Rural areas race to meet UN goal on clean toilets
Print Edition
Toilets in rural areas of China have a bad reputation, with some of them being little more than pits next to pigsties.
But now a revolution is under way as the government scrambles to meet a United Nations health target that requires 75 percent of rural areas to have sanitary toilets by the end of this year.
The goal requires sanitary toilets in rural properties to have walls, roofs, doors and windows and to be at least 2 square meters in size. They may be flush toilets or dry toilets with underground storage tanks.
Provincial officials around the country said they have been urged to renovate substandard toilets and build new ones.
“Toilets seem like quite an insignificant thing, but we find it to be an important and quite difficult task,” said Chen Xiaojin, deputy chief of the health department in east China’s Jiangsu Province.
About 94 percent of rural Jiangsu homes have sanitary toilets at present, he said, adding that the province has the highest number of up-to-standard toilets in the country, thanks to government efforts to persuade people to upgrade their facilities.
According to the National Health and Family Planning Commission, a national figure on rural toilets will not be available until the end of the year, but the commission said China should have no problem meeting the UN target, as last year’s figure had already reached 74 percent.
China will set an additional national target of 85 percent for 2020.
“The period from now to 2020 is crucial. We are under a lot of pressure, and officials at every level must advance with the campaign,” said Li Bin, head of the commission.
In the village of Yongkang in central Jiangsu, local resident Bu said that he has just finished building a new flush toilet in his home.
“This kind of new, high-quality toilet is much better and cleaner,” he said.
His old one was a thatched hut full of flies and maggots.
In Bu’s village, households are given 800 yuan (US$130) from the government toward the 3,000 yuan cost of rebuilding or renovating their toilets.
Between 2004 and 2013, the central government earmarked 8.3 billion yuan to build toilets in rural areas. The household subsidies vary from 150 yuan in central and western China to 500 yuan in eastern and southern regions, where building materials are more expensive.
However, officials claim that convincing residents to change their toilets is a challenge.
“Most villagers are used to their way of using the toilet. It is hard to change,” said Wang Zhigang, Communist Party secretary in Tanggou Town in northern Jiangsu.
Farmers collect feces to be put on their fields. If they use flush toilets, there’s no compost.
“We had to build a few toilets first and take villagers to visit, and then encourage them to build new ones,” Wang said.
Slogans such as “sanitary toilets improve lives” are painted on walls of rural homes, and TV stations are urged to promote the use of better toilet facilities.
Fu Yanfen, a researcher at the China Disease Prevention and Control Center, said about 80 percent of contagious diseases such as diarrhea and cholera in rural China are caused by contamination from toilets.
“The improvement of rural health has a profound impact on rural life and the rural economy. The local governments must keep up with their work,” Health Minister Li Bin said.
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