Green Daily

The last time I was in India, back when I was an easily annoyed, totally westernized 14 year-old, I appreciated the amazing things I saw but secretly longed for a Big Mac, any less-than-spicy food, American television, and a North American toilet. The train toilets, especially, were often nothing more than a smelly room with a toilet cut into the floor allowing you to see the tracks zipping by (seriously not fun after eating spicy food!).

Well, times have changed since that trip in '87. Now, I love everything spicy, I swore off McDonald's, and new bio-toilets are being tried out on Indian Railways.

A number of experimental bio-toilets are being installed in different trains across India, a country that is bustling with a lot of people that use trains (and being human, have biological necessities). With two million Indian passengers using train toilets daily, Indian Railways plans to have every one of its 9000 trains equipped with cleaner commodes by 2001-13.
One toilet being tried out was developed by Indian Railway's Research, Designs and Standards Organization (along with a US firm) and has been tested on the Delhi-Allahabad Prayagraj Express. In this system, the waste is broken down by bacterial culture and treated with chlorine before disposal. Okay, that doesn't sound very green and the kilogram of waste that accumulates in a year does have to be cleared manually (think about that the next time you complain about your job!). On the plus side, it does use much less water than other systems.

Another experimental toilet, developed by IIT Kanpur, claims to be cheaper and is classified as "zero-discharge" (the toilet separates 90% of the liquid from the waste in order to reuse it for future flushes).

While this is a huge improvement, the system presently in place hasn't changed much since my adventures on the subcontinent - a hole that leads to the tracks is often the main train plumbing system. The tracks at stations are cleaned manually and the nastiness is sent to drains that get quickly clogged and backed-up. I guess I don't need to explain why Indian Railways is looking for better systems.

The new India has McDonald's everywhere, American media all over the place and train toilet improvements. So even though I'll probably miss the old India when I go back, I'm positive no one is going to miss those toilets.