China’s toilet revolution is not over yet
Print Edition
“GOING to the toilet will not be so torturous this winter,” said Guan Fuyuan, 62, puffing on a cigarette.
Until recently, like most people in Peng’an County, Sichuan Province, Guan had not had an indoor toilet. Exposed to the elements, the communal dry toilet nearby was smelly in the summer, cold in the winter and slippery when wet.
“Now we have a new bathroom with a flush toilet and a heater,” he said with pride.
Guan is just one of the beneficiaries of a campaign to install toilets in 55 of the county’s poorest villages.
China’s toilet revolution began 12 years ago. From 2004 to 2013, 8.27 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion) was spent on facilities in some of the poorest parts of the country but, despite remarkable achievements, there is still a long way to go before it can be considered a success.
For Yueze Huoshi from Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, also in southwest China’s Sichuan, the woods behind his house is the family toilet. Many villages in the mountainous region don’t have any toilets at all, and villagers have to relieve themselves in the wild — come hail, rain or shine.
The county government’s Li Aijun said that with so many local people in extreme poverty, the priority had been finding new sources of income and the toilet problem had been largely ignored. But all that is set to change, with plans to build at least one public toilet in each village.
Some “more well-off” areas in the prefecture have toilets, but the environment is harsh and the toilets somewhat unsophisticated.
Ada Moer, 42, is a widow who supports her family by raising pigs and poultry. Their toilet is an open pit next to the pigsty, covered with two stone slabs.
Are Rigu, head of the township, said most villagers’ toilets are attached to pigsties or cattle pens. “Life will get better soon, as most households have received a 35,000-yuan government grant to build new homes,” he said.
At the local primary school, headteacher Baoji Saner said that though it is the best equipped in town, there is only one toilet — with six pits for boys and six for girls — for its 600 students. “At break time, the toilet is far too small for all the students to relieve themselves,” Baoji said.
With the help of a 15,000-yuan grant and her neighbors’ help, Gargo, 72, moved into a new house in Kalong Village earlier this year.
In her cozy two-story home set against the hillside, she is immensely pleased with her new toilet and keeps it sparklingly clean. But that’s only half the story.
The toilet is not connected to a drainage system and the waste is simply discharged to the grass outside. Gargo said many other villagers are in the same situation, and nothing is done to address the matter.
Liu Weijia, deputy head of Sichuan’s poverty alleviation bureau, says the toilet situation is closely linked to poverty. When people are struggling just to feed themselves, they have neither the desire nor the ability to improve their toilets.
Hu Guangwei, a professor at Sichuan University, said rural sanitation is a key battleground in the war against poverty.
“The day when every household in the countryside has a clean, eco-friendly toilet is probably the day when we can declare victory over poverty,” Liu said.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
