China's 'Toilet Revolution'

source: indiatoday.in

China has installed or upgraded over 50,000 toilets in two years as part of a nationwide "toilet revolution" to regulate the unhygienic restrooms including those open pits next to pigsties, a report has said.

The number, 52,485, accounts for 92.7 per cent of the official target the government announced for three years through to 2017, said China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) in a report titled Progress of the toilet revolution.

China launched a "toilet revolution" across the country in 2015 with an aim to make the notorious facilities cleaner and more regulated.

Toilets in the countryside and at tourist sites used to have a bad reputation.

In rural areas, some toilets were little more than ramshackle shelters surrounded by bunches of cornstalk, and others open pits next to pigsties.

At tourist sites, visitors were angered by insufficient and unhygienic toilets and lack of sanitation workers.

China seeks to add 33,000 restrooms and renovate 24,000 between 2015 and 2017.

At the start of the campaign in 2015, the CNTA had said that it would make tourists restrooms reach three-star standards.

By the end of 2017, China would have added or upgraded a total of 71,000 toilets, well exceeding the target, state-run Xinhua news agency quoted the CNTA as saying yesterday.

A recent survey showed that people had felt the impact of the campaign with over 80 per cent of tourists finding toilets satisfactory, compared to 70 per cent in 2015.

The CNTA mainly attributed the improvement to innovations in mechanisms and the application of technology.