Toilet revolution in China

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 Sus- tainable Development Goals; government support at all levels for popularizing sanitary toilet; envi- ronmental protection to alleviate wastewater pollution; resource recovery from human waste and

disease prevention for health and wellbeing improvement. Meanwhile, the challenges faced are: insuf- ficient 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 tech- nology implementation, but also social acceptance, economic affordability, maintenance issues and,

increasingly, gender considerations. Aligned with the ecological sanitation principles, it calls for un- derstanding issues across the entire sanitation service chain. Public-private partnership is also recom- mended to absorb private capital to make up the lack of funds, as well as arouse the enthusiasm of the

public.