19 World Toilet Day
Yes, today really is the UN-sponsored World Toilet Day. Snigger, snigger! Not if you are one of the 4 billion people who don’t have access to safe sanitation. That can mean women having to go into the bush after dark (with all the associated dangers), people in slums using plastic bags and throwing them away (remember the furore in the Summer when visitors to Loch Lomond etc left their detritus everywhere?), places that experience river or coastal flooding finding that sewage gets mixed up with flood-water and make its way into homes etc (and that can happen here). Not a very nice topic of conversation, but a very real experience for many people, one that contributes significantly to health issues and can contribute to educational issues as well. There are charities like https://www.wateraid.org/uk/ and https://www.toilettwinning.org/ that offer ways of sponsoring improvements in Developing Countries, but it also requires co-ordinated international government action to address climate change, flooding etc
Lord, thank you for our toilets and sanitation systems, which all too often we take for granted. We remember all those living without access to safe toilets or safe sanitation. We pray for the groups who are working to address the issues. Encourage governments to recognise the problems, and work together on solving them
PS As well as the picturesque view of Loch Leven in the sunshine, in line with today’s theme I’ll attach a photo taken at the Sma’ Shot Cottages Museum in Paisley of a 19th Century outside toilet from which ‘night waste’ was collected (‘the cludgie’)
