I have three hours left of US time to wish you all a happy World Toilet Day. I’m in Delhi, attending - briefly - the South Asian Conference on Sanitation, known as Sacosan. This is a big and important affair. It was inaugurated by the Prime Minister (but I missed that, as I was still trying to get a visa from the Indian High Commission agency in Clerkenwell), and the moderator for a session yesterday on urban sanitation was the Secretary of Defence, a fact which bemused a local sanitation expert I met, who thought that perhaps it was “because sanitation in India is a national emergency.” Or perhaps because the Secretary of Defence knows that armies can fall on poor sanitation. The archers of Agincourt apparently fought with their pants off because they were so ravaged by dysentery, and I read somewhere that more soldiers died from shit-related disease in the American Civil War than from bullets. Of course it makes sense; you have tired, weakened people in a stressful situation with not much water and probably appalling latrines if any. Cholera’s dream.
Of course military situations vary. A friend who is in the Special Boat Services (as mean as the SAS but, well, with boats) told me that when he’s out in the field, they shit into a plastic bag and hide it under their helmet. Leave no trace. Where they can leave a trace though they might be interested in the DAAB: a 40 foot long shipping container of toilets that can convert “wastewater” into water conforming to EPA standards in 24-48 hours. One shipping container serves one battalion. And it can be controlled by the internet. Composting toilets would probably make more sense, particularly as the containers are supposed to be shipped to Iraq, where water supply is limited and it is somewhat irrational to pour it down a toilet, but still. Cool.
The DAAB sounds like a realy cool thing for FEMA type organizations to have available in situations like Katrina or the Tsunami. Obviously, military applicaitons would be an ideal situation to have these available.
The annual world-wide death rate from dysentary dwarfs the deaths from the American Civil War!
I just read your chapter on Sulabh. I hope this book wakes us up to the painful reality of millions and draws forth the skills of our scientists and policy makers to SOLVE these problems. Please publish an Indian edition. Many more people need to read this book. You are a marvelous writer with a compassionate heart.