by creating a strong sanitation infrastructure. In just the first 10 years, the Swachh Bharat Mission has constructed over 11 crore toilets, and improved toilet access for all Indians. Over 6 lakh villages are now ODF. But what about the rest? If everyone has access to toilets, where is the gap?
The gap is one of awareness and education. The Swachh Bharat Mission has been using a multi-pronged approach to communicate the importance of toilet usage and toilet hygiene with context and nuance. Fortunately, it is not alone in doing so. As India’s leading brand in the lavatory care segment, Harpic has been teaching Indians how to care for each other by caring for our toilets for decades now.
Three years ago, however, Harpic joined hands with News18 in Mission Swachhta aur Paani, a movement that upholds the cause of inclusive sanitation where everyone has access to clean toilets. Mission Swachhta aur Paani advocates equality for all genders, abilities, castes and classes and strongly believes that clean toilets are a shared responsibility.
For three years now, Mission Swachhta aur Paani has brought together the right stakeholders on a common platform, so that issues of importance can be discussed, and solutions found. These stakeholders include govt officials, municipalities, NGOs, activists, grassroots organisations, sanitation workers and affected communities. It also functions as a repository for information on a vast variety of topics surrounding toilet access, toilet hygiene, and how to help improve toilet access and toilet habits across the board.
However, what’s missing here is your voice. You too, live in the same cities, breathe in the same air, drink from the same water sources, and eat the foods grown in our fields. This is your fight too. Use your voice, and use your platform to get the message out there, and join us in moving the needle towards a more Swasth and Swachh Bharat.