"When we are children, our parents tell us not to talk about shit." So says Jack Sim, founder of the World Toilet Organization. Sim’s goal is to make sure everyone uses toilets, so in that way nothing gets contaminated. His method? He is trying to make the toilet an object of desire to third world countries, quite a marketing stunt.
The problem is that in many countries, people enjoy defecating outside instead of using a toilet. In India, open defecation results in massive health concerns for its population. The problem doesn't lie in poverty, but culture. For example, between 1997 to 2000, the World Health Organization subsidized the construction of 1.6 million outhouses in India. However, today only 47% of that are being used in the intended manner, while the rest is being used for storage. He is also trying to convince the rich by telling them that the contamination of poor people will affect them eventually: "Rich man eats the shit of the poor man", Sim says. We will see how far he goes with this marketing strategy; after all, it worked with bottle water right?
We also recommend watching: "Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation: Future Toilets Turns Poop Into Power" and "Poop Burger: Synthesizing Meat from Human Feces".
Jack Sim is the founder of the Restroom Association of Singapore and World Toilet Organization. Formerly in the construction industry, he left to found the Toilet Organization in 2001. In 2011, he received the Schwab Foundation award for Social Entrepreneur of the Year, also in 2001. He was elected a Fellow of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public in 2007, and as of Fall 2007 he was assisting in the United Nations plans for the International Year of Sanitation in 2008. Sim was named one of the Heroes of the Environment for 2008 by Time Magazine.
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