10 ms·

India is drowning in its own excreta

181 points by ragsagar 13y ago

yoster 13y ago
After reading this, it makes me want to hug my toilet...
DigitalJack 13y ago
The history of civilization is full of inventive people finding ways to make life better, and then doing so. Why does this not happen in these poverty stricken areas? Is it because anyone intelligent enough to do something about it leaves? They don't have to jump straight to modern plumbing to have their lives improved.
- thisrod 13y ago
  There are many hypotheses about this; history only happens once, so it's hard to test them. Here are a couple of the more interesting ideas. Jared Diamond: Eurasia runs east-west and has a large temperate zone. This supports enough biodiversity that the plants and animals you need to start farming can be found in one place. Other continents run north-south, lack biodiversity, and couldn't be farmed until Europeans introduced some critical species. Lots of lawyers and economists, whose names I've forgotten: By default, someone bigger than you nicks whatever you make, until you get sick of making stuff. The exception is when you make weapons, and nick stuff from people bigger than you. Something strange and kind of miraculous happened in England a few centuries ago, and led to the only society that isn't like that.
  - Radim 13y ago
    And now for something completely different: Could the strange and miraculous have been... Dennis Moore?! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLkhx0eqK5w http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLkhx0eqK5w
- Houshalter 13y ago
  It does happen to some extent. I have always been impressed by the way slum areas build tons of functional structures from scrap. But there is only so much you can do with limited resources, and extreme poverty implies that.
aashaykumar92 13y ago
Having been to India quite recently (and being Indian), I talked to a lot of family members there about this issue, among others, as I saw it happen time and again. One of the things that really frustrated me was the pure lack of accountability in general. I said 'among others' earlier because I am also referring to environment issues such as littering and pollution. The people there aren't dumb--they know all of these actions have harmful and negative effects on others' help and the general environment, but they would rather not care than care for the most part. Herein lies the fundamental problem...if you would rather not care, well there's no solution to that. I am originally from Northern India but on my most recent visit, we went to Mumbai. If the ocean wasn't brown and there was less pollution, it would hands-down be one of the most beautiful cities in the world. But no one there seems to look at what could be but rather what it is and accept it. So rather than spreading knowledge about these issues (which, don't get me wrong, is also good), there has to be an attitude change. You can't blame the government and I never like doing that, but it would be wonderful if the government would get involved in preventing these environmental/health jeopardizing actions. The problem with this, of course, that the country is so populated that it is extremely hard to make this drastic of an imposition and follow through with it.
- tomphoolery 13y ago
  > The people there aren't dumb--they know all of these actions have harmful and negative effects on others' help and the general environment, but they would rather not care than care for the most part. Well that's just disgusting. I don't think you could pay me enough money to step foot in that country.
  - aashaykumar92 13y ago
    I assure you that there are people like this in every country.
  - realrocker 13y ago
    That is what happens when a plethora of cultures have migrated to a region, each culture growing it's own little bubble. India has been a recipient of migrants from Central Asia, North Asia and Europe over the last two thousand years. India to it's smallest unit is a hive of ghettos, each ghetto not caring about the other one, while striving in the futile exercise of ensuring it's own survival. People don't care about cleanliness or have general civic sense because they don't see themselves as one community. The lack of the sense of "India" is appalling. We have Kashmiris, Biharis, Marathis, Gujaratis. Oriyas, Nagas, Tamils, Other South Indians, Bhaiyyas(from Uttar Pradesh), Punjabis and a thousand of other sub-cultures. India has not had Independence long enough to have that sense spread in it's massive population. From the heights of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pataliputra http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pataliputra, and later http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijayanagara_Empire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijayanagara_Empire, India has been seizing to become a more "me and my tribe first" civilization due to the always constant influx of foreigners looking to settle. In 2013, it's just, "me and my 1000 square feet flat first". Indians are in for a massive shock when they realize they can't keep themselves prosperous for long without thinking of the community first. The "Red Revolution"(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naxalite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naxalite) and the massive protests in the big cities are indications of a society in great distress. It's going to implode. In any case, it's going to get much worse before it get's any better. The 10th century chronicler, observed this about India: "The Hindus believe that there is no country but theirs, no nation like theirs, no kings like theirs, no religion like theirs, no science like theirs.They are haughty, foolishly vain, self-conceited, and stolid. They are by nature niggardly in communicating that which they know, and they take the greatest possible care to withhold it from men of another caste among their own people, still much more, of course, from any foreigner ... Their haughtiness is such that, if you tell them of any science or scholar in Khorasan and Persis, they will think you to be both an ignoramus and a liar. If they traveled and mixed with other nations, they would soon change their mind, for their ancestors were not as narrow-minded as the present generation is." --http://www.shunya.net/Text/Blog/AlBeruniIndia.htm http://www.shunya.net/Text/Blog/AlBeruniIndia.htm
ChrisNorstrom 13y ago
