Vanguard | June 08, 2010 | 9 comments

Jonah Hill for “World Toilet Spokesman”

I didn’t start off wanting to make a gross-out movie. But two days into shooting “The World’s Toilet Crisis” for Current TV’s Vanguard documentary series, I had to admit that I was pretty disgusted.

From a massive sewage treatment plant just south of Los Angeles to India’s once-sacred, now polluted Yamuna River, my team of producers and I had set off on a mission to track how the lack of sanitation in many countries has had a devastating impact on public health.

I could tell you we were looking for clean water amidst the contamination, but that’s just being polite, and being polite is part of the problem. It’s a very big part of how even in the 21st century, some 2.6 billion people—40 percent of the world’s population—are still defecating in the open rather than in toilets connected to a proper sewage treatment system.

We went to India and Indonesia because we were looking for shit. When people defecate in rivers, fields and gutters, the water becomes contaminated with shit. Food gets contaminated. And people get sick. An estimated 2 million deaths a year, largely among children, could be prevented by improving access to toilets. And yet very little has been done to end the world’s toilet crisis.

One reason for the inaction is that few people—and almost no one with the political or popular cache to command international attention—have stepped forward to speak plainly about what’s happening and what’s at stake. Jack Sim, a businessman who founded the World Toilet Organization, has spearheaded efforts in Indonesia to make toilets both affordable and desirable. But as Sim told me, there’s no “Angelina Jolie of toilets.”

I don’t think the movement needs an Angelina Jolie. I think it needs someone like Jonah Hill—who in “Get Him to the Greek” spends what seems like half the movie mired in scatological humor—or any of the other actors in hit gross-out comedies who have made a living and a name for themselves making fart jokes.

Let’s face it, talking about toilets would be a classy step up from this:

If we want to seriously address the fact that 40 percent of the world’s population lack a simple flush toilet—which The Lancet, a British medical journal, called the most important health innovation of the last 150 years—we’re all going to have to be willing to get a little grossed out.

The World’s Toilet Crisis” airs Wednesday, June 9 at 10/9c on Current TV.

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9 comments // Jonah Hill for “World Toilet Spokesman”

  • sleepyboy
  • KRuth
    • 0
      KRuth  

    • I recently found about the Vanguard documentaries through hulu. I watched all the episodes, and I'm so impressed with all of the content and the reporting style! Wow, I never knew the scope of this toilet shit problem - OK, I haven't been paying attention until now, but it definitely opened my eyes to the particular toilet needs of the world. Thanks for your great reporting on this!

    • 1 year ago
  • Amy_Scarborough
    • 0
      Amy_Scarborough  

    • I love how you keep calling it "shit"! It's so much better than saying "feces" over and over. It's amazing to me that something that seems to be such common sense to me, obviously isn't in 3rd world countries. Knowledge is bliss..

    • 1 year ago
  • Gigi_Melton
  • Johnll
    • 0
      Johnll  

    • People can probably solve this problem by less reproduction of the species of humans, the world is already full from people... ( Use a condom)

    • 1 year ago
  • ChloeNguyen
    • +1
      ChloeNguyen  
    • Johnll:

      What about the existing problem for people already living? Reproducing less won't make the problem go away, and future generations (smaller in size if we decided to produce less) will still be suffering.

    • 1 year ago
  • Drach
  • Dfg
    • 0
      Dfg  

    • Toilet Crisis? If you’re thinking a small movement led by influential people can fix this problem then you’re wrong. People shit in open because they don’t have resources or the government doesn’t have an infrastructure in place which will take care of the problem.

      You have to tackle the root cause, it’s not the lack of education nor it’s the lack of awareness. Any human being who eats with his hands understands that hygiene is important. Even people living in villages are aware of it.

      In Pakistan, almost all the major cities have sewerage problems. They lack infrastructure to handle the growing population. Even if you go the capital of Pakistan [Islamabad] you will see open sewers in different sectors. In Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi open sewers are common. In villages and cities, pathways are created alongside the roads, which carry the dirty water into an open field or in a manmade hole.

      Mostly due to lack of proper planning and lack of resources, the Government can’t provide the infrastructure needed to solve this problem. In a country where majority of citizens don’t have electricity, I doubt people will worry about sewerage system.

      Aside from that, we do face problems in rural areas, where water contamination is high due to spillage from Factories or from main water lines bursting. Lack of water filtration system is also the main problem here.

      Anyway, the best you can do is take direct action and force the local government into implementing a better sewerage system. After that a simple awareness program will take care of everything. Btw Muslims by default are ordered by Islam to keep themselves clean, this does include taking care of the mess business.

    • 1 year ago
  • CalgarC
Adam_Yamaguchi

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