In Bangkok a new idea to fix the sanitation issue
In India, the problem of having access to toilets is a known problem. Specifically in Pune (Bangkok), two local businessmen (a man and a woman) decided to try to do something about this, especially for women which are the most disadvantaged by this situation. They provided a place for them to have access to a toilet, to change clothes, or clean children. Moreover, this place has wheels, so it can reach different places where needed, because we’re dealing with a bus, or rather, a pink bus specific for women.
Ulka Saldkar and Rajeev Kher have started to place them in public places and parks since 2016. They are equipped with special features and are visible because have been painted in shocking pink. They are old public buses refurbished and turned into mobile toilets able to serve on average between 150 and 300 women per day.
They called them Ti Toilet where ‘ti’ means ‘you’ in the local language Marathi. So far there are 15 buses that cost between $13,000 and $16,000. The idea came from an already started experiment in San Francisco where toilet buses solved the problem of the lack of toilets for special events. They aim to build other buses and also bring them to other cities, even though the population does not always use public toilets, despite ‘open defecation’ being a serious problem.
Although India is trying to face the sanitation issue of building new public toilets, they suffer from maintenance problems, or they’re always clogged, others are rarely cleaned and are a challenge for women, especially during their period. Moreover, women risk violence and rape when they look for privacy during their private moments.
Ulka and Rajeev wanted to provide this service for free but the risk of incurring the same issues of public toilets made them change their mind, so they fixed the price at about $0.65 (5 rupees) which is surely affordable.
These buses are fed by solar panels placed on the roofs, they have instructions to use them correctly and also have an assistant on board for any help. They also provide free handkerchiefs, a place for changing nappies, a free distributor of drinking water, television, monitors for measuring temperature, and the possibility to buy pads.
However, there’s more! This idea can be pushed further. Thanks to the discoveries of the European Space Agency, it will be possible to use special sensors that can trace information from waste and detect diseases in the population and prevent infection spreads, but also other useful information for public health. Waste could also be useful to produce biogas as a power source. The pink buses could also be a place where women could get examined by experts to have information about their health and help them to solve their problems.
Maybe the future for public toilets will be mobile toilets.
Source Repubblica