India isn't alone. Dubai is having a massive problem with sewage and in the US there are a lot of communities that have septic tanks which, when they fail, can cause ground water pollution. Even in St. Louis, Missouri, USA we still have overflows in which the sewer system excess gets purged into streams and rivers when it becomes too much to handle for the sewer system. A lot of US cities have this problem. And this is in 2013. We have a robot on Mars, people in space, and flags on the moon. The problem is that our only current solution is an extremely expensive underground sewage system with thousands of miles of pipes, treatment plants, and storage containers which take a long time to build and are expensive to maintain and replace. That's not something realistic for fast growing communities or rising countries. There's really no cheaper better alternative. Is this an industry ripe for disruption. Dare anyone challange the sewer/septic tank gods?
- prawn 13y ago
  Are there companies working on a plug-in block (think of something in between a vending machine and shipping container in size) that could convert human excrement to bagged, saleable/usable fertiliser pellets? Incidentally: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_soil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_soil Someone who knows their shit might be able to tell me what challenges prevent this from existing, but I would've thought that something that could be dumped on site and tapped into somehow could be useful. Surely one day technology would allow for solar + reliable energy storage + large rain water storage + waste processor to mean that many people could do away with a lot of the typical grid services fixed to a house? (e.g., electricity/water/wastewater would be dealt with)
- lordgilman 13y ago
  As I understand it a large amount of sewer overflow in the US comes from old combined sewers. Replacing them is already in action but it's a slow and expensive process as many of the sewers built before the 60s/70s were combined. My point is that I don't think it's fair to group the US in with Dubai and India as the US faces sewer problems of a different sort entirely. Our overflow comes from rainwater overwhelming the system and not from excessive human use.
broabprobe 13y ago
Composting toilets are the future.
- Houshalter 13y ago
  Would that work on a massive scale? What's the reason it isn't done now?
  - Aloisius 13y ago
    You still have to physically remove the composted feces which is a logistical nightmare in an urban area, there are reliability problems with maintaining the proper environment for proper decomposition (temperature & moisture) and compared to pit toilets are bigger and more expensive (though in an urban area, you don't have the land for pit toilets). Really, a wet sewage system is superior for densely packed areas.
    - lostlogin 13y ago
      Wet doesn't mean pipes to a processing plant necessarily though. Ive seen an amazing system that used a moderate sized pond, masses of reeds and somehow this processed the water and filtered it. There were fish and ducks swimming in it. That said, if dealt with waste from one house. I'm not sure this would scale very well.
sirwanqutbi 13y ago
no mention of india spending $1 trillion on infrastructure over 2013 - 2018.
- mb_72 13y ago
  Spending money and seeing the results of spending the money are two different things entirely.
  - sirwanqutbi 13y ago
    spending $1 trillion by 2018 is alot of money.. Dont you think articles like these are a precursor for the year 2018 ? why are we hearing about indian sanitation and infrastructure NOW ?!
- OGinparadise 13y ago
  Even if true, 20%-30% of that is probably taken as a winners fee by the politicians. So the contractors have to buy substandard materials and labor, causing this "infrastructure" to last a decade or two, at best.
  - sirwanqutbi 13y ago
    India is electing a new government in 2014. Giving the $1 trillion expenditure a better chance of curbing said problem. Most of the contractors will be foreign. e.g. The North-South Rail Corridor being built by Japan's International Cooperation Agency
npguy 13y ago
What most people do not realize is this: Mumbai also has the most expensive house in the world - thats right, in the world: http://statspotting.com/the-most-expensive-home-in-the-world-mukesh-ambanis-antilia/ http://statspotting.com/the-most-expensive-home-in-the-world...
- Someone 13y ago
  For the curious: http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/30/home-india-billion-forbeslife-cx_mw_0430realestate.html http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/30/home-india-billion-forbesli.... Tastes differ, let's say.
Brajeshwar 13y ago
A picture I took few years back. This was in the heart of the City of Mumbai (Bombay), near residential and lots of commercial establishments. http://www.flickr.com/photos/brajeshwar/1283051163/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/brajeshwar/1283051163/
rikacomet 13y ago
The problem is that government clearance aren't up to speed with how the population housing need is growing. This leads to unauthorized colonies, unplanned, un-organised and unhygenic. Few hundred years ago, the Harrapan Civilization had one of the best water & sewer management systems. But today, finding a public pool in Delhi, is like finding a Oasis in the desert. In Delhi itself, the biggest issue, surrounding sewer and management of water bodies is the cleaning up of Yamuna River, many have fought for it, many have eaten corruption money out of it, subsequent governments have failed to address this issue.. about time it comes into the limelight.
ChuckMcM 13y ago
This sort of stuff makes me sad. But also strangely curious, since the suggestion is that these conditions are not survivable and yet people do survive. Are millions of people dying in Mumbai's slums and we're not hearing about it?
- w1ntermute 13y ago
  From TFA: > Around 1,000 children below the age of five die every day in India from diarrhea, hepatitis-causing pathogens, and other sanitation-related diseases, according to the report of United Nations Children’s Fund.
- kamaal 13y ago
  >>Are millions of people dying in Mumbai's slums and we're not hearing about it? Its a very complicated issue. Don't read too much into it. The fact that they live in slums has sometimes little correlation with their purchasing power or sometimes their financial status. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharavi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharavi This slum is a mini industry in itself having exports of over $650 million an year. Its possible many people living their have their own cars or even their own homes else where, which they have rented out for some monthly income.
naanalla 13y ago
