Abandoned toilets in Remba Island, Homa Bay County. Ending open defecation is imperative to protecting groundwater, which is under threat from climate change.
The theme for this year’s World Toilet Day, which is marked on November 19 every year, was “Making the invisible visible”, focusing on the impact of the sanitation crisis on groundwater, exploring how inadequate sanitation systems spread human waste into rivers, lakes and soil, polluting underground water resources.
A recent story in this newspaper, “The family without a toilet”, revealed how residents of Mukuru Kwa Njenga slum in Nairobi suffer from a lack of toilets, forcing them to improvise disposal of faecal waste, which finds its way to water sources. Poor sanitation contaminates drinking water sources, rivers, beaches and food crops, spreading deadly diseases.
