What will I learn about: the staggering global health crisis caused by a lack of sanitation, which forces 2.6 billion people to live without toilets and causes one in ten illnesses worldwide?

Understand the staggering global health crisis caused by a lack of sanitation, which forces 2.6 billion people to live without toilets and causes one in ten illnesses worldwide.

What will I learn about: why investing in proper sanitation is both a medical and economic miracle, yielding a seven-dollar return for every dollar spent and potentially adding 20 years to the average human lifespan?

Discover why investing in proper sanitation is both a medical and economic miracle, yielding a seven-dollar return for every dollar spent and potentially adding 20 years to the average human lifespan.

What will I learn about: Realize the deadly consequences of fecally contaminated environments, which cause a child to die every 15 seconds from diarrhea—making it a bigger threat than AIDS, tuberculosis, or malaria?

Realize the deadly consequences of fecally contaminated environments, which cause a child to die every 15 seconds from diarrhea—making it a bigger threat than AIDS, tuberculosis, or malaria.

What will I learn about: Learn how societal discomfort and linguistic taboos around human waste prevent governments and aid agencies from prioritizing and funding life-saving sanitation infrastructure?

Learn how societal discomfort and linguistic taboos around human waste prevent governments and aid agencies from prioritizing and funding life-saving sanitation infrastructure.

What will I learn about: why changing cultural habits is just as important as building infrastructure, as evidenced by the millions of state-issued latrines in India that go unused due to a flawed top-down approach?

Find out why changing cultural habits is just as important as building infrastructure, as evidenced by the millions of state-issued latrines in India that go unused due to a flawed top-down approach.

The Big Necessity

The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters

Rose George

★ 4.9 / 5(12 ratings)

Start ListeningDownload QR code that opens AudiobookHub on the App Store

Try free on iPhoneScan to start in 5 seconds

Categories:

Nature & the Environment

If You're Curious About These Questions...

You should listen to this audiobook

💡Did you know that the world’s most uncomfortable “taboo” is actually responsible for more preventable deaths than almost any other global health crisis?
💡Have you ever wondered what truly happens after you flush, and why the hidden world beneath our streets is the only thing keeping modern civilization from collapse?
💡What if the very waste we try so hard to ignore is actually the secret to solving some of the planet's biggest energy and water challenges?

Listen to The Big Necessity — Free Audiobook

Loading player...

Key Takeaways from The Big Necessity

✓Understand the staggering global health crisis caused by a lack of sanitation, which forces 2.6 billion people to live without toilets and causes one in ten illnesses worldwide.
✓Discover why investing in proper sanitation is both a medical and economic miracle, yielding a seven-dollar return for every dollar spent and potentially adding 20 years to the average human lifespan.
✓Realize the deadly consequences of fecally contaminated environments, which cause a child to die every 15 seconds from diarrhea—making it a bigger threat than AIDS, tuberculosis, or malaria.
✓Learn how societal discomfort and linguistic taboos around human waste prevent governments and aid agencies from prioritizing and funding life-saving sanitation infrastructure.
✓Find out why changing cultural habits is just as important as building infrastructure, as evidenced by the millions of state-issued latrines in India that go unused due to a flawed top-down approach.

Learning Tools

Reinforce what you learned from The Big Necessity

Mind Map

The Big Necessity

The Global Health Crisis+

The ROI of Sanitation+

The Taboo Roadblock+

Activism & Habit Change+

Developed World Failures+

Feces as a Resource+

Moving Forward+

Quiz — Test Your Understanding

Question 1 of 8

Why does UNICEF consider diarrhea to be the biggest barrier to survival for small children in developing countries?

A. It cannot be treated with modern antibiotics or medical interventions.
B. It is responsible for more child deaths than AIDS, tuberculosis, or malaria.
C. It is caused by genetic vulnerabilities that are highly prevalent in these regions.
D. It prevents children from absorbing essential nutrients from breast milk.

Question 2 of 8

According to the text, what is the average economic return for every dollar invested in global sanitation?

A. Two dollars, primarily through increased agricultural yields and fertilizer sales.
B. Seven dollars, earned through increased productivity and avoiding healthcare costs.
C. Ten dollars, generated by the sale of biogas and recycled water.
D. There is no net economic return; it is purely a public health expense.

Question 3 of 8

How does the taboo surrounding human waste negatively impact international aid and government budgets?

A. Aid agencies refuse to fund any projects in countries with high rates of open defecation.
B. Governments ban the import of modern toilets to protect local plumbing industries.
C. Politicians categorize sanitation funding under military spending to avoid public scrutiny.
D. Aid agencies allocate the vast majority of funds to supplying clean water rather than sanitation, even though sanitation reduces diarrhea more effectively.

Question 4 of 8

Why did the top-down approach of simply building millions of latrines in India largely fail?

A. The latrines were built using materials that quickly degraded in the tropical climate.
B. The government charged high monthly maintenance fees that the villagers could not afford.
C. Many villagers lacked a nearby water source, so they preferred open defecation over carrying buckets of water to the latrines.
D. Local religious leaders banned the use of government-issued latrines.

Question 5 of 8

What effective strategy did activist Kamal Kar use to discourage open defecation in the Bangladeshi village of Mosmoil?

A. He offered villagers cash incentives for every week they exclusively used a latrine.
B. He walked with villagers to calculate the amount of excrement around them, shocking them into realizing it was contaminating their food.
C. He implemented a strict fining system enforced by local police for anyone caught defecating in the open.
D. He distributed free water purification tablets to mask the effects of the contaminated water.

Question 6 of 8

What is a primary cause of the sewage system failures in New York City during heavy rain?

A. The system funnels both wastewater and rainwater into the same pipes, causing overflows when it rains heavily.
B. The city's rapidly growing population has exceeded the maximum capacity of its modern treatment plants.
C. Outdated lead pipes are prone to bursting under the pressure of modern high-rise buildings.
D. A lack of government funding has left the city without any functioning sewage treatment plants.

Question 7 of 8

How has China successfully utilized human waste in millions of rural households?

A. By processing it into synthetic building materials like bricks for urban expansion.
B. By converting it into biogas to be used for heating, lighting, and cooking.
C. By extracting the water content to combat severe droughts in agricultural regions.
D. By feeding it to specialized livestock that are immune to human pathogens.

Question 8 of 8

Despite the benefits of biogas in rural China, what was a major challenge that led some farmers to abandon the system?

A. The biogas produced a foul odor that made homes uninhabitable.
B. The government imposed a heavy tax on households that produced their own biogas.
C. The biogas process required excessive amounts of clean drinking water to function.
D. The new toilets required maintenance and training, leading farmers to revert to old habits.