Every year World Toilet Day is celebrated by Public Hygiene Lets Us Stay Human (PHLUSH). Launched by our friend Jack Sim of the World Toilet Organization on November 19, 2001, World Toilet Day is now led by the United Nations to promote action to bring toilet systems to 2.4 billion people living without them.
This year’s theme is “Toilets and Jobs.” Our commemoration in the United States is a shout out to the people who work for working toilets and ensure that our toilets work.
On November 15 we’ll be in Portland, Oregon recognizing our own toilet heroes. Please join new PHLUSH Board President Hayley Joyell Smith as she introduces some of these extraordinary people.
- 5:00 pm Gather
- 5:30 pm Welcome PHLUSH Board President Hayley Joyell Smith
- 5:45 pm Recognize Portland’s Toilet Entrepreneurs
- 6:00 pm Raise a glass and mingle with new and old friends
World Toilet Day Facts: The scoop on poop
2.4 billion people live without improved sanitation and one in ten of our global neighbors has no choice but to defecate in the open. Diarrhoea kills 750,000 kids a year and and is the leading cause of malnutrition and stunting in those who live. (1)
Worldwide demand for sanitation professionals is mushrooming. Water and wastewater treatment plants in the United States plan to hire 33,000 new workers as experienced operators trained after the 1972 Clean Water Act retire.(2)
Every day, an estimated 9.5 million m3 of human excreta and 900 million m3 of municipal wastewater are generated around the world – enough to fill 363,800 Olympic swimming pools. Much of it is dumped untreated into lakes, rivers and oceans, compromising vital ecosystems and public health. Now people realize that resources in this “waste” stream can help meet the challenges water scarcity, energy access, climate change, the shortfall in food production, while creating green jobs.(3)
As global demand for toilets increases in areas where networked sewer infrastructure is unfeasible, alternative and non-sewered sanitation is attracting some of the brightest innovators.(4)
Sources:
(1) http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs330/en/
(2) http://workforwater.org/resourceforwaterprofessionals/page_int.aspx?id=271
(3) http://www.sustainablecitiescollective.com/node/1237383?utm&utm_content=bufferaab20&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
(4) http://blogs.worldbank.org/water/fecal-sludge-management-elephant-room-we-have-developed-tools-help
Date/Time
Date(s) - 15/11/2016
17 h 00 min - 19 h 00 min
Location
McMenamins Ringlers Pub
Address
1332 W Burnside St
Portland
Oregon
North America
97209
United States