Urine trouble: Finding a toilet in cities around the world is no easy task
NEW YORK: With more people than ever before migrating to cities, finding a toilet is not only a chore but a public health issue for hundreds of millions of people around the world, Wateraid, a sanitation charity, said on Thursday. Nearly one in five city dwellers, or about 700 million people worldwide do not have access to decent toilets, according to the Britain-based Wateraid. About 600 million people use dirty or crowded communal toilets and pit or bucket latrines, while some 100 million have no facilities at all, it said. Ensuring sanitation for all by 2030 was among the global development goals adopted last year by the 193 members of the United Nations. Here are a few facts from Wateraid’s report on urban areas where toilet troubles are most pressing:
1 India has the highest number of urban dwellers who do not have access to safe and private toilets - 157 million people.
2 Eight Olympic-sized swimming pools could be filled daily with excrement produced by India’s 41 million urban residents who must defecate in the open.
3 The 10 countries with the most urban dwellers lacking access to safe and private toilets are: India, China, Nigeria, Indonesia, Russia, Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Brazil, Ethiopia and Pakistan. 4- The 10 countries with the least number of safe and private toilets per capita in urban areas are all located in Africa. In descending order, they are South Sudan, Madagascar, the Republic of Congo, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Togo, Ethiopia, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.