Indian here. Yes population is the biggest problem for us.Which naturally leads to many problems like this one. * I agree with author this is absolutely true for slums like Mumbai. (But does not apply to whole India. Second tier urban areas scenario is not this bad ) * I agree that in most of rural area practice open defecation. In general whey open defecation is in practiced, * Since we have too many people even one bathroom in rural area per home is not sufficient(seriously) * Attitude of people towards cleanliness. IS GOVT DOING SOMETHING FOR THIS? * Yes lots of schemes have come(more than 10-20 years back and still continuing) in its slowly picking up. * The best scheme in my state(Karnataka)the govt is paying Rs 7000/- for each house to encourage them to construct toilet from 'gram panchayath'. * Thanks to media and celebs who are getting involved more these days. Yes we have problem, we need to solve it.
- killerpopiller 13y ago
  imho the overpopulation needs to be adressed the chinese way. I don't think that throwing tech at it will solve the problem. I remember vaguely, that one indian gov. wanted to sterilize slum inhabitants and wasn't reelected.
  - krichman 13y ago
    Are you writing that they should have been pro-sterilisation? They could just round up and shoot all the slum inhabitants so they wouldn't need to wait an entire generation to be rid of them.
    - killerpopiller 13y ago
      china has a one-child-only policy since 79. I thought that this is known http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy
  - lostlogin 13y ago
    Is this for India? Or the world? I'll assume you mean world as that's somewhat less harsh and less NIMBY. Alternatively, education, good government and a decent economy and birth rates fall. And there is then the bonus of no fascist/pseudo communist population control bent.
deleted 13y ago
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- swombat 13y ago
  Most countries I care to live in don't have issues of open defecation and water sources contaminated with shit. Generally, people care about basic hygiene issues before they look at the other stuff. If a country's hygiene is so bad it has a 100x larger chance that it might kill you, the rest is irrelevant. Between that and the corruption, India is one country I'm not setting foot in for the foreseeable future. It's a shame, because it is also a cradle of humanity with much history, but I guess that doesn't stop it from turning into a shithole... (Quite literally)
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - lostlogin 13y ago
    Most countries would, I'm pretty sure, have waterways contaminated with shit. Mine does (New Zealand) and most I've been to have had warnings about not drinking stream water, even in remote ares. Open defecation though? Nope.
    - swombat 13y ago
      I have yet to spend any significant amount of time in a country where I couldn't drink tap water. India is clearly one of those. Even in the US you can drink tap water, though it tastes awful because it's usually so heavily chlorinated.
  - ayushgta 13y ago
    > India is one country I'm not setting foot in for the foreseeable future. Yes its a shame. You don't have to live there. But 1 of every 6 fellow humans do. And not all of them openly defecate. Some are even pleasant enough to shake hands with. Many take a lot more antibiotics to ward off the germs but still die early. Lucky for you you don't have to die early :) but armed with antibiotics and Fiona's travel guides (http://bit.ly/ZR6wtm http://bit.ly/ZR6wtm), you can experience a sliver of the place which is "also a cradle of humanity with much history".
ultimoo 13y ago
Great article. Does convey some of the harsh realities. However, I didn't understand why outline such a well written article with a meaningless sensational headline. "Drowning in its own excreta", really?
- kamakazizuru 13y ago
  link baiting is the thing to do these days! sad truth.
  - arbuge 13y ago
    Catchy headlines have been important since before the Internet though.
nnq 13y ago
Overpopulation is a problem because one government can only properly manage a limited number of people (by "properly manage" I mean not control, that's easy to do by controlling the upper class and having decent police/military/intelligence systems, but provide adequate living conditions for, actually solve health and education issues etc.). Compare to the US ratio of population of ~300M population to 1 government (even ignoring that in the US states have real autonomy and are mostly self governing!) to India's ratio of ~1200M to 1 government. Similar ratios for European countries too. India should be at split in at least 4 different countries, with different governments, internal and external policies, armies and maybe even a "healthy" dose of conflict/competition between them. It would be worse for some new countries and for some people, but on average better for most. Sticking together is not the way to solve a poverty type problem!
tathagata 13y ago
I think we Indians are still trying to overcome our false sense of cleanliness. We keep our own houses clean but expect divine intervention outside. Partly due to the still-existing caste system, where the lowest castes are responsible for clearing the muck, associations with this work is looked down upon. Therefore the uninterestedness of the typical Indian in solving the problem. Public toilets are few and far between, and most go unmaintained for lack of people willing to do the job. This attitude is changing fast though, thanks largely to improvements in technology and pay which make it safer to engage in and survive doing such work.
ad93611 13y ago
There is an amazing citizen led initiative called the "The Ugly Indian" to clean Indian cities. They've been having significant impact in Bangalore. See some of their work here, http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Ugly-Indian/123459791046618 http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Ugly-Indian/12345979104661... http://www.theuglyindian.com/about_us.html http://www.theuglyindian.com/about_us.html
intelliot 13y ago
Reminds me of the horse manure crisis in NYC http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/11/16/091116crbo_books_kolbert http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/11/16/09111... Not that any comparison can be made, they are really completely different.
vicks711 13y ago
Not to mention India's spitting problem. Indian don't need a reason to spit all sorts of things from plain spit to phlegm. A large number of Indians are addicted chewing tobacco and keep spitting on roads, market places, stairwells, lifts (escalators) inside buses and from buses. India is one of the dirtiest places. I think too much democracy is a bad thing.
MarkMc 13y ago
