Sustainable development blog : ecology and humanitarian aid

November 19th is World Toilet Day.

Picture courtesy World Toilet Day.

In September  2000 the United Nations adopted the Millenium Development Goals (MDG's), which were supposed to set clear goals for many development issues throughout the world. It also set time frames to reachthose goals. The 7th goal was to ensure environmental sustainability and part of it stated a target to "Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation." The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM) reminds us that we are far from reaching that goal. Over 2.6 billion people lack any form of "improved" sanitation. One-sixth of the world's population obtain their water from sources contaminated with human and animal waste and gastro-intestinal illnesses, caused by poor water quality, constantly plague millions of people in the developing world, where a child dies of diarrhea every six seconds. Here are some other horrifying facts from the World Toilet Day website.

• 5000 children die every day from diarrheal illnesses.
• More children worldwide die from diarrheal illnesses than from AIDS or malaria.
• One gram of feces can contain 10 million viruses, one million bacteria, 1,000 parasite cysts and 100 parasite eggs.

Perhaps the most horrifying thing about these statistics is how simple and inexpensive it would be to bring basic sanitation to many of these people. But that needs to become a priority for more than just UN summit delegates. The following documentary by Current TV's "Vanguard" program discusses the issue and examines what can be done. Below is the trailer - a warning - some of the scenes may be disturbing to some.