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India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

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Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#141

Post by vthallam »

thowbit9 wrote: post #95
intended wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A long my time ago, a steel company installed toilets in Orissa (I hope I'm recalling the conversation exactly). They've just fallen into disrepair. People didn't use them. This is a habit change that has to be completed, once that happens, a lot will change on its own.

There was an initiative in the state of Kerala for bio portable toilets with solar powered light. I saw one or two in the Cochin city which uses a 1 rupee coin to open the door. The problem with these initiatives is that they are all politically motivated. Once the ruling parties get the necessary PR around it, the funding is stopped. Modi is no different. There is no reason to laud Modi for this. The previous govern…

> The problem with these initiatives is that they are all politically motivated.

So what's your plan? Stop trying?

>The previous governments have also done this though with a less "catchy" names with no PR.

Come on man. Hate Modi all you want and there are few reasons, but this is not one. He is trying to get people accountable, at least talking about the issue. You don't even understand the buzz a topic creates if PM of 1 billion people repeatedly reminds us about the importance of sanitation.

I don't want to start any objective discussion with a throw away account, so, I'd say keep an open mind.

Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#142

Post by Asooka »

That's Roma for you. I've seen educated Roma people, but they also have examples of some of the most parasitic and unhygienic behaviour. IIRC, various cultures have tried to integrate them and get them to behave in a more civilized manner over the last 1000 years give or take, with precisely zero success.

Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#143

Post by prions »

graycat wrote: post #100
avar wrote: post #16

> Unfortunately, in many places, it’s not > feasible to lay down sewer pipes or build > treatment facilities. [...] But giving > people access to toilets isn’t enough. You > also have to persuade them to use the > toilets. I can't find it now, but there was a news video making the rounds a year or two ago that showed that this problem is much more fundamental than that. It showed a Indians in a tiny village who were…

Don't need much in the way of sewer pipes. I live in the US, in NY, 70 miles north of Wall Street, in a house with two bathtubs, four sinks, three toilets, one washing machine, and one dish washer, with nearly no use of "sewer pipes". Right, no city sewer. Instead there is some PVC pipe, cheap, super simple to work with, darned rugged, and, presto, bingo, a big concrete box in the ground just behind the main piece of…

As a (now former) wastewater engineer, I'd take sanitary sewers over septic tanks anyday.

With septic tanks you run into many more maintenance issues with things like clogging, overflowing, cleaning, etc. Not to mention this cost is borne onto the homeowner and not the municipality.

There's also persistent groundwater issues. Even if you have good soil permeability and aren't impacting an aquifer, multiple septic systems can really start causing environmental harm on surrounding waterbodies.

For many people, having sewerage isn't an option, but there's a good reason many municipalities are investing millions into moving their residents off of septic systems.

Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#144

Post by toomanybeersies »

Pica_soO wrote: post #113

The thing that strikes me as the most odd - is that until ww1 (thats right the recent Battlefieldified one)- soldiers would carry talismans into the battle, that where supposed to make them bulletproof and immortal. Thats right, something that sounds oh, so exotic, right in the midst of the west. Also, it helps if you look at the Congo and Europe during WW2. The same chaos, the same refugee rows, the same anarchy and…

If someone's shooting at you, you're going to make damn sure you take every measure possible to not get shot.

There are no atheists in foxholes.

Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#145

Post by 4684499 »

abandonliberty wrote: post #103
avar wrote: post #16

> Unfortunately, in many places, it’s not > feasible to lay down sewer pipes or build > treatment facilities. [...] But giving > people access to toilets isn’t enough. You > also have to persuade them to use the > toilets. I can't find it now, but there was a news video making the rounds a year or two ago that showed that this problem is much more fundamental than that. It showed a Indians in a tiny village who were…

This is an area for innovation. Managing change/altering beliefs are extremely difficult. To help iron deficiency in Cambodians, they were encouraged to cook with iron ingots. No one used them. So they shaped the ingot into a lotus flower. Dice. Cultural investigation showed that fish were symbols of luck, health, and happiness. Fish-shaped ingots worked out! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_iron_fish

Why don't they just use iron pans? It's more affordable and more natural, you don't have to put something in your food, and it's being heated directly at the bottom.

Did they just invent this iron fish to create more jobs?

Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#146

Post by amorphid »

CodeCube wrote: post #54
politicalthrow wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could it be an example of a tragedy of the commons? No one wants to drink water where someone shit but everyone would rather shit in the water than in a field somewhere far and away from the ability to clean oneself.

this is it right here ... what better way to get that baby-fresh feeling than just popping a squat in the river, where the current takes away your inanimate offspring downstream, and cleans your nether regions. Humans are creatures of habit, and often, self interest (a clean arse) will win over benefits to others (see all politics ever, almost)

Say village A is upstream from village B. A poops in the water. How far downstream does B need to be for the water to be drinkable? Or is there no safe distance? If there is a safe distance, in theory, you could teach the villages in A to drink upstream and poop downstream. By the time the water gets to B, it's clean enough to drink?! Then teach B to poop upstream and drink downstream... You probably don't want to put me in charge of public health :P

Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#147

Post by BurningFrog »

avar wrote: post #16

> Unfortunately, in many places, it’s not > feasible to lay down sewer pipes or build > treatment facilities. [...] But giving > people access to toilets isn’t enough. You > also have to persuade them to use the > toilets. I can't find it now, but there was a news video making the rounds a year or two ago that showed that this problem is much more fundamental than that. It showed a Indians in a tiny village who were…

This sounds like part of the bigger problems of literacy and education.

Solve those, and the toilet problem will disappear by itself.

Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#148

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

magic_beans wrote: post #77
adventured wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you could be intentionally exaggerating the problem by about 100 fold. Perhaps you'd like to show me the stats that indicate a million people (or even how about 2.5% - ~100k people) in the San Francisco metro area have begun shitting in the streets, in their drinking water, etc.

It's a joke.

I don't really come to this site for jokes. I come for the intellectual stimulation. If a stimulating post is entertaining that's great, but the post above wasn't stimulating in my opinion. I have no idea what they were referencing when they implied San Francisco is having a sewage problem because they gave no citations or statistics. They just posted something for an emotional response to gain upvotes, which is not good for this site in my opinion.

Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#149

Post by kirrent »

4684499 wrote: post #145
abandonliberty wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an area for innovation. Managing change/altering beliefs are extremely difficult. To help iron deficiency in Cambodians, they were encouraged to cook with iron ingots. No one used them. So they shaped the ingot into a lotus flower. Dice. Cultural investigation showed that fish were symbols of luck, health, and happiness. Fish-shaped ingots worked out! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_iron_fish

Why don't they just use iron pans? It's more affordable and more natural, you don't have to put something in your food, and it's being heated directly at the bottom. Did they just invent this iron fish to create more jobs?

Literally in the linked Wikipedia article:

"Although cast-iron cookware is known to transmit iron to food during cooking, the cost to obtain it is prohibitive for most of the individuals living in poverty in rural Cambodia, who earn less than $1 per day."

In what world would a cast iron pan be cheaper than a small ingot?

Re: India Is Winning Its War on Human Waste

#150

Post by balls187 »

avar wrote: post #16

> Unfortunately, in many places, it’s not > feasible to lay down sewer pipes or build > treatment facilities. [...] But giving > people access to toilets isn’t enough. You > also have to persuade them to use the > toilets. I can't find it now, but there was a news video making the rounds a year or two ago that showed that this problem is much more fundamental than that. It showed a Indians in a tiny village who were…

There are a non trivial number of people who believe the earth is flat.

And these aren't Indians from a rural indian village.

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