

India is drowning in its own excreta - ragsagar
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/psi-vid/2013/04/24/india-drowning-in-its-own-excreta/

======
MarkMc
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.

~~~
j_s
[http://www.amazon.com/Poor-Economics-Radical-Rethinking-
Pove...](http://www.amazon.com/Poor-Economics-Radical-Rethinking-
Poverty/dp/1610390938)

Would be interested to hear about any similar books you'd recommend.

~~~
mooneater
[http://www.amazon.com/The-End-Poverty-Economic-
Possibilities...](http://www.amazon.com/The-End-Poverty-Economic-
Possibilities/dp/0143036580/)

~~~
mooneater
Poor Economics criticizes this book (by Sachs) "who posits that poor people
are poor because they are caught in one or more poverty traps"
--[http://www.philanthropyaction.com/articles/book_review_poor_...](http://www.philanthropyaction.com/articles/book_review_poor_economics)

------
aashaykumar92
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
> 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.

~~~
realrocker
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>, and later
<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>) 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>

~~~
Houshalter
The US is also mostly immigrants from different places. It is also more
individualistic, but not in the sense you describe India. A lot of people know
their families are mostly Irish/German/Whatever but for the most part no one
cares. I'm not saying this because of "my country is better than yours" shit,
but I'm legitimately interested in what causes the difference. Why do some
groups assimilate into a common culture and others do not? Immigrants to the
US did initially congregate and form their own communities like that.

~~~
realrocker
U.S has had the benefit of favorable geopolitics(a good
read:[http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/geopolitics-united-
states-p...](http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/geopolitics-united-states-
part-1-inevitable-empire)). A large living space and a fairly sturdy inland
waterways.Historically, the pressure on natural resources has been mitigated
by easier transport of goods and people(unlike India which doesn't have inland
waterways). In last few decades U.S has also closed gates on immigrants for
good. Though that has slowed down the process of ghettoization, eventually
large swathes of U.S will convert into American-Hispanic and other similar
sub-cultures. And then it's just "my tribe vs. your tribe". The U.S is at the
beginning of the road, and in time when there is a greater pressure on
resources, you are looking at yet another India within the next 100-150 years.

Let's just hope that it doesn't happen too soon and that human social
mechanics today is advanced enough to handle another great civilization
falling into chaos due to clash of cultures. The good news is that this time
we have the Internet.

~~~
khuey
The US has certainly not closed its gates on immigrants for good. Immigrants
as a percentage of population is close to the highs of ~15% seen in the late
1800s and early 1900s and has been steadily rising since the 1970s.

------
tathagata
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.

------
spikels
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
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
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
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/>

Why is this stuff just invisible to so many people here?

------
DigitalJack
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
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
And now for something completely different:

Could the strange and miraculous have been... Dennis Moore?!
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLkhx0eqK5w>

------
ultimoo
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
link baiting is the thing to do these days! sad truth.

~~~
arbuge
Catchy headlines have been important since before the Internet though.

------
ad93611
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/12345979104661...](http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Ugly-
Indian/123459791046618)

<http://www.theuglyindian.com/about_us.html>

------
nnq
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!_

------
naanalla
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
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.

~~~
userulluipeste
The population is not a problem, the population is a resource. Of course, to
be (more) valuable (than it is now) it has to receive some
attention/investment. The sterilization of people that possess the potential
of growing and becoming beneficial to society is, for the society as a whole,
a form of self-mutilation.

~~~
killerpopiller
I agree to certain degree, but the indian pop.growth is just not sustainable.
Closing the eyes doesn't make it go away:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:India-demography.png>

------
anuraj
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!

------
ChrisNorstrom
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?

~~~
lucaspiller
> Dubai is having a massive problem with sewage

I don't understand why people always bring this up about Dubai. In 2010 a new
treatment plant was completed that nearly doubled capacity. Dubai probably has
a better sewage system than most US cities now (and the funds to expand it if
needed). The controversy was that in 2009 there were lots of queues for
sanitation trucks to dump their waste, so a lot of drivers just illegally
dumped it. This resulted in some of the waste ending up in the sea water, so
there were concerns over the health of beach goers (tourists). Where I'm from
in the UK, up until around 15 years ago, raw sewage was dumped into the sea by
design [0].

[0]
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/domesday/dblock/GB-332000-90000...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/domesday/dblock/GB-332000-90000/page/9)

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
That's my fault for not keeping up with the times. Sorry I didn't know that
was over and fixed. My original point still stands, when cities (even rich
ones) expand very rapidly, a traditional sewer system takes too long to build
to keep up with demand.

~~~
claudius
A traditional sewer system is not more complex than a traditional fresh water
system or a traditional paved road system – in fact, it might well make sense
to build the sewers when you pave the roads (or slightly before that…).

What it does take is some planning and some functional local authority.

------
broabprobe
Composting toilets are the future.

~~~
Houshalter
Would that work on a massive scale? What's the reason it isn't done now?

~~~
Aloisius
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
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.

------
Brajeshwar
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/>

------
known
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> aka
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communal_Award>

------
gadders
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
:-(

------
intelliot
Reminds me of the horse manure crisis in NYC
[http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/11/16/09111...](http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/11/16/091116crbo_books_kolbert)

Not that any comparison can be made, they are really completely different.

------
mbesto
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>

------
ChuckMcM
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
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.

------
gadders
For an excellent book on sanitation, I can recommend "The Big Necessity" by
Rose George.

<http://rosegeorge.com/site/books/the-big-necessity>

------
npguy
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...](http://statspotting.com/the-most-expensive-home-in-the-world-mukesh-
ambanis-antilia/)

~~~
Someone
For the curious: [http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/30/home-india-billion-
forbesli...](http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/30/home-india-billion-forbeslife-
cx_mw_0430realestate.html). Tastes differ, let's say.

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

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

~~~
mb_72
Spending money and seeing the results of spending the money are two different
things entirely.

~~~
sirwanqutbi
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 ?!

------
rikacomet
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.

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

