sanitation

Not every American has access to basic sanitation. This leader is out to change that.

A new book calls attention to the lack of basic sanitation in the rural South.

Maria has plunged Puerto Rico into a humanitarian emergency

With no power for months, simple sanitation could become a life-threatening issue for island dwellers.

Matt Damon says he’s going to stop using the toilet

He was looking for a way to, and we quote, "persuade people to give a shit about toilets."

After three days of water rationing, an entire city flushes its toilets at the same time

It was called the Big Flush.

Insanely catchy song urges you to poop in a bucket

Pooping in a bucket might not save the world, but this is definitely going to be stuck in your head for a while.

Energy-producing toilets kill two birds with one … well, you know

Leave it to MIT geeks to figure out how to solve one problem (the need for a sustainable energy source) by solving another (insufficient sanitation). Sanergy, a company founded by a group of MIT grads and newly funded by USAID, provides low-cost toilets to sanitation-challenged communities in Kenya, then harvests the waste to convert into […]

Toilet 2.0 will turn waste into energy, fertilizer, and clean water

Think poop is funny? Well, it’s DEADLY SERIOUS. Here are the unsavory facts about poor sanitation infrastructure, according to the Gates Foundation: 2.6 billion lack access to safe toilets. Food and water that's come in contact with waste leads to 2.5 billion cases of diarrhea in children each year, and 1.5 million of them die as a result. People with diseases connected to poor sanitation fill half of the hospital beds in the developing world. So the Gates Foundation is trying to polish this turd by developing the next generation of toilet.

If you watch the video above (which you should! It's funny!), you'll find that the Gates Foundation is taking a cheeky approach to publicizing its new campaign to design "Toilet 2.0."

Urine-separating NoMix toilet gets thumbs-up in European countries

NoMix toilet.Photo courtesy Sustainable sanitation via Flickr Being green is all about solving problems and grabbing overlooked opportunities. It turns out that there’s such a double-win in most bathrooms around the world; if we had “NoMix” toilets that separate urine from solid waste, municipal wastewater plants would have a significantly easier task (and produce more […]

Peepoo bags help the developing world take off a load

A rotting Peepoo: what a load of crap.Photo: Sustainable sanitation via FlickrWhen poor people don’t have a loo, They pee and poo wherever it’s easy to, But it’s gross for them and the planet too. So Peepoople invented a biodegradable loo. It’s a little bag for doing numbers one and two, And after they planted […]