World Water Day

From Yahoo! News: “World Water Day puts precious resource in spotlight.

‘A UN-backed International Decade for Water has kicked off with addresses, media-friendly demonstrations and awards aimed at drawing attention to the plight of the world’s most plentiful but most abused resource.

Placed under the banner ‘Water for Life,’ the decade seeks to lobby support for the United Nations’ Millennium Goals, which hope to halve the number of people without access to clean drinking water or sanitation by 2015.

Some 2.4 billion people have no toilets or sewers, and 1.1 billion do not even have drinkable water. Every day, an estimated 22,000 people, half of them children, die of diseases borne by polluted water, such as typhoid, cholera, malaria and diarrhoea.

In countries stricken by shortage, the start of the water decade — coinciding with the annual World Water Day — took on special significance.’

From Envirolet® Buzz: “Are composting toilets the solution? Composting toilets might not solve all of the world’s water problems, but they sure would help.

Envirolet® Waterless Toilets use no water at all. None. Hence the name! So using one means that you are no longer flushing valuable fresh drinking water down the drain.

2.4 billion people do not have toilets or sewers and 1.1 billion do not have drinkable water. A toilet, waterless or not, also provide dignity and self-respect to its user. The only other necessities that compare to sanitation in importance are food and shelter.

Envirolet® Systems provide sanitation and treatment at the source. This is important in North America and Scandanavia where composting toilets are used in high numbers in vacation homes and cottages as an eco-friendly alternative to septic.

But, this is even more important in the developing world where a compost toilet could be the solution. The only viable solution. Each village or individual home can have its own toilet system. This is truly a system — the users would use and maintain their own sanitation system. And because Envirolet® reduces and recycles waste up to 90% through a patented aeration system and produces compost as the end material, they are not harming their own environment or polluting their drinking water.

A good example of this was when we visited South Africa and installed an Envirolet® System in a small village. It was a great moment. They had never had a proper toilet before.

Composting toilets are a feasible solution that can give people the proper sanitation they need.

An Envirolet® can provide these people with a toilet that uses no water and requires no sewage system.

The water saved can be used to help provide for the 1.1 billion who need it to drink. Imagine the problems if the 2.4 billion people without toilets are given toilets, but they are normal, flushing toilets. 2.4 billion people flushing a few times a day…that’s a lot more water wasted. It is essential that the problem be solved without water.

Sewer systems are expensive and take a long time to build. This is money that can be used elsewhere for other essentials like health care, education, etc. Composting toilet systems are, in comparison, inexpensive and install within hours or days. They are also environment-friendly, something a sewage plant is not.

Why isn’t it happening now? On a fairly small scale, it is happening. Composting toilets are being used in some under developed locations that need them. Groups like eekos or EcoWaters are working on various compost toilet installation projects. But why not in a larger scale? A UN size scale. Well, there are many that profit and benefit from the building and operation of sewage treatment facilities and not compost toilets. We really need the UN to step up and truly look at the best possible alternatives.”

Envirolet® has their line of composting toilets and other eco web sites. And another great site is Composting Toilet World, which Sancor took over when it needed funding. CTW is an advocate for the use of composting toilets worldwide.

We hope that Greenthinkers is doing a small part as well at least by discussing these issues!

The bottom line, or the thrid last line, is do not use clean, drinkable water to flush waste away.

BAN THE FLUSH!

Via Envirolet® Buzz via Yahoo! News.

Tags: water, waterless, Envirolet, UN, toilet