Shaheer Ahmed
There’s a day to create awareness about the importance of toilets. Many people might find it funny but it’s actually a sad reality that 4.2 billion people live without access to safely managed sanitation. Every year on November 19, World Toilet Day celebrates toilets. It draws attention to the global sanitation issue, which affects billions of people worldwide who do not have access to a well-maintained bathroom.
Instead, they frequently utilize unreliable, insufficient toilets or practice open defecation. Untreated human waste enters the environment, where it transmits lethal and chronic illnesses. Sustainable sanitation systems, together with the facilities and information needed to practise basic hygiene, provide an effective barrier against COVID-19 and future disease outbreaks.
This year’s theme of World Toilet Day is the impact of the sanitation problem on groundwater. Since 2013, this annual event has celebrated toilets while raising awareness of the 3.6 billion people who need access to proper sanitation. It is about addressing the global sanitation issue and achieving SDG 6: sanitation and water for everyone by 2030.
The ‘Making the Invisible Visible’ campaign for 2022 investigates how insufficient sanitation systems transport human waste into rivers, lakes, and soil, damaging subsurface water supplies.
However, this issue appears to be unnoticeable. Because it occurs underground, it is invisible. It is unnoticed because it occurs in the poorest and most disadvantaged populations.