Here's an extract on this topic from a fantastic book called 'Poor Economics': Most experts agree that access to piped water and sanitation can have a dramatic impact on health. A study concluded that the introduction of piped water, better sanitation, and chlorination of water sources was responsible for something like three-fourths of the decline in infant mortality between 1900 and 1946 and nearly half the overall reduction in mortality over the same period. Moreover, repeated bouts of diarrhea during childhood permanently impair both physical and cognitive development. It is estimated that by piping uncontaminated, chlorinated water to households, it is possible to reduce diarrhea by up to 95 percent. Poor water quality and pools of stagnant water are also a cause of other major illnesses, including malaria, schistosorniasis, and trachoma, any of which can kill children or make them less productive adults. Nevertheless, the conventional wisdom is that today, at $20 per household per month, providing piped water and sanitation is too expensive for the budget of most developing countries. The experience of Gram Vikas, an NGO that works in Orissa, India, shows, however, that it is possible to do it much more cheaply. Its CEO, Joe Madiath, a man with a self-deprecating sense of humor who attends the annual meeting of the world’s rich and powerful at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in outfits made from homespun cotton, is used to doing things differently. Madiath’s career as an activist started early: He was twelve when he first got into trouble—for organizing the labor on the plantation that his father owned. He came to Orissa in the early 1970s with a group of left-wing students to help out after a devastating cyclone. After the immediate relief work was over, he decided to stay and see if he could find some more permanent ways to help the poor Oriya villagers. He eventually settled on water and sanitation. What attracted him to the issue was that it was simultaneously a daily challenge and an opportunity to initiate long-term social change. He explained to us that in Orissa, water and sanitation are social issues. Madiath insists that every single household in the villages where Gram Vikas operates should be connected to the same water mains: Water is piped to each house, which contains a toilet, a tap, and a bathing room, all connected to the same system. For the high-caste households, this means sharing water with low-caste households, which, for many in Orissa, was unacceptable when first proposed. It takes the NGO a while to get the agreement of the whole village and some villages eventually refuse, but it has always stuck to the principle that it would not start its work in a village until everyone there agreed to participate. When agreement is finally reached, it is often the first time that some of the upper-caste households participate in a project that involves the rest of the community. Once a village agrees to work with Gram Vikas, the building work starts and continues for one to two years. Only after every single house has received its tap and toilet is the system turned on. In the meantime, Gram Vikas collects data every month on who has gone to the health center to get treated for malaria or diarrhea. We can thus directly observe what happens in a village as soon as the water starts flowing. The effects are remarkable: Almost overnight, and for years into the future, the number of severe diarrhea cases falls by one-half, and the number of malaria cases falls by one-third. The monthly cost of the system for each household, including maintenance, is 190 rupees, or $4 per household (in current USD), only 20 percent of what is conventionally assumed to be the cost of such a system.
gadders 13y ago
For an excellent book on sanitation, I can recommend "The Big Necessity" by Rose George. http://rosegeorge.com/site/books/the-big-necessity http://rosegeorge.com/site/books/the-big-necessity
gadders 13y ago
One thing that I think is sad is the poor Dalit ("Untouchable") girls who have it as their job to collect other people's shit using bits of cardboard or tin :-(
spikels 13y ago
Open defecation is also practiced in San Francisco. I have seen is occurring in front of my apartments and on the street. You can find human feces on almost any walk through SOMA, the Tenderloin or Civic Center area if you know what to look for (expert tip: dogs don't look for hiding places to poo). We have decided this is not a problem.
- veidr 13y ago
  Others of us have decided not to live in San Francisco (or India). I'm not being entirely flippant; I'm originally from the Bay Area, and the filth is a significant part of the reason I live in Tokyo now. Regularly encountering human feces is one of several things I don't miss.
  - Aloisius 13y ago
    I'm also from the Bay Area and have lived in SF proper for about 15 years. I don't think I've ever encountered human feces. Were you a sewage worker?
    - spikels 13y ago
      I wish I was a SF sewage worker I'd be retired with a nice pension by now ;) Aloisius you just needed to walk around more in the downtown area - I walk everywhere. Next time you are here take a look around the NW corner of Mission and 8th in the nooks and crannies of the PG&E building. I'm betting you will find something if it has not just rained. This stuff is just not well documented but this guy has a blog about his street in SOMA (somewhere just of 6th near Mission) that captures some of the flavor of the place: http://www.olddirtyalley.net/ http://www.olddirtyalley.net/ Why is this stuff just invisible to so many people here?
- dudujdjd 13y ago
  >>We have decided this is not a problem I have never seen this on a street of NYC. Never, not even once. I'm sure it happens but it most be rare. I've lived here for 25 years. It must be really bad in San Francisco for this to be common. Kind of makes me want to no live there. All I can think about that city is that it is a CRAPPY city.
mbesto 13y ago
This is a classic case of Confirmation Bias[1] - if no one else is cleaning it up, it means I'm not responsible myself. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
anuraj 13y ago
India is what you get when governance gives way to bureaucracy, morality gives way to greed and spirit gives way to helplessness. Indians die by millions on the wayside consumed by hunger, disease and violence - and the well to do 20% looks down from their glass houses built on excreta. Welcome to oldest civilization!
Tichy 13y ago
Could there be money in it if somehow it could be converted into fertilizer (obviously with some hygienic challenges)?
known 13y ago
4 people in a home hate each other 24x7 for the past 3000 years (caste). What will an Intellectual (Gorbachev) do? Give them their share of land/Independence and tell them to go and build their own home/nation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perestroika https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perestroika aka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communal_Award https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communal_Award

