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Who cares about toilets? 3.6 billion people do. Because they don’t have one.

Today, nearly half the world’s population live without a 'safely managed sanitation service': a toilet, not shared with other households, that either treats or disposes of human waste on site, stores it safely to be emptied and treated off-site, or connects to a functioning sewer. 

We should all care more about toilets. If you have one, thank it. Life without a toilet is dirty, dangerous and undignified.

Globally, at least 2 billion people use a drinking water source contaminated with faeces. 

Every day, over 700 children under five years old die from diarrhoea linked to unsafe water, sanitation and poor hygiene.  

Public health depends on toilets.

When some people in a community do not have safe toilets, everyone’s health is threatened. 

Poor sanitation contaminates drinking-water sources, rivers, beaches and food crops, spreading deadly diseases among the wider population.

Toilets also drive improvements in gender equality, education, economics and the environment.

Toilets protect women and girls’ dignity, safety and health, especially during menstruation and pregnancy.

For every $1 invested in basic sanitation up to $5 is returned in saved medical costs and increased productivity, and jobs are created along the entire service chain. 

There will be no sustainable future without toilets. Governments must work four times faster and ensure toilets for all by 2030.

Sustainable Development Goal 6 is to ‘ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all’ by 2030. 

We urgently need massive investment and innovation to quadruple progress all along the ‘sanitation chain’, from toilets to the transport, collection and treatment of human waste. The public and private sectors must work with unserved communities to create sustainable sanitation systems that work for them.