In rural India, a strong cultural resistance to the build-up and disposal of excrement, and the view that going outdoors is more wholesome, is leading to rejection of the new latrines.
The most pressing reason to banish the practice, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has vowed to do by 2019, is its effect on public health – spreading infectious diseases and stunting children’s growth by circulating faecal bacteria in the environment.
In this densely packed country, even people using toilets will still be exposed to germs unless everyone in the community abandons their routine of trudging to the nearest field, pond or railway track to relieve themselves.