Travis Loop talks toilets in latest blog
It will be World Toilet Day on Nov. 19--a day inspiring action to help address our global sanitation crisis and for recognizing the incredible strides that sanitation has made for public health. WEF members have the technical expertise and passion to help the 4.5 billion people living without a household toilet that disposes of their waste safely. And to quote Amina J. Mohammed, deputy secretary-general of the United Nations, “We’ve got the tools, let’s make it happen.”
UN-Water’s theme for World Toilet Day 2017 is wastewater and related Sustainable Development Goals include universal access to a safely-managed household toilet by 2030, making sanitation central to eradicating extreme poverty. A variety of materials, messages, and tools to help educate about human waste and what can be done about it can be found at World Toilet Day, and WEF members are encouraged to participate.
To complement UN’s wastewater theme, WEF has assembled and distributed resources to help Member Associations and members communicate the importance of protecting our water infrastructure and systems via proper disposal of waste and appropriate flushables (pee, paper, and poo). Click here for that package including resources for social media. Also, WEF’s line of public education bill stuffers for water quality professionals now includes Let’s Talk Toilets, which highlights the importance of what should and should not be flushed.
Working together, we can act to raise awareness about the importance and value of toilets to a healthy, sustainable global environment.
Travis Loop is the Senior Director of Communications and Public Outreach for the Water Environment Federation. He has more than 17 years of experience in communications, government, and media, with a focus on environmental and water issues. Travis most recently served as the director of communications for EPA’s Office of Water and previously managed public affairs for the Chesapeake Bay Program. Prior to that, he was the speechwriter and a communications manager for the Governor of Hawaii. Travis spent the first seven years of his career as a newspaper reporter and editor in North Carolina; Washington, D.C.; and Hawaii.