KATHMANDU, Nov 19: Nepal is also celebrating the World Toilet Day 2018 with a theme “Toilet, our nature’s necessity”. According to a press release by Minister for Water Supply and Sanitation Bina Magar, 1/3^rd children below age 5 will be prevented from diarrhoea if toilets are built. Also cleaning hands with soap water would cure almost half of the population below age 5.

Nepal has succeeded a lot since past eight years to build toilets along with the support from various organizations.  On 2067 BS, the data shows only two out of five houses had a toilet and not a single district was open defecation free. However, with continuous efforts, at the present, around 98 houses out of every 100 houses have a toilet and 60 districts are already declared as open defecation free districts.

UN reports,

The Sanitation Crisis

Toilets save lives because human waste spreads killer diseases. World Toilet Day is about inspiring action to tackle the global sanitation crisis.

The world is not on track to reach Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6): to ensure availability and sustainable management of sanitation and water for all by 2030. Today, 4.5 billion live without a safe toilet and 892 million people still practise open defecation.

The impact of exposure to human faeces on this scale has a devastating impact on public health, living and working conditions, nutrition, education and economic productivity across the world.

SDG 6 aims to ensure that everyone has a safe toilet and that no-one practices open defecation by 2030. Failure to achieve this goal risks the entire 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

2018 Theme: When Nature Calls

This year’s campaign is based on the following narrative: “When nature calls, we need a toilet. But, billions of people don’t have one. This means human faeces, on a massive scale, are not being captured or treated – contaminating the water and soil that sustain human life. We are turning our environment into an open sewer. We must build toilets and sanitation systems that work in harmony with ecosystems.”

Nature-based Sanitation Solutions

Nature-based sanitation solutions (NBS) harness the power of ecosystems to help treat human waste before it returns to the environment. Most NBS essentially involve the protection and management of vegetation, soils and/or wetlands, including rivers and lakes.

 
• laterine
 
• sanitation
 
• health