The Worst Toilet in the World

You can't say that you weren't warned on the introductory page. Here it is.

There were four toilets in this kiosk, and this was the one in the best shape. The other four were even worse.

As the saying goes, "That which has been seen, cannot be unseen."

This is the land of Plato and Socrates and Aristotle?

Yes, it does look as though someone removed their underwear and threw them on the floor, and then that got kicked around so that it's looped around the foot pedal used for flushing. Not that these people would flush the toilet, since they've been voiding their bowels all over the floor.

Another thing to consider is that this appears to be the work of several people. It's one thing when the first person does this. But what about all the people who come along later and say to themselves, "I, too, will wade into this den of filth and defecate upon the floor."

The filth has been tracked out all four doors, as all four compartments of the kiosk were in this awful state. In fact, you can see the spreading pools of human waste in the image at right.

Yes, there is a blue Sani-Flush border here indicating that I used it. I stood well outside the one in the least bad condition and lofted a stream of urine in through the door. That could only improve matters, it couldn't make it worse.

Get me out of here!

Rose George's The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters is a fascinating description of sanitation conditions around the world. "2.6 billion people don't have sanitation. [....] Four in ten people have no access to any latrine, toilet, bucket, or box. [....] Poor sanitation, bad hygiene, and unsafe water — usually unsafe because it has fecal particles in it — cause one in ten of the world's illnesses. [....] Diarrhea — nearly 90 percent of which is caused by fecally contaminated food or water — kills a child every fifteen seconds. The number of children who have died from diarrhea in the last decade [1998-2008] exceeds the total number of people killed by armed conflict since the Second World War.

In September 2009, Morna Gregory and Sian James published a book titled Toilets of the World. It's pretty much the same theme that you find here — photographs and commentary on other people's plumbing.

The Porcelain God: A Social History of the Toilet, by Julie Horan, contends that civilization began with the toilet.

Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing, edited by Laura Noren and Harvey Molotch, has essays by anthropologists, sociologists, and architects on the importance of the toilet, especially for urban dwellers.

Latrinae Et Foricae: Toilets in the Roman World describes the toilets of the Roman Empire from Iberia to Syria, and from North Africa to Hadrian's Wall in Britannia.

Toilets, Bathtubs, Sinks, and Sewers: A History of the Bathroom, explains the history of personal cleanliness and hygiene to children in grades 5-8.

If you're not bored yet, you might be interested in (or at least tolerate):

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