Rural residents say goodbye to flies and smells
Print Edition
FOR decades, Xie Fengzhen and her family answered the call of nature in a smelly pit toilet full of flies and maggots near her house.
“Every time I stepped outside the toilet, my clothes just gave off a disgusting smell,” said Xie, 62, who lives in the remote village of Maoping in the city of Jinggangshan in east China’s Jiangxi Province. “In winter, it was freezing cold in the ramshackle hut,” she said.
Toilets in the Chinese countryside have earned a nasty reputation, with some little more than shabby shelters surrounded by bunches of cornstalk and others just open pits next to pigsties. China’s national standard requires “sanitary” toilets in rural homes to have walls, roofs, doors and windows and to be at least 2 square meters. They may be flush toilets or dry toilets with underground storage tanks.
A “toilet revolution” spearheaded by the local government has helped residents like Xie. The local government has allocated more than 30 million yuan (US$4.3 million) for 562 villages to help renovate sub-standard rural toilets in recent years.
According to latest government figures, a total of 16,865 toilets have been upgraded so far, benefiting some 75,000 villagers.
“The rural toilet revolution is out of consideration for sanitation and rural tourism development,” said Zeng Zhaojun, head of the township, which administers the village.
Zeng said traditional dry toilets, which were basically a pit under two wooden planks, were susceptible to mosquitoes and bugs as they were exposed to the open air for a long time. They also risked polluting the water and soil.
Zeng said that in the past, people in rural China did not have enough drinking water for themselves or domestic animals.
“People used to trek mountain roads for many kilometers to fetch spring water high in the mountains,” Zeng said. “Under such circumstances, who would ever think about installing flush toilets to waste precious water?”
He said locals would use the excrement from dry toilets as fertilizer for the fields, which saved money.
But as life has improved in recent years, most farmers have switched to chemical fertilizer. Most families also have tap water now. These changes have made it possible to upgrade toilets in rural areas.
Meanwhile, tourism in gaining steam in Jinggangshan, the heartland of the Communist Party’s early revolutionary activities. Its amazing mountain views are also an attraction. Last year, the city received close to 14 million tourists, creating demand for basic facilities in rural areas.
“To accommodate tourists, clean toilets are necessary,” said Li Zhonglin, former Party chief of Bashang Village. “You don’t want them to have a bad impression.”
The city government has demanded a toilet transformation in its villages before tourism projects are launched. It also provides subsidies to the rural population to upgrade their toilets. In 2006, the subsidy was 600 yuan for each toilet overhauled. This year, the amount is 1,000 yuan.
From 2004 to 2013, China’s central government earmarked 8.27 billion yuan to build toilets in rural areas. Farmers who have agreed to build new toilets are eligible to receive amounts varying from 150 yuan in central and west China to 500 yuan in eastern and southern regions, where building materials are more expensive.
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