Make toilets normal, says World Toilet Day founder

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"It's normal for us to go to the toilet every day six to eight times, but abnormal to talk about it," said Jack Sim, founder of the World Toilet Organization and the World Toilet Day initiative, in an interview with CGTN.

November 19, 2018, marks the 6th UN World Toilet Day. Initiated in 2001, it was finally adopted by the UN General Assembly as an official day 12 years later, in 2013.

Since establishing the WTO in 2001, Sim has committed to the toilet causes for the entire world and taken "making toilets normal" as his mission.

"This is a subject that if you don't talk about it, you cannot improve; and when we don't talk about it, the problem will accumulate," he said.

A public toilet made of rusty sheets of metal stands in Gatwekera Village, Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya. /VCG Photo

Sim believes that toilet stands for dignity and health and is the simplest measure to address the world's tough issues. It can also be an indicator of an economy.

"I'm very impressed with the tourism toilet revolution in China," Sim said. "China can be a role model in enhancing toilet conditions for many developing countries. As the Chinese trade and communicate under the Belt and Road Initiative, they can help spread such a concept."

The World Toilet Day is about inspiring actions to tackle the global sanitation crisis, as 2.5 billion people live without a toilet and many have died or are dying from diarrhea.

The day is also about saving the environment as human feces, on a massive scale, is not being treated, resulting in the contamination of water and soil that sustain human life.

Under the theme of "When Nature Calls," the 2018 observance calls for the building of toilets and sanitation systems that work in harmony with ecosystems.