The Industry
Portable sanitation is among the most vital industries in the entire world. It is estimated that as many as 2.5 billion people around the globe — almost a third of the entire population — still do not have access to adequate sanitation.
Every day, workers in the portable sanitation industry address this problem by providing various types of units, portable restroom trailers, hand wash stations, portable shower trailers and a wealth of deodorizers and other supplies. It’s a growing industry that is committed to constant innovation to meet the ever-evolving needs of the world.
What You Need to Know About Safe Sanitation
The PSAI works to bring the world’s portable sanitation issues to the forefront and address them through the work of our member companies. We aim to highlight the importance of sanitation in daily life, as well as the lack of adequate sanitation in developing countries.
When individuals don’t have access to proper sanitation, they defecate in the open, using whatever means available. Lack of adequate sanitation causes privacy, safety and health issues. Inadequate sanitation often leads to the contamination of water supplies and negates the advantages of pouring billions of dollars in aid into poor countries — and the situation is getting worse, not better.
- A child dies every 17 seconds because of poor sanitation
- More children die from diarrhea than from malaria or AIDS
- One-third of girls drop out of school due to the lack of toilet access
- 50% of hospital beds in developing countries are used for patients with a disease related to the lack of sanitation
By becoming a member of the PSAI and engaging in the Education Initiative, we can work together to bring positive change to this global issue.
Portable sanitation operations are already saving over 125 million gallons of fresh water daily while preventing the spread of communicable diseases and the contamination of fresh water. Portable sanitation provided by knowledgeable operators has been a proven means of safely handling and treating human waste for over 70 years.
Portable sanitation is a lifesaving necessity when natural disasters strike. It also protects the environment, improves public health and preserves human dignity.
The PSAI and its Education Initiative seek to develop affiliations with other non-profit foundations, associations, individuals and organizations to advance awareness of the pressing issues created by the lack of adequate sanitation worldwide. We also seek to inform the general public about the importance of voluntary use of portable sanitation. Involvement by sanitation operators in efforts to educate customers and the general public is an important step in improving sanitation efforts in communities around the world.
Maude Barlow is a Canadian activist and author who chairs the board of the Washington-based Food and Water Watch and Ottawa-based Blue Planet Project. She also co-founded the Council of Canadians and chaired its board for over three decades, among involvement in other organizations. She spoke at the PSAI Convention and Trade Show in 2015, and you can read her report Our Right To Water: A People’s Guide to Implementing the United Nations’ Recognition of the Right to Water and Sanitation.
For additional information about portable sanitation, check out these TED talks:
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Don't miss out on great member benefits!Water Facts
Every day, portable restrooms save 125 million gallons of fresh water! Here are some other interesting water facts:
- 45 billion gallons of fresh water are saved annually through the use of portable restrooms
- Only 3% of Earth’s water is fresh; 97% is salt water*
- Americans use more water each day by flushing the toilet than they do by showering or any other activity**
- A running toilet can waste up to 200 gallons of water per day*
- Americans use about 100 gallons of water per day. Europeans use about 50 gallons of water per day. Residents of sub-Saharan Africa use only two to five gallons of water per day.*
* Source: United States Environmental Protection Agency
** Source: Florida Water Environmental Association
Read about Global Water Savings Calculations.
When you use a portable restroom, you are contributing to the preservation of our most important natural resource – fresh water. If you are a PSAI member, you may order waterproof “saving water” decals for placement in your portable restrooms. Proceeds from the sales will help fund our humanitarian initiatives. Order decals in our online store.
Global Issues
In some areas of the world, there is simply no sanitation.
“This is why the [man] laughed at me. He thought that I thought a toilet was my right, when he knew it was a privilege.”
“It must be, when 2.5 billion people don’t have sanitation. I don’t mean that they have no toilet in their house and must use a public one with queues and fees. Or that they have an outhouse, or a rickety shack that empties into a filthy drain or pigsty. All that counts as sanitation, though not a safe variety. The people who have those are the fortunate ones. Four in ten people have no access to any latrine, toilet, bucket, or box. Nothing. Instead, they defecate by train tracks and in forests. They do it in plastic bags and fling them through the air in narrow slum alleyways.
If they are women, they get up at 4:00am to be able to do their business under cover of darkness for reasons of modesty, risking rape and snakebites. Four in ten people live in situations where they are surrounded by human excrement because it is in the bushes outside the village or in their city yards, left by children outside the backdoor. It is tramped back in on their feet, carried on fingers onto clothes, food and drinking water.”
“The disease toll of this is stunning. A gram of feces can contain 10 million viruses, 1 million bacteria, 1,000 parasite cysts, and 100 worm eggs…”
― Rose George, The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters
Where water and sanitation are scarce, portable restrooms provide the local population with their first-ever toilets. In places like these, portable sanitation not only provides safety and dignity but also saves lives.