181 points by ragsagar 13y ago

After reading this, it makes me want to hug my toilet...

The history of civilization is full of inventive people finding ways to make life better, and then doing so. Why does this not happen in these poverty stricken areas? Is it because anyone intelligent enough to do something about it leaves? They don't have to jump straight to modern plumbing to have their lives improved.

thisrod 13y ago
There are many hypotheses about this; history only happens once, so it's hard to test them. Here are a couple of the more interesting ideas. Jared Diamond: Eurasia runs east-west and has a large temperate zone. This supports enough biodiversity that the plants and animals you need to start farming can be found in one place. Other continents run north-south, lack biodiversity, and couldn't be farmed until Europeans introduced some critical species. Lots of lawyers and economists, whose names I've forgotten: By default, someone bigger than you nicks whatever you make, until you get sick of making stuff. The exception is when you make weapons, and nick stuff from people bigger than you. Something strange and kind of miraculous happened in England a few centuries ago, and led to the only society that isn't like that.
- Radim 13y ago
  And now for something completely different: Could the strange and miraculous have been... Dennis Moore?! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLkhx0eqK5w http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLkhx0eqK5w
Houshalter 13y ago
It does happen to some extent. I have always been impressed by the way slum areas build tons of functional structures from scrap. But there is only so much you can do with limited resources, and extreme poverty implies that.

aashaykumar92 13y ago

Having been to India quite recently (and being Indian), I talked to a lot of family members there about this issue, among others, as I saw it happen time and again. One of the things that really frustrated me was the pure lack of accountability in general. I said 'among others' earlier because I am also referring to environment issues such as littering and pollution. The people there aren't dumb--they know all of these actions have harmful and negative effects on others' help and the general environment, but they would rather not care than care for the most part. Herein lies the fundamental problem...if you would rather not care, well there's no solution to that. I am originally from Northern India but on my most recent visit, we went to Mumbai. If the ocean wasn't brown and there was less pollution, it would hands-down be one of the most beautiful cities in the world. But no one there seems to look at what could be but rather what it is and accept it. So rather than spreading knowledge about these issues (which, don't get me wrong, is also good), there has to be an attitude change. You can't blame the government and I never like doing that, but it would be wonderful if the government would get involved in preventing these environmental/health jeopardizing actions. The problem with this, of course, that the country is so populated that it is extremely hard to make this drastic of an imposition and follow through with it.

tomphoolery 13y ago
> The people there aren't dumb--they know all of these actions have harmful and negative effects on others' help and the general environment, but they would rather not care than care for the most part. Well that's just disgusting. I don't think you could pay me enough money to step foot in that country.
- aashaykumar92 13y ago
  I assure you that there are people like this in every country.
- realrocker 13y ago
  That is what happens when a plethora of cultures have migrated to a region, each culture growing it's own little bubble. India has been a recipient of migrants from Central Asia, North Asia and Europe over the last two thousand years. India to it's smallest unit is a hive of ghettos, each ghetto not caring about the other one, while striving in the futile exercise of ensuring it's own survival. People don't care about cleanliness or have general civic sense because they don't see themselves as one community. The lack of the sense of "India" is appalling. We have Kashmiris, Biharis, Marathis, Gujaratis. Oriyas, Nagas, Tamils, Other South Indians, Bhaiyyas(from Uttar Pradesh), Punjabis and a thousand of other sub-cultures. India has not had Independence long enough to have that sense spread in it's massive population. From the heights of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pataliputra http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pataliputra, and later http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijayanagara_Empire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijayanagara_Empire, India has been seizing to become a more "me and my tribe first" civilization due to the always constant influx of foreigners looking to settle. In 2013, it's just, "me and my 1000 square feet flat first". Indians are in for a massive shock when they realize they can't keep themselves prosperous for long without thinking of the community first. The "Red Revolution"(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naxalite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naxalite) and the massive protests in the big cities are indications of a society in great distress. It's going to implode. In any case, it's going to get much worse before it get's any better. The 10th century chronicler, observed this about India: "The Hindus believe that there is no country but theirs, no nation like theirs, no kings like theirs, no religion like theirs, no science like theirs.They are haughty, foolishly vain, self-conceited, and stolid. They are by nature niggardly in communicating that which they know, and they take the greatest possible care to withhold it from men of another caste among their own people, still much more, of course, from any foreigner ... Their haughtiness is such that, if you tell them of any science or scholar in Khorasan and Persis, they will think you to be both an ignoramus and a liar. If they traveled and mixed with other nations, they would soon change their mind, for their ancestors were not as narrow-minded as the present generation is." --http://www.shunya.net/Text/Blog/AlBeruniIndia.htm http://www.shunya.net/Text/Blog/AlBeruniIndia.htm

ChrisNorstrom 13y ago

India isn't alone. Dubai is having a massive problem with sewage and in the US there are a lot of communities that have septic tanks which, when they fail, can cause ground water pollution. Even in St. Louis, Missouri, USA we still have overflows in which the sewer system excess gets purged into streams and rivers when it becomes too much to handle for the sewer system. A lot of US cities have this problem. And this is in 2013. We have a robot on Mars, people in space, and flags on the moon. The problem is that our only current solution is an extremely expensive underground sewage system with thousands of miles of pipes, treatment plants, and storage containers which take a long time to build and are expensive to maintain and replace. That's not something realistic for fast growing communities or rising countries. There's really no cheaper better alternative. Is this an industry ripe for disruption. Dare anyone challange the sewer/septic tank gods?

