The serious prevailing issue in India- Open Defecation. People are defecating at outskirts of their villages and while traveling through villages, one can feel the bad odour surrounding there. The open defecation causes soil pollution and there-by, when washed away with water, causes water pollution. Government of India started many campaigns, one among them is "Swachch Bharat Abhiyan" in order to reduce open defecation. People are committing dark crimes on women when they are out for defecating. People should be aware of the ill effects to the environment due to Open Defecation.

1. OPEN DEFECATION IN INDIA
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2. WHAT IS OPEN DEFECATION?
Open defecation refers to the practice whereby
people go out in fields, bushes, forests, open
bodies of water, or other open spaces rather than
using the toilet to defecate. The practice is rampant
in India and the country is home to the world’s
largest population of people who defecate in the
open and excrete close to 65,000 tonnes of faeces
into the environment each day.
High levels of open defecation in a country are
usually correlated with a high child mortality, as well as
high levels of undernutrition.

3. IT IS A MATTER OF NATIONAL CONCERN AS INDIA HAS THE MOST
NUMBER OF PEOPLE PRACTICING OPEN DEFECATION IN THE WORLD,
AROUND 600 MILLION , AND IS FOLLOWED BY NIGERIA ,PAKISTAN AND
INDONESIA. STILL THESE COUNTRIES COME NOWHERE CLOSE TO THE
STAGGERING NUMBER CONTRIBUTED BY INDIA.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
INDIA PAKISTAN INDONESIA NIGERIA SOUTH ASIA BANGLADESH
.
%AGE of People Who Practice Open Defacation Column1 Column2

4. EFFECT ON ENVIRONMENT
• Human urine contains Urea, making up over 50% of the total organic solids
present. Other nitrogen-containing compounds are found in urine, such as ammonia
and trimethylamine.
• Nutrient discharges in urine pose a risk of eutrophication – threatening in particular
coastal waters and fish stocks. Many problematic substances, such as residues of
medicines or endocrine disrupters, also enter wastewater via urine and may
subsequently be released into the environment.
• A variety of fatty acids have been detected in human faeces; the major one of these
is ethanoic (acetic) acid. Much more important are the longer chain fatty acids,
butanoic (butyric) and pentanoic (valeric) acid.
Butanoic Acid
Pentanoic Acid
Ethanoic Acid

5. ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF OPEN DEFECATION
• Open defecation can lead to water pollution when rain flushes feces that
are dispersed in the environment into surface water or unprotected wells.
• Open defecation practices remain a huge health and safety. Bacteria and
worms in feces are often accidentally ingested. This results in a range of
health problems from diarrhea to enteropathy, a chronic sickness that
prevents the absorption of calories and nutrients. Many specialists believe
that the problems open defecation causes are the reason 50 percent of
Indian children are malnourished. Certain diseases are grouped together
under the name of waterborne diseases, which are diseases transmitted via
fecal pathogens in water.
• E. coli infection(Escherichia coli): People can become infected to E.coli by coming into
contact with the feces, or stool, of humans or animals. Human or animal feces infected
with E. coli sometimes get into lakes, pools, and water supplies.

6. STEPS TAKEN TO AVOID
OPEN DEFECATION
• The Government of India with help of partners like
UNICEF is looking at the challenge of Open
Defecation very seriously. The government has a
target to make India “Open Defecation Free” by
2019.
• However Social norms and habits need to be changed if
open defecation is to be successfully fought. Simply
building more toilets will not do the job. The
government has already taken some steps to educate
people about the dangers of open defecation and
reward those who use latrines. In Haryana for instance, it
launched the “No Toilet, No Bride” campaign that urged
women to only marry men whose home had a toilet.

7. REFERENCES
• http://www.thehindu.com/data/What-numbers-tell-us-about-Open-
Defecation-in-India/article15422326.ece
• http://unicef.in/Whatwedo/11/Eliminate-Open-Defecation
• https://borgenproject.org/effects-open-defecation-india/
• http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/new-approach-needed-to-
curb-open-defecation/article6357249.ece
• http://www.compoundchem.com/2015/06/02/toilets/