Books & Poetry

We take toilets for granted, convinced that they will always be there for us, no matter how much paper we stuff into them or the number of household pets we try to flush away. Journalist Rose George takes on the sanitation dilemma, focusing on the 2.6 billion people in the world who exist without the daily means to go.

Instead of lamenting from a distance, George makes a travelogue of it, bravely journeying through the world of human waste. Along the way she encounters the ‘anti-pipi’ walls of Paris that squirt back, learns that Martin Luther swallowed a spoonful of his own droppings every day and that flushes are tested with artificial faeces made from miso-stuffed condoms. There’s even proof that toilet talk was fashionable in the days of the French monarchy – visiting the king on the pot was the highest honour, and the ladies of the court snuffed a finely ground version called ‘poudrette’.

While making light of wading through the sewers of New York and squatting in rural China, George doesn’t compromise the gravity of the matter, using facts and figures to point to the ecological and human hazards of inadequate access and disposal. One gramme of faeces can contain 10 million viruses, one million bacteria and 100 worm eggs. George interviews activists like Dr Bindeshwar Pathak, who pioneered the building of India’s public urinals, criticises the universal shortage of ladies’ facilities and discusses the somewhat controversial area of waste recycling, stopping again in China to meet the biogas innovators.

Though sanitation is not a new topic, George’s anecdotal and highly readable account breaks through the wall of euphemisms we’ve built around this taboo subject.