prawn 13y ago
Are there companies working on a plug-in block (think of something in between a vending machine and shipping container in size) that could convert human excrement to bagged, saleable/usable fertiliser pellets? Incidentally: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_soil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_soil Someone who knows their shit might be able to tell me what challenges prevent this from existing, but I would've thought that something that could be dumped on site and tapped into somehow could be useful. Surely one day technology would allow for solar + reliable energy storage + large rain water storage + waste processor to mean that many people could do away with a lot of the typical grid services fixed to a house? (e.g., electricity/water/wastewater would be dealt with)
lordgilman 13y ago
As I understand it a large amount of sewer overflow in the US comes from old combined sewers. Replacing them is already in action but it's a slow and expensive process as many of the sewers built before the 60s/70s were combined. My point is that I don't think it's fair to group the US in with Dubai and India as the US faces sewer problems of a different sort entirely. Our overflow comes from rainwater overwhelming the system and not from excessive human use.

broabprobe 13y ago

Composting toilets are the future.

Houshalter 13y ago
Would that work on a massive scale? What's the reason it isn't done now?
- Aloisius 13y ago
  You still have to physically remove the composted feces which is a logistical nightmare in an urban area, there are reliability problems with maintaining the proper environment for proper decomposition (temperature & moisture) and compared to pit toilets are bigger and more expensive (though in an urban area, you don't have the land for pit toilets). Really, a wet sewage system is superior for densely packed areas.
  - lostlogin 13y ago
    Wet doesn't mean pipes to a processing plant necessarily though. Ive seen an amazing system that used a moderate sized pond, masses of reeds and somehow this processed the water and filtered it. There were fish and ducks swimming in it. That said, if dealt with waste from one house. I'm not sure this would scale very well.

sirwanqutbi 13y ago

no mention of india spending $1 trillion on infrastructure over 2013 - 2018.

mb_72 13y ago
Spending money and seeing the results of spending the money are two different things entirely.
- sirwanqutbi 13y ago
  spending $1 trillion by 2018 is alot of money.. Dont you think articles like these are a precursor for the year 2018 ? why are we hearing about indian sanitation and infrastructure NOW ?!
OGinparadise 13y ago
Even if true, 20%-30% of that is probably taken as a winners fee by the politicians. So the contractors have to buy substandard materials and labor, causing this "infrastructure" to last a decade or two, at best.
- sirwanqutbi 13y ago
  India is electing a new government in 2014. Giving the $1 trillion expenditure a better chance of curbing said problem. Most of the contractors will be foreign. e.g. The North-South Rail Corridor being built by Japan's International Cooperation Agency

npguy 13y ago

What most people do not realize is this: Mumbai also has the most expensive house in the world - thats right, in the world: http://statspotting.com/the-most-expensive-home-in-the-world-mukesh-ambanis-antilia/ http://statspotting.com/the-most-expensive-home-in-the-world...

Someone 13y ago
For the curious: http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/30/home-india-billion-forbeslife-cx_mw_0430realestate.html http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/30/home-india-billion-forbesli.... Tastes differ, let's say.

Brajeshwar 13y ago

A picture I took few years back. This was in the heart of the City of Mumbai (Bombay), near residential and lots of commercial establishments. http://www.flickr.com/photos/brajeshwar/1283051163/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/brajeshwar/1283051163/

rikacomet 13y ago

The problem is that government clearance aren't up to speed with how the population housing need is growing. This leads to unauthorized colonies, unplanned, un-organised and unhygenic. Few hundred years ago, the Harrapan Civilization had one of the best water & sewer management systems. But today, finding a public pool in Delhi, is like finding a Oasis in the desert. In Delhi itself, the biggest issue, surrounding sewer and management of water bodies is the cleaning up of Yamuna River, many have fought for it, many have eaten corruption money out of it, subsequent governments have failed to address this issue.. about time it comes into the limelight.

ChuckMcM 13y ago

This sort of stuff makes me sad. But also strangely curious, since the suggestion is that these conditions are not survivable and yet people do survive. Are millions of people dying in Mumbai's slums and we're not hearing about it?

w1ntermute 13y ago
From TFA: > Around 1,000 children below the age of five die every day in India from diarrhea, hepatitis-causing pathogens, and other sanitation-related diseases, according to the report of United Nations Children’s Fund.
kamaal 13y ago
>>Are millions of people dying in Mumbai's slums and we're not hearing about it? Its a very complicated issue. Don't read too much into it. The fact that they live in slums has sometimes little correlation with their purchasing power or sometimes their financial status. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharavi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharavi This slum is a mini industry in itself having exports of over $650 million an year. Its possible many people living their have their own cars or even their own homes else where, which they have rented out for some monthly income.

