New Internationalist AUGUST Issue 414 Toilets From this month’s guest editor

ConTenTs

The problem with toilets is that no-one wants to talk about them. Even less do they want to talk about what goes into them (the ‘s’ word) or the act of human waste expulsion (the ‘d’ word) – except with smirks and giggles. That kind of verbal crap has been swilling remorselessly around the NI editorial offices in Oxford this month. Why do Brits (maybe it’s only the male of the species) take such delight in lavatorial double entendres? Swedes can talk about excremental effluvia and pee-H content without the least hilarity issuing from their lips. Ballcocks aside, this is a serious subject. Imagine what it is like not to have a decent place to ‘go’. It is not surprising that people don’t want to talk about the indignity they suffer – although some women do so in these pages.

The hidden scandal is that this is a situation endured by literally millions of people. Addressing the scandal demands as a first requirement that we learn to talk about it without embarrassment. So it’s back to language and staying within the bounds of what you, the readers, daily defecators as we all are, regard as good taste. I hope to succeed in opening the door – or should it be the lid? – and inviting you in.

Maggie Black for the New Internationalist Co-operative

04 We need to talk about ... toilets 2008 is the International Year of Sanitation. Or, asks Maggie Black, is it the International Year of Silence and Embarrassment?

08 Toilets: the facts

IIEd MArtIN MULENGA

10 A lifetime in muck Unbelievably, people still exist whose task in life is shovelling shit, as Mari Marcel Thekaekara explains.

12 To sewer or not to sewer David Satterthwaite speaks out in praise of sewers, and Mayling Simpson-Héébert retaliates on behalf of pits.

14 For our convenience Toilets have been around since the days of Elizabeth I. Systems old and new.

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16 Dignity and the decent facility Women desperately want toilets – but not as a health aid. Libby Plumb reports.

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18 stand up, stand up for toilets Toilet champions are not so rare a breed as you’d think. Here are some distinguished exemplars.

20 What about us?

NI Special Fea ture

21 sPeCIAL FeATURe DeBATe Technofixes: climate solution or corporate scam? Science is coming up with ever more extraordinary proposals for combating climate change, from laying white plastic over deserts to locking up carbon dioxide in the oceans or shooting it into space. Should we take any of this seriously? Jim Thomas and Paul Fitzgerald have very different takes on this, as their exchange of letters reveals.

Regular Features

2 Letters How young people need to finish the anti-nuke job; why Jesus was truly revolutionary; and replacing travel with libraries and videoconferencing. PLUS: Maria Golia explains why the pen is messier than the sword in her Letter from Cairo.

25 Currents Children imprisoned with their mothers worldwide; Brazil’s AIDS fight against Big Pharma continues; why young rural Indians end up addicted to pills. PLUS: Wordpower and Seriously

28 Big Bad World Polyp on the endless joys of modern consumerist life. PLUS: NI Prize Crossword

29 Worldbeaters Okay, so Nelson Mandela was a tough act to follow. But could Thabo Mbeki have done a worse job as President of South Africa?

30 Mixed Media Highlights from Toronto’s festival of film documentaries; Argentinean and Anglo-Israeli music; a Guyanese novel and a book on medical ethics.

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32 View from Montevideo The Eighth Commandment – Lies, as seen by Eduardo Galeano.

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33 Making Waves Colombian activist Teóófilo Acuñña on the danger of confronting paramilitaries.

34 Southern Exposure Bangladeshi photographer Shehzad Noorani exposes the damage done to the Buriganga River.

36 Country Profile: Dominica

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AFront cover: Ian Nixon. Magazine design: Ian Nixon. All monetary values are expressed in US dollars unless otherwise noted. I