World Toilet Day shines spotlight on pit toilets

PIT toilets remain a stark challenge for most communities, posing dangers of injuries and diseases. This year, in commemoration of World Toilet Day, the theme ‘Toilets – A Place for Peace’ will be observed.

While the world is moving towards more civilised and humane ways of sanitation, some parts of the globe are still stuck in pit toilet and bucket mode. According to the UN, about 3.5 billion individuals do not have access to safe sanitation facilities, with 419 million engaging in open defecation.

World Toilet Day is an annual United Nations Observance promoted through a worldwide public campaign that encourages action to tackle the global sanitation crisis.

The Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS), in partnership with various municipalities, will commemorate World Toilet Day, with the primary purpose of raising awareness of the daily struggle for proper sanitation that is faced by many people in South Africa. In its statement, DWS shared, “We aim to encourage dialogue about sanitation and break the stigma that still surrounds this critical basic-services issue.  All people must have access to sustainable sanitation with handwashing facilities to protect themselves from deadly infectious diseases such as cholera and other communicable diseases.”

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Elmien Claassens, a lecturer in the Department of Social Work and Criminology at the University of Pretoria, highlighted the plight of pit toilets in this day and age, especially in schools. “World Toilet Day is an opportunity to reflect on the need to form more partnerships, generate more funding and improve the management of sanitation in schools to eliminate the scourge of pit toilets, in service of creating a more equitable and peaceful future for children in public schools in South Africa.”

“School communities in South Africa can’t afford yet another child dying an undignified death in a pit toilet. Alarmingly, the UN estimates that unsafe water and the lack of sanitation and hygiene are responsible for the deaths of around 1 000 children under five every day. While there has been a decrease in the number of children dying in pit toilets at schools, the fact that these toilets are still in use does not reduce the danger of more children dying from falling into them,” Claasen added.

One impactful partnership is one forged by public-benefit organisation Breadline with the private sector. Their Flush Challenge campaign aims to change the lives of 120 000 children across 240 schools in South Africa by installing 4 000 toilets. They recently installed 66 eco-friendly, low-flush Envirosan toilet systems, 18 urinals, and handwashing facilities at primary schools in KwaZulu-Natal.

Also read: Mobile sanitation units restore dignity of homeless patrons

According to Stats SA’s Census 2022, the percentage of households that used a pit toilet without ventilation and households with no form of toilet facility declined during the same period, from 22.8% to 12.5% and from 13.6% to 1.6% respectively.

“Although 58.9% of households in KwaZulu-Natal used flush toilets, 28.5% used pit latrines with/without ventilation pipes and 7% used chemical toilets. Some households in the Northern Cape and Eastern Cape reported no type of toilet facility, at 4.5% and 3% respectively.”

The government started a ‘bucket eradication’ programme in 2012, focusing on projects to replace buckets with waterborne sanitation in some provinces. It’s reported that the project had been delayed because there was inadequate engineering planning.

To address this, the DWS has developed a National Sanitation Framework, which has recently been approved by Cabinet.

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