naanalla 13y ago

Indian here. Yes population is the biggest problem for us.Which naturally leads to many problems like this one. * I agree with author this is absolutely true for slums like Mumbai. (But does not apply to whole India. Second tier urban areas scenario is not this bad ) * I agree that in most of rural area practice open defecation. In general whey open defecation is in practiced, * Since we have too many people even one bathroom in rural area per home is not sufficient(seriously) * Attitude of people towards cleanliness. IS GOVT DOING SOMETHING FOR THIS? * Yes lots of schemes have come(more than 10-20 years back and still continuing) in its slowly picking up. * The best scheme in my state(Karnataka)the govt is paying Rs 7000/- for each house to encourage them to construct toilet from 'gram panchayath'. * Thanks to media and celebs who are getting involved more these days. Yes we have problem, we need to solve it.

killerpopiller 13y ago
imho the overpopulation needs to be adressed the chinese way. I don't think that throwing tech at it will solve the problem. I remember vaguely, that one indian gov. wanted to sterilize slum inhabitants and wasn't reelected.
- krichman 13y ago
  Are you writing that they should have been pro-sterilisation? They could just round up and shoot all the slum inhabitants so they wouldn't need to wait an entire generation to be rid of them.
  - killerpopiller 13y ago
    china has a one-child-only policy since 79. I thought that this is known http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy
- lostlogin 13y ago
  Is this for India? Or the world? I'll assume you mean world as that's somewhat less harsh and less NIMBY. Alternatively, education, good government and a decent economy and birth rates fall. And there is then the bonus of no fascist/pseudo communist population control bent.

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swombat 13y ago
Most countries I care to live in don't have issues of open defecation and water sources contaminated with shit. Generally, people care about basic hygiene issues before they look at the other stuff. If a country's hygiene is so bad it has a 100x larger chance that it might kill you, the rest is irrelevant. Between that and the corruption, India is one country I'm not setting foot in for the foreseeable future. It's a shame, because it is also a cradle of humanity with much history, but I guess that doesn't stop it from turning into a shithole... (Quite literally)
- deleted 13y ago
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- lostlogin 13y ago
  Most countries would, I'm pretty sure, have waterways contaminated with shit. Mine does (New Zealand) and most I've been to have had warnings about not drinking stream water, even in remote ares. Open defecation though? Nope.
  - swombat 13y ago
    I have yet to spend any significant amount of time in a country where I couldn't drink tap water. India is clearly one of those. Even in the US you can drink tap water, though it tastes awful because it's usually so heavily chlorinated.
- ayushgta 13y ago
  > India is one country I'm not setting foot in for the foreseeable future. Yes its a shame. You don't have to live there. But 1 of every 6 fellow humans do. And not all of them openly defecate. Some are even pleasant enough to shake hands with. Many take a lot more antibiotics to ward off the germs but still die early. Lucky for you you don't have to die early :) but armed with antibiotics and Fiona's travel guides (http://bit.ly/ZR6wtm http://bit.ly/ZR6wtm), you can experience a sliver of the place which is "also a cradle of humanity with much history".

ultimoo 13y ago

Great article. Does convey some of the harsh realities. However, I didn't understand why outline such a well written article with a meaningless sensational headline. "Drowning in its own excreta", really?

kamakazizuru 13y ago
link baiting is the thing to do these days! sad truth.
- arbuge 13y ago
  Catchy headlines have been important since before the Internet though.

nnq 13y ago

Overpopulation is a problem because one government can only properly manage a limited number of people (by "properly manage" I mean not control, that's easy to do by controlling the upper class and having decent police/military/intelligence systems, but provide adequate living conditions for, actually solve health and education issues etc.). Compare to the US ratio of population of ~300M population to 1 government (even ignoring that in the US states have real autonomy and are mostly self governing!) to India's ratio of ~1200M to 1 government. Similar ratios for European countries too. India should be at split in at least 4 different countries, with different governments, internal and external policies, armies and maybe even a "healthy" dose of conflict/competition between them. It would be worse for some new countries and for some people, but on average better for most. Sticking together is not the way to solve a poverty type problem!

tathagata 13y ago

I think we Indians are still trying to overcome our false sense of cleanliness. We keep our own houses clean but expect divine intervention outside. Partly due to the still-existing caste system, where the lowest castes are responsible for clearing the muck, associations with this work is looked down upon. Therefore the uninterestedness of the typical Indian in solving the problem. Public toilets are few and far between, and most go unmaintained for lack of people willing to do the job. This attitude is changing fast though, thanks largely to improvements in technology and pay which make it safer to engage in and survive doing such work.

ad93611 13y ago

There is an amazing citizen led initiative called the "The Ugly Indian" to clean Indian cities. They've been having significant impact in Bangalore. See some of their work here, http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Ugly-Indian/123459791046618 http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Ugly-Indian/12345979104661... http://www.theuglyindian.com/about_us.html http://www.theuglyindian.com/about_us.html

intelliot 13y ago

Reminds me of the horse manure crisis in NYC http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/11/16/091116crbo_books_kolbert http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/11/16/09111... Not that any comparison can be made, they are really completely different.

vicks711 13y ago

Not to mention India's spitting problem. Indian don't need a reason to spit all sorts of things from plain spit to phlegm. A large number of Indians are addicted chewing tobacco and keep spitting on roads, market places, stairwells, lifts (escalators) inside buses and from buses. India is one of the dirtiest places. I think too much democracy is a bad thing.

