Businesses Vow To Spend A Penny On World Toilet Day

Yesterday was World Toilet Day, a special day designed to raise awareness on the sanitation crisis across the world and the 2.5 billion people who don’t have access to a clean, safe toilet.

Established by the World Toilet Organisation in 2001, the day has been greeted with mixed reactions, but it continues to promote discourse and debate on toilets and sanitation, and this year saw the unveiling of the Toilet Board Coalition – an organisation chaired by Unilever that brings together a range of companies, including Kimberly-Clark Professional, Japanese toilet maker LIXIL and German chemicals and odour company, Firmenich.

The coalition also includes government agencies, sanitation experts and non-profit organisations such as WaterAid and Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP), and aims to provide sustainable and scalable commercial solutions, in response to the sanitation crisis. Among these solutions is the provision of expertise and support to four pilot sanitation business models in Ghana, India, Bangladesh and Cambodia. Jean-Laurent Ingles, Chairman of the coalition and Global SVP Household Care for Unilever, said: “It is a big issue, but there is a bigger opportunity for business to sort it out.”

Around 2.5 billion people (35%) of the world’s population have no basic sanitation facilities such as toilets, according to the United Nations, while 1 billion people still defecate in the open. And UN-Water, the United Nations inter-agency coordination mechanism for all freshwater and sanitation related matters, feel that something has to be done about it.

In a statement on their website, they said: “We cannot accept this situation. Sanitation is a global development priority. Having to defecate openly infringes on human safety and dignity. Women and girls risk rape and abuse as they wait until night falls because they lack access to a toilet that offers privacy.

“World Toilet Day is a day to take action. It is a day to raise awareness about all people who do not have access to a toilet – despite the human right to water and sanitation. It is a day to do something about it.”