Wiping India’s Green Warmed Anus With Toilet Drying And Reduced Fertility
GREEN! Lend me your arses. “Let’s wipe out toilet paper.” (Geddit?)
Christian Woolmar says Guardian readers:
Using tissue after you’ve been to the loo is bad for the planet. Washing is the greener option – and it’s more hygienic too.
Better to breed and tame endangered species – furry ones – for the purposes of bottom wiping. Then wash them in urine. Or use second-hand toilet paper?
Three years ago I went to India and discovered botty nirvana. While I was suffering from one of those inevitable bouts of Delhi belly, I was staying in a room with a spray attachment that allowed me to clean my anus – let’s call spades spades here, it is not my bottom – without having to touch it or use paper.
Now that’s magick!
In India:
India Failing to Control Open Defecation Blunts Nation’s Growth
Dodging leering men and stick-wielding farmers and avoiding spots that her neighbors had soiled, the mother of three pulled up her sari and defecated with the Taj Mahal in plain view.
With that act, she added to the estimated 100,000 tons of human excrement that Indians leave each day in fields of potatoes, carrots and spinach, on banks that line rivers used for drinking and bathing and along roads jammed with scooters, trucks and pedestrians. Devi looks back on her routine with pain and embarrassment.
Pain? Says Woolmar:
It saved me from piles and rash, and definitely avoided a lot of pain.
Back in India:
Illness, lost productivity and other consequences of fouled water and inadequate sewage treatment trimmed 1.4-7.2 percent from the gross domestic product of Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam in 2005, according to a study last year by the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Program.
Sanitation and hygiene-related issues may have a similar if not greater impact on India’s $1.2 trillion economy, says Guy Hutton, a senior water and sanitation economist with the program in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
So wave goodbye to toilet paper (and leave out the vindaloo for a bit). It’s crap, literally! Toilet paper. Out! Out! Out! Woolmar:
As for the wetness, there is a choice – either dab off with a small amount of toilet paper or use a towel specially for the purpose.
Toilet paper is back in, but now it’s got a new use – it’s Drying Paper.
Remember the towel is nothing more than drying off clean buttocks, pretty much the same as coming out of the shower, but obviously I change it regularly. Of course in the Indian heat, a bit of dampness did not matter.
And you wore trousers, right. And Y-fronts? With the vest tucked in. A three-ply wipe.
And the towels are cotton or fashioned from man-made firbres? Cotton is a thirsty plant.
Enough of my personal hygiene. Now for the wider points. If everyone in the world used as much toilet paper as people in the UK, let alone Americans, there would not be a single tree left.
Or else due to popularity of toilet paper, the price of toilet paper would plummet and there would be a lot more fast-growing trees planted and the world would be greener?
And there would be more bunnies, tigers and mink living amid the soft foliage…
Posted: 5th, March 2009 | In: Reviews Comments (3) | TrackBack | Permalink
