Goats and Soda

editor's note

It's time for some toilet humor -- and toilet seriousness.

World Toilet Day took place this past week, on November 19. It's not an effort to boost loo sales. It's an official United Nations day to call attention to the lack of toilets. Some 3.6 billion people are in need of safe and effective toilets. Over 673 million engage in open defecation -- described as "squatting outdoors." And then there's the so-called "flying toilet." In places without a sanitation system, people fling their poop in a plastic bag. 

To learn more about the state of the world's toilets, we talked to sanitation specialists and we asked photographers to take pictures of latrines. The photos may make you chuckle -- and realize that something many people take for granted is absent in many homes. As one interviewee told us, the hope is that World Toilet Day will spur efforts to make sure the world is flush with latrines.

Read the story and see the photos here.

Marc Silver,
Editor, Goats and Soda

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