Poo, pads and problems with personal pollution.

Access to flushing toilets is a privilege we take for granted in Australia.  It makes it easy to gloss over the messy and smelly issue of solid human waste.  When we make our lavatorial deposits they somehow become someone else’s problem to solve.

     Lack of sanitation is a potentially deadly problem.

     According to WHO, 2.6 billion people in the world have no sanitation and untreated sewage kills 1.4 million children annually.  For many Australians these are just figures and for others it takes a budget trip to Asia, Africa or the Middle East to appreciate how easy life is in a first world country where sanitation is a given. 

     We don’t have to engage in the practice of ‘open defecation’ otherwise known as pooing in the woods, or river or sea, which carries the risk of contaminating water supplies as people track faecal matter back to the village.  There are other problems with open defecation such as snake bites when tramping through the bush and the risk of sexual assault faced by women who seek out a private place.  Worse, some cultural protocols dictate women should not to be seen relieving themselves during the day.  By holding on till night time, women face the risk of urinary tract infections.

     I assumed we’d be facing some open defecation practices on our road trip considering we were travelling the great outdoors.  Being prepared, I had toilet paper, snake bandages and a mobile phone.  But no.  Providing we could hold on for 200 km max, we only had to keep our eyes peeled for the big blue sign with an abstract white couple, man and woman (dressed as a woman, in a skirt!), united bio-waste harmony, the universal advisor for traveller’s relief.

     At Charters Towers, we followed the toilet sign to a pleasant ablution block with corrugated walls in early-settler style, most fitting for the former gold mining town that flourished in the late nineteenth century.  The flowering frangipani trees gave it a tropical touch in an otherwise dry landscape.  But there was more.

     ‘Tony!’  I called.  ‘What on earth is this Dump Ezy thing?’ I asked after studying the sign and the hose. 

      Disposal points for caravan toilet waste!

     As for menstruation, in Australia and other first world countries pads and tampons are sold in sterile wrappers encased in discreet or funky, colourful packaging, depending on the market.  Sure, it removes the mess and inconvenience of rags and sponges, but it also removes, I reckon, the reality that menstruation is a fact of life (some women argue should be revered and celebrated) and some facts of life are messy like body waste.  Why is it that our society wants to make these facts taboo or silent? 

     Perhaps as a result of this taboo, women have become too used to those benign, pale coloured units found in toilet cubicles, known as feminine product hygiene disposal units (what a mouthful).  It seems, away from sewerage systems, they are inclined to put sanitary items down compost or septic toilets.  How hard can it be to wrap the little things in toilet paper and drop in a bin, if not in the cubicle, in a bin outside?

     Notices like these were fixtures in public toilets.  This was polite.

      I sensed the frustration in the next one.

     I chuckled loudly at this one.  The tiny print reads:

If you flush your feminine products, we will be able to identify what time you left the cubicle and what time the toilet was flooded as a result your inability to follow these instructions, and we will know it was YOU.  Your picture will be displayed on the 'BAD GIRL WALL OF SHAME' and you will no longer be permitted to use this toilet without supervision.

 

     I wondered, as I scoured the cubicle for hidden cameras, if culprits might be exposed on Today Tonight or A Current Affair along with the unscrupulous money lenders and car salesmen.  

     But seriously, first world humans can be so irresponsible when it comes to our body waste because it is always someone else’s problem.

    ‘Mum,’ Kibby whispered to me one morning at Hinemoa, tugging at my shirt in a desperate though uncharacteristic manner.  ‘The toilet won’t flush.’

     He pulled me into the toilet and pointed at the offending mess.  It transpired his poo was the straw that broke the camel's back.  Yes, he had blocked Bruce and Gail’s septic toilet which had done pretty well for the first 6 days considering there were 12 people.

     I turned away.  Yuck!  What could I do? 

     ‘Tony!’  He’d be able to solve the problem.