19 November marks World Toilet Day
The United Nations observes World Toilet Day on November 19 annually.
World Toilet Day 2022 focuses on the impact of the sanitation crisis on groundwater.
This observance, held annually since 2013, celebrates toilets and raises awareness of the 3.6 billion people living without access to safely managed sanitation. It is about taking action to tackle the global sanitation crisis and achieve Sustainable Development Goal 6: sanitation and water for all by 2030.
The UN General Assembly declared World Toilet Day an official UN day in 2013, after Singapore had tabled the resolution. Prior to that, World Toilet Day had been established unofficially by the World Toilet Organization, a Singapore-based NGO, in 2001.
The 2022 campaign ‘Making the invisible visible’ explores how inadequate sanitation systems spread human waste into rivers, lakes and soil, polluting underground water resources.
The central message of World Toilet Day 2022 is that safely managed sanitation protects groundwater from human waste pollution. Currently, the world is seriously off track to meet the promise of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6.2: to ensure safe toilets for all by 2030.