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Over 600 million Indians defecate in the open every day because they have no toilet. This practice cripples health, economic, and social outcomes. Open defecation (OD) causes the spread of infectious diseases that kill an estimated 300,000 children under five every year. The economic costs of OD total nearly $54 billion lost each year in India, with rural households bearing the highest per capita loss. Furthermore, women and girls who lack convenient access to toilets often miss school and work while they are menstruating.
SHRI ends open defecation in India by constructing community toilet facilities that are free to use. They include eight toilets for women, eight for men, hand-washing stations, and a biogas digester (a large underground tank). Human excrement is stored in this tank where it decomposes to produce methane gas. SHRI uses this energy source to produce electricity, which powers a water filtration plant that uses a patented resin filter to remove arsenic, fluoride, iron, and bacterial contaminants. The resulting potable water is sold for $0.008 per liter, less than half the current market cost, helping SHRI to generate revenue to offset its monthly facility O&M costs. This ensures facility cleanliness, a key predictor of sustained toilet use.
Thus SHRI fights alongside rural Indian communities to end open defecation as a key step in the struggle for health equity, and social and economic justice.
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