Poop Problems
No doubt most Americans take good plumbing for granted. Think about it, how much would your life stink without it? Pardon the pun, but in all seriousness a working toilet is quite the lifesaver. In fact, lack of toilets can be fatal. Reuters reports:
Lack of proper toilet facilities and sanitation kills almost two million people a year, most of them children, the World Toilet Association said at its first meeting on Thursday.I’ll keep this in mind the next time I’m suffering through the aroma of the New York Penn Station men’s room.
"It is regrettable that the matter of defecation is not given as much attention as food or housing," Sim Jae-duck, the association's South Korean head, told the meeting at its recently opened lavatory-shaped headquarters south of Seoul.
Sim, a lawmaker nicknamed "Mr. Toilet", said some 2.6 billion people worldwide do not have access to proper toilet facilities, with potentially fatal consequences.
About 1.8 million people die every year from diarrheal diseases that are mainly blamed on inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene, the World Health Organisation's regional director for the Western Pacific, Shigeru Omi, told the meeting.
