What is,'Sulabh International ' and how have they lockled the problem of environment sanitation?
Answers
Answer:
World’s Worst Polluted Places – the Top Ten
September 2006
Page 3 of 57
The Unfinished Challenge of Pollution
After decades of effort and attention, industrial pollution is now only an occasional worry
for most of the developed world. Although there are a few remaining threats, pollution is
generally regarded as a problem that is carefully regulated, managed and watched over by
many.
This is not the case in the poorest countries. There, pollution continues to be a major
source of death, illness and long-term environmental damage. Across the developing
world, pollution kills thousands of people indiscriminately, shortens lives, damages
children’s development and growth, and creates a background of chronic illnesses that
makes strong economic development nearly impossible.
Living in a town with serious pollution is like living under a death sentence. If the damage
does not come from immediate poisoning, then cancers, lung infections and mental
retardation are likely outcomes. Often insidious and unseen, and usually in places with
deficient and exhausted health systems, pollution is an unacknowledged burden of the
poor and unvoiced in the developing world. It is a major factor impairing economic growth,
and a significant strain on the lives of already impoverished people.
It is worse in some places than others.
Most poor countries have cities or estates where industry is concentrated, usually well
away from the capitals. In these places we find soil, air and water contamination not just
from active enterprises (many of them antiquated), but also from the legacy of decades of
uncontrolled emissions. There are soil and groundwater that have been poisoned, rivers
that ooze toxins, and lakes that cannot be approached safely, let alone used for irrigation
or drinking. There are some towns where life expectancy approaches medieval rates,
where birth defects are the norm not the exception. In other places children’s asthma
rates are measured above 90 percent, or mental retardation is endemic. In these places,
life expectancy may be half that of the richest nations. The great suffering of these
communities compounds the tragedy of so few years on earth.
These areas are the most polluted places on earth. The world knows of the incidents at
Chernobyl and Bhopal, but these other stories are never heard, never exposed or
publicized. Instead, they have developed over time into horrific human disasters.
How did they get like this? For one thing, many developing countries have inadequate
pollution controls. Even if sub-standard or antiquated factories were brought to modern
requirements, the legacy of old contamination from the past would continue to poison
citizens. These failings are compounded by a lack of knowledge at the local level and
weakness in the capability of civil society to force justice when governments are negligent.
In Blacksmith’s years of trying to help communities and local groups with their own specific
problems, more than three hundred “polluted places” in over thirty countries have been
nominated for remediation. Local and concerned people put these places forward as
problems that need to be addressed urgently.
Answer:
Sulabh International is an India-based social service organization that works to promote human rights, environmental sanitation, non-conventional sources of energy, waste management and social reforms through education. The organization counts 50,000 volunteers. Sulabh International is the largest nonprofit organization in India.
Sulabh was founded by Bindeshwar Pathak from Bihar State in 1970 .And have 50,000 volunteers Innovations include a scavenging-free two-pit pourflush toilet (Sulabh Shauchalaya); safe and hygienic on-site human waste disposal technology; a new concept of maintenance and construction of pay-&-use public toilets, popularly known as Sulabh Complexes with bath, laundry and urinal facilities being used by about ten million people every day and generates bio-gas and biofertilizer produced from excreta-based plants, low maintenance waste water treatment plants of medium capacity for institutions and industries. Other work includes setting up English-medium public school in New Delhi and also a network of centres all over the country to train boys and girls from poor families, specially scavengers, so that they can compete in open job market.