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This Friday November 19th is World Toilet Day, a time to celebrate the Toilet! People around my office love that I get so excited about World Toilet Day, they smile or make an excellent toilet joke whenever I bring it up. Toilets really can be fun, this summer one of my favorite comedians Niecy Nash celebrated toilets at the NY Flushing subway station, handing out subway tickets with her fabulous weave and large flower. And last March Mandy Moore joined children at our nation’s capitol to demonstrate the value of toilets.
Yet, despite all the fun we have been having the reality is much less cheery, 2.6 billion people lack access to a toilet or a safe place to urinate and defecate and the resulting illnesses kill more children than AIDS, Malaria and TB combined. It seems so simple and fundamental, yet the world has not yet managed to address this crisis – we need to do more.
There will be a lot happening around the United States on Friday World Toilet Day to raise awareness and generate action to solve the global sanitation and water crisis. NRDC along with CARE, and WaterAID and other leading health and development organizations will be releasing a report demonstrating that the U.S. Government has not done enough to respond to this crisis because it has failed to implement key components of the 2005 Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act. Check our website on Friday for the full report which details the missing pieces of the implementation of the Water for the Poor Act and what the White House, USAID and the State Department need to do to fully implement the law.
And there is potential for significant new legislation in the next few weeks if Congress moves to address this crisis. The U.S. House of Representatives has a chance to vote on H.R. 2030/S. 624, the Senator Paul Simon Water for the World Act, during its current "lame duck" session. This new video by the Chronicles Group explains why the bill presents an opportunity to bring water and sanitation to 100 million people.
So don’t let World Toilet Day pass you by. Check out the reports, follow us on twitter, join an event, tell some good jokes, and take a stand for those who lack the most basic necessities.
This post originally appeared on NRDC's Switchboard.
Heather Allen is an International Advocate with the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, DC.
