The goal of proper sanitation is to better the public health conditions and it is directly related to the availability of clean water. In recent years, progress has been made to increase the accessibility of proper drinking water and sanitation and yet billions of people still lack these necessary services. While the UN has determined that access to clean water and sanitation facilities is a basic human right, we live in a world where the most fundamental rights are denied. By 2050, it is projected that at least one one-fourth of humanity will suffer recurring water shortages while currently, more than two-billion people in the world lack access to clean, healthy, risk-free water.
Around the world, eighty percent of wastewater goes into waterways without adequate treatment and adds toxic elements in water bodies. Such contaminated water is estimated to result in more than half a million deaths per year. According to the World Health Organization, many diseases are linked with the use of poor water quality such as polio, typhoid, dysentery, hepatitis A, diarrhoea, and cholera. The fact that these problems occur mainly in Third World countries is more alarming as they don't have apt healthcare facilities to deal with the outcome.
Standard sanitation has always been an increasing problem. With the onset of Covid-19 pandemic, waste disposal has accelerated due to usage of masks and gloves. The pandemic has also made sanitation more important than ever. According to the World Health Organization, handwashing is one of the most effective actions you can do to reduce the spread of pathogens and prevent infections and it also acts as a prevention method for Coronavirus. Yet two out of five people do not have access to a hand-washing station and billions of people still lack safe water sanitation.
Sanitation is a global development priority and is included in the Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations General Assembly. Two-thirds of countries lack baseline estimates for SDG indicators on hand washing, safely managed drinking water, and sanitation services (as of 2017). The current reality entails that we observe proper sanitation and provide a clean environment to those around us and help stop the transmission of diseases.
We at Enactus JMI are sympathetic to the problems of the world and our communities. We have come up with projects to help deal with the continuously rising problems of clean water and sanitation. Project Shrimati, for example, presents itself to tackle the issue of the accumulation of plastic waste and sanitary waste disposal along with other objectives - by creating biodegradable face masks and eco-friendly reusable sanitary napkins. Another water-based project is in development aiming to counter the problems of water stress (that affects more than 2 billion people) and maximize the accessibility of clean water.
Water, worldwide, is not just being used more but also being polluted increasingly. To resolve the problems of clean water and sanitation, the governments and authorities must provide sanitation facilities, and encourage hygiene. Protecting and restoring water-related ecosystems is also very essential. More importantly, it is almost compulsory for us as good, grateful humans to spread awareness and to stop wasting water- to close the taps and repair the leaking ones, to dispose of garbage properly, and to observe personal hygiene and carry out sanitation practices as ordinary as handwashing.
