Just in case you missed it, November 19th was World Toilet Day! Bear with us before you give up reading and find something more high-brow, but there is an important message that World Toilet Day wants to get across and it isn’t a load of you know what…

The world is facing a global sanitation crisis and this is as important to us engineers as making cutting-edge 3D printed designs or high-end injection moulded products, as we can help! However, firstly a little background: since 2013, 1,000 children per day die from diarrhoea due to poor sanitation, with 2.4 million people having no access to toilet facilities. That is pretty shocking and something that could be alleviated by our engineering expertise and state-of-the-art manufacturing techniques.

Producing plastic, easy to install single piece injection moulded toilets for a low cost should be easily achievable, allowing many more people to benefit from proper facilities that may be denied to them currently. Plastic piping to remove waste products to tanks or external treatment plants is also something that our industry could contribute to, ensuring people have lifelong access to better sanitation.

A plan initiated by the United Nations– ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ aims to ensure that everyone, everywhere, has access to a toilet by 2030. Achieving this goal should not be difficult; the technology is there and it is purely a case of promoting an ‘unsexy’ cause over other more mediagenic ones. Next time you take make a visit to the smallest room and flush, think about where it all goes - engineers, we have until 2030!