Impact Hub's NY Metropolitan Chapter invited our Founder Kim Worsham to talk about toiles and FLUSH over lunch earlier today. For 30 minutes, she talked about her passion for toilets, what is FLUSH's goals, and why sanitation isn't just a problem in lower- and middle-income countries.
Some key takeaways from the call included:
-If we don't give people a dignified option to safe public toilets they end engaging in open defecation. People always think this happens in Cambodia or in Africa but no it happens right in New York City, too.
-According to the JMP, 1 in 10 Americans do not have access to safely managed sanitation. DigDeep has a great report diving more into the challenges for access to water and sanitation in the US.
-There are several issues around why sanitation isn't on the forefront of innovators' minds: (1) political will - who wants their name on a wastewater treatment plant?, (2) social will - people often assume that toilet issues are for those who are at the bottom of the social ladder and aren't prioritized as a result, and (3) sanitation infrastructure can be quite expensive!