Abstract
The wide-spread prevalence of unimproved sanitation technologies has been a major cause of concern for the environment and public health, and China is no exception to this. Towards the sanitation issue, toilet revolution has become a buzzword in China recently. This paper elaborates the backgrounds, connotations, and actions of the toilet revolution in China. The toilet revolution aims to create sanitation infrastructure and public services that work for everyone and that turn waste into value. Opportunities for implementing the toilet revolution include: fulfilling Millennium Development Goals and new Sustainable Development Goals; government support at all levels for popularizing sanitary toilet; environmental protection to alleviate wastewater pollution; resource recovery from human waste and disease prevention for health and wellbeing improvement. Meanwhile, the challenges faced are: insufficient funding and policy support, regional imbalance and lagging approval processes, weak sanitary awareness and low acceptance of new toilets, lack of R&D and service system. The toilet revolution requires a concerted effort from many governmental departments. It needs to address not only technology implementation, but also social acceptance, economic affordability, maintenance issues and, increasingly, gender considerations. Aligned with the ecological sanitation principles, it calls for understanding issues across the entire sanitation service chain. Public-private partnership is also recommended to absorb private capital to make up the lack of funds, as well as arouse the enthusiasm of the public.
Highlights
The wide-spread prevalence of unimproved sanitation technologies has been a major cause of concern for the environment and public health, and China is no exception to this
Public-private partnership is recommended to absorb private capital to make up the lack of funds, as well as arouse the enthusiasm of the public
The most well-known R&D activity is Reinvent The Toilet Challenge (RTTC)-China, launched by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). It has been well received, the popularity is limited because the innovations BMGF supports can be most immediately valuable in densely populated areas, its main focus is on urban sanitation
Summary
At the beginning of the new millennium, the United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) unveiled a special horizon - one that the entire developing world has been tasked to arrive at by 2015. It aims to end open defecation, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations It requires to improve water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping and minimizing release of hazardous chemicals and materials, halving the proportion of untreated wastewater and substantially increasing recycling and safe reuse globally (UNESCAP et al, 2015). 2002 Decision on Further Accelerating the Rural Sanitation State Council, Central Committee Focus on retrofitting toilet and water supply in rural areas to mobilize. BMGF BMGF CNTA BMGF, USTB BMGF, CNTA equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open defecation) (UN, 2016) In such cases, a toilet revolution can help to ensure environmental sustainability and reverse the loss of environmental resources. It does not imply overexploitation of the existing resources, but improving their management by reducing, recycling and reusing human wastes (Libralato et al, 2012)
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