Drawing attention to toilet troubles

A talk by WASHLabs, which works alongside the Greater Chennai Corporation, Recycle Bin, sheds light on the issues that surround public toilets, rendering them unfit for use

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Why does one lack remorse when vandalising public toilets? Damaged facilities — broken pipes, cigarette butts strewn around, and suggestive graffiti on the walls — may be an indication that a matter is deeper than an infrastructure issue but more of a sociological issue, says WASHLabs. At a Madras Day event, 'A Dialogue with the Public Toilets of Chennai', held recently, WASHLabs, which works alongside the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) and Recycle Bin, opened up difficult conversations of a basic human need — urination and defecation.

Earlier, in a toilet walk organised by WASHLabs, vandalism in a community toilet near Sunambu canal and Kannappa Ram Nagar was observed. A few participants felt that the lack of ownership or responsibility gives a space for identities to turn anonymous and bring out a space to express repressed imaginations and wildest fantasies, ones tucked away in public spheres but expressed in the four walls of a dirty toilet, where you lack accountability, and have no remorse for the sanitation workers. "Often, the cleaners of toilets are a mysterious, invisible layer. Who are they? Where are they from? This makes the user out of touch, and civic responsibility diffuses," said Ganga Dileep, founder of WASHLabs and CEO of the Thoomai Mission, which has been piloting sanitation literacy and recycling models with the Greater Chennai Corporation.