Excerpt: The Luxury of a Toilet

The Numi toilet, an opulent throne produced by the bathroom fixtures company Kohler, will raise its heated seat automatically as you approach. It features two flush settings—“flush-eco” and “flush-full”—and doubles as a bidet, spraying warm water and hot air on users. The toilet also has a built-in FM radio, stereo speakers, and a jack for plugging in an MP3 player. Oh, and it costs $6,400.

For the average American, the Numi is an impossible extravagance. But for 1.1 billion people in the developing world, a flush toilet—any kind of toilet—is an unimaginable luxury. The toilet-less masses, who live mainly in rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia, are forced to practice “open defecation” in fields, forests, rivers or other open spaces. Fecal contamination of rivers can contaminate drinking water, and this helps contribute to 1.5 million deaths from diarrhea in children under five every year.

The cost of a porcelain toilet in stores across India? Less than $5.

Josie Glausiusz, Luxury of a Toilet