MarkMc 13y ago

Here's an extract on this topic from a fantastic book called 'Poor Economics': Most experts agree that access to piped water and sanitation can have a dramatic impact on health. A study concluded that the introduction of piped water, better sanitation, and chlorination of water sources was responsible for something like three-fourths of the decline in infant mortality between 1900 and 1946 and nearly half the overall reduction in mortality over the same period. Moreover, repeated bouts of diarrhea during childhood permanently impair both physical and cognitive development. It is estimated that by piping uncontaminated, chlorinated water to households, it is possible to reduce diarrhea by up to 95 percent. Poor water quality and pools of stagnant water are also a cause of other major illnesses, including malaria, schistosorniasis, and trachoma, any of which can kill children or make them less productive adults. Nevertheless, the conventional wisdom is that today, at $20 per household per month, providing piped water and sanitation is too expensive for the budget of most developing countries. The experience of Gram Vikas, an NGO that works in Orissa, India, shows, however, that it is possible to do it much more cheaply. Its CEO, Joe Madiath, a man with a self-deprecating sense of humor who attends the annual meeting of the world’s rich and powerful at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in outfits made from homespun cotton, is used to doing things differently. Madiath’s career as an activist started early: He was twelve when he first got into trouble—for organizing the labor on the plantation that his father owned. He came to Orissa in the early 1970s with a group of left-wing students to help out after a devastating cyclone. After the immediate relief work was over, he decided to stay and see if he could find some more permanent ways to help the poor Oriya villagers. He eventually settled on water and sanitation. What attracted him to the issue was that it was simultaneously a daily challenge and an opportunity to initiate long-term social change. He explained to us that in Orissa, water and sanitation are social issues. Madiath insists that every single household in the villages where Gram Vikas operates should be connected to the same water mains: Water is piped to each house, which contains a toilet, a tap, and a bathing room, all connected to the same system. For the high-caste households, this means sharing water with low-caste households, which, for many in Orissa, was unacceptable when first proposed. It takes the NGO a while to get the agreement of the whole village and some villages eventually refuse, but it has always stuck to the principle that it would not start its work in a village until everyone there agreed to participate. When agreement is finally reached, it is often the first time that some of the upper-caste households participate in a project that involves the rest of the community. Once a village agrees to work with Gram Vikas, the building work starts and continues for one to two years. Only after every single house has received its tap and toilet is the system turned on. In the meantime, Gram Vikas collects data every month on who has gone to the health center to get treated for malaria or diarrhea. We can thus directly observe what happens in a village as soon as the water starts flowing. The effects are remarkable: Almost overnight, and for years into the future, the number of severe diarrhea cases falls by one-half, and the number of malaria cases falls by one-third. The monthly cost of the system for each household, including maintenance, is 190 rupees, or $4 per household (in current USD), only 20 percent of what is conventionally assumed to be the cost of such a system.

gadders 13y ago

For an excellent book on sanitation, I can recommend "The Big Necessity" by Rose George. http://rosegeorge.com/site/books/the-big-necessity http://rosegeorge.com/site/books/the-big-necessity

gadders 13y ago

One thing that I think is sad is the poor Dalit ("Untouchable") girls who have it as their job to collect other people's shit using bits of cardboard or tin :-(

spikels 13y ago

Open defecation is also practiced in San Francisco. I have seen is occurring in front of my apartments and on the street. You can find human feces on almost any walk through SOMA, the Tenderloin or Civic Center area if you know what to look for (expert tip: dogs don't look for hiding places to poo). We have decided this is not a problem.

veidr 13y ago
Others of us have decided not to live in San Francisco (or India). I'm not being entirely flippant; I'm originally from the Bay Area, and the filth is a significant part of the reason I live in Tokyo now. Regularly encountering human feces is one of several things I don't miss.
- Aloisius 13y ago
  I'm also from the Bay Area and have lived in SF proper for about 15 years. I don't think I've ever encountered human feces. Were you a sewage worker?
  - spikels 13y ago
    I wish I was a SF sewage worker I'd be retired with a nice pension by now ;) Aloisius you just needed to walk around more in the downtown area - I walk everywhere. Next time you are here take a look around the NW corner of Mission and 8th in the nooks and crannies of the PG&E building. I'm betting you will find something if it has not just rained. This stuff is just not well documented but this guy has a blog about his street in SOMA (somewhere just of 6th near Mission) that captures some of the flavor of the place: http://www.olddirtyalley.net/ http://www.olddirtyalley.net/ Why is this stuff just invisible to so many people here?
dudujdjd 13y ago
>>We have decided this is not a problem I have never seen this on a street of NYC. Never, not even once. I'm sure it happens but it most be rare. I've lived here for 25 years. It must be really bad in San Francisco for this to be common. Kind of makes me want to no live there. All I can think about that city is that it is a CRAPPY city.

mbesto 13y ago

This is a classic case of Confirmation Bias[1] - if no one else is cleaning it up, it means I'm not responsible myself. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

anuraj 13y ago

India is what you get when governance gives way to bureaucracy, morality gives way to greed and spirit gives way to helplessness. Indians die by millions on the wayside consumed by hunger, disease and violence - and the well to do 20% looks down from their glass houses built on excreta. Welcome to oldest civilization!

Tichy 13y ago

Could there be money in it if somehow it could be converted into fertilizer (obviously with some hygienic challenges)?

known 13y ago

4 people in a home hate each other 24x7 for the past 3000 years (caste). What will an Intellectual (Gorbachev) do? Give them their share of land/Independence and tell them to go and build their own home/nation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perestroika https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perestroika aka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communal_Award https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communal_Award