The scale of water consumption on Earth is illustrated by the following comparison:
8 billion people times 2 litres of water per day equals 16 billion litres of water or 16 million cubic metres.
That is roughly equivalent to one third of the enormous Lake Constance. And that is just for drinking – not including washing, cooking, bathing, watering lawns or agriculture!
Although a good 70% of the planet is covered by oceans, seawater is salt water and the desalination process is extremely energy-intensive.
For us in Germany, it is completely normal today for water to flow from the tap and for the toilet to flush when we press the button. But in many regions of the world, this is not a given, especially in Africa. More than two billion people currently live without access to safe drinking water, and as many as 3.5 billion people cannot use hygienic sanitation facilities. Climate change is exacerbating water scarcity. And what do you do when there is no more water? You go where water is available in sufficient quantity and quality. Water scarcity is already one of the driving forces behind migration. This trend could intensify dramatically in the future.
According to UNESCO, increasing water scarcity could fuel conflicts around the world. „If we want to preserve peace, we must not only act quickly to protect water resources, but also to strengthen regional and global cooperation in this area,“ said Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO.
Objectively speaking, it is rather nonsensical and also arrogant that we in the Western world flush our excrement away with precious drinking water. A lot of water is also wasted by simply letting it run until the desired temperature is reached – for example, when showering or washing your hair – while people in other parts of the world are suffering from thirst.
So back to the outhouse?
But surely no one wants to go back to the „thunder box“, as the outhouse used to be jokingly called. In Mexico, resourceful inventors have developed a dry toilet for their company WCEco out of necessity, which does not require any water, chemicals or sewage. Sawdust reduces odours and the biomass produced when emptying the toilet can be used as fertiliser in your own garden or for reforestation.
The first 1,000 dry toilets have been installed in Mexico, most of them in cities with chronic water shortages. The new dry toilets are mainly located in hotels, restaurants and schools; the latter is a very important point. Because if there is no water in schools, they will inevitably have to close. In addition to the loss of teaching time, this is a particular problem for parents.
Whether the Mexican development is a scalable concept for the future remains to be seen. But at least it is an approach.
Further sources:
https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/amerika/mexiko-trockentoilette-100.html
