The High-Tech World of Toilets

To aid global sanitation, ISO 31800 will certify the design, performance, and testing of toilets that function off the grid

Well over half the world’s population does not have access to safe sanitation. For many people, this means the indignity and risks that come of having no toilets. The answer, it seems, lies in new sustainable treatment plants. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the Gates Foundation have joined forces to show how clean toilets and standards can change people’s lives forever.

In 2010, the United Nations formally declared that access to clean water and safe sanitation are fundamental human rights. Aligned to this, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal Six (SDG 6), which states that everyone should have access to safe sanitation by 2030. This, in turn, would eliminate open defecation, which billions must still endure. According to the Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation, the official United Nations mechanism tasked with monitoring progress toward SDG 6, 2.3 billion people lack any form of sanitation at all, and more than 200 million tons of human waste go untreated each year.

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You can't have clean water without a sewage system

I love this! You can't have clean water without a functional sewage system, whatever form that may take. If you're interested in learning more about sewage and fecal waste, I strongly endorse the book, "The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters," by Rose George. I learned so much from this: not only is this a huge health concern, but it is a social concern (consider the number of women and children who are sexually assaulted on their way to public toilets) and an infrastructure concern (even the US has aging sewage and water systems that are in dire need of maintenance and upgrades).