Yesterday was World Toilet Day. In the UK a philanthropic agency promoting the world's use of toilets Tearfund released interesting information on what people do while on the toilet. The research, commissioned by the aid agency, reveals that more
than eight million people talk while they are on the loo - either on
the phone or to their family - and one in five adults send text message.
Through their online survey, they found that 60 per cent of the adult
British population occupy themselves with activities like reading,
chatting, texting or meditating while on the loo. Great Britain's top three toilet habits are reading (39 per cent) texting (21 per cent) and talking (21 per cent).
They also found that " 51 per cent of the British population encountered
at least one problem whilst going to the toilet in the past month, with
problems ranging from having no loo roll to a broken flush"
The Welsh are the chattiest while on the loo - 28 per cent of the
Welsh admitted to talking on the phone or to a family member compared
to 18 per cent of Scots. Contrary to what you might expect only eight
per cent of women engage in conversation with a family member compared
to 12 per cent of men.
Unsurprisingly women are three times more likely to have to queue
for a long time before using the toilet then men (18 per cent
versus six per cent).
poorest people who don't have access to a toilet at all. Not having
decent sanitation deprives people of human dignity, it also means that
they are exposed to all kinds of disease.
Tackling sanitation along with providing clean water and good
hygiene practices would reduce the 1.5 million child deaths from
diarrhoea each year by 65 per cent. Tearfund has launched a campaign to highlight this injustice and is
calling on world leaders to tackle the problem by creating a global
action plan on water and sanitation by 2010.