Translator: Hiroko Kawano Reviewer: Mai Iida
First of all, I am a great toilet lover.
When I was in second grade, I experienced urinary frequency.
I looked for toilets everyday.
Looking for toilets became my habit.
Toilets became something I love.
When I become worried, angry, or feel like crying,
I always go to the toilet.
If I can't find one, I become overwhelmed with anxiety.
I am so obsessed with toilets,
that I often dream of toilets.
I feel nature calling,
so I go to the toilet,
but I never feel refreshed, which makes me disappointed.
And when I wake up,
I am always relieved to know that I didn't wet my bed.
Today I would like you all to know how much I love toilets.
I hope I can also inspire you to love toilets just as much as I do.
That's why I am here today.
If I may ask you,
what do you think of toilets?
You may take them for granted
because they're always there in our everyday life,
and we use them without thinking,
without appreciating them.
The only time you appreciate them
may be when you get a bad stomachache,
and are relieved to find one nearby.
But, from the beginning of human history,
especially after humans began to settle in one area,
we've always had "the battle for toilets."
As a matter of fact, we still have such battles.
Does anyone know when the flush toilet was invented?
Actually, 4,000 years ago,
the first flush toilets were excavated in the remains of ancient Mesopotamia.
Their system was slightly different from that of present day:
irrigate water from the river into the city,
send the excretion down into the streams,
and wash them away into the river again.
This system of flush toilets flourished during the Roman Empire.
Public toilets were installed all over the city.
But when Christianity arrived,
as toilets were considered impure,
they were removed from public places.
The toilets, which were once public, became private possession.
This is how the "chamber pot" came to be.
People began to relieve themselves in their private toilets at home.
How did they dispose of the waste?
People became too lazy to go downstairs to throw away the waste,
they began to throw them away outside the window.
Then the streets became muddy with human waste.
Imagine walking down a street and the sky is raining pee and poo.
That's horrible.
To avoid such horrific encounters from the sky,
people invented items that have become modern fashion:
high heels, wide-brimmed hats, and cloaks.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
We can still live with poo and pee all over the city
if they were just dirty and smelly.
Far from it.
They caused typhoid and plague outbreaks which led to an epidemic.
It is said that, in the mid-14th century,
one third of the global population died of the plague.
People desperately sought for solutions.
In the 16th century,
the very first modern flush toilet was finally invented.
It allowed us to wash down all the waste accumulated indoors
into the rivers and the sea.
But this system was still not perfect.
It was not until the 20th century
when we saw the establishment of sewage disposal technology,
that we finally had safe and hygienic toilet systems.
Let's turn to Japan back then.
Since the Kamakura period,
toilets became public as they were installed in temples.
In Japan at the time, people ate and then defecated.
The excreted urine and feces were collected to make fertilizer.
The fertilizer was used to grow vegetables.
And we ate the vegetables.
In this way, their lifestyle was recycling-oriented.
In the city of Edo,
people collected human waste with their buckets called "hioke."
They visited landowners of tenements
and bought human waste from them.
In those days, human waste was so valuable
that it was treated as gold or money.
Japan was in seclusion at the time, so trade was limited.
So, people lived a nearly perfect recycling-oriented lifestyle.
The opening of the country, however, gradually broke down the recycling circle.
People gathered in urban areas looking for jobs.
This concentrated population yielded mass production of human waste.
This caused the rapid devaluation of human waste,
and the price continued to fall.
The products which once made money
now used up your money to dispose of.
Furthermore, the poo and pee accumulated in the pit toilet
were transferred to rural areas in tank trucks to make fertilizer.
This also started to cost money.
Meanwhile, cheap chemical fertilizers were imported from overseas.
Now, rather than converting human waste into fertilizer,
it was cheaper and easier to dump them out into the sea.
So we did just that.
Later, we were banned from dumping our waste into the sea
because of environmental reasons.
So, Japan adopted the sewage treatment technology
which let us have access to safe, comfortable and convenient toilets
that we have nowadays.
Let's think for a moment.
We've taken a look at Japanese toilet history.
What if we look at toilets all around the world?
According to the UN,
2.5 billion people still do not have regular access to toilets.
A billion people are forced to relieve themselves outdoors.
Most of these people live in emerging countries,
where the population is exploding,
and people go out seeking for jobs in the urban areas.
They are poor and live in the slums
where they lack proper water or sewerage systems.
This picture is where I work now, in Kibera, the largest slum in Kenya.
Needless to say, there is no water or sewerage system here.
However, there are a few public toilets.
It costs 5 to 10 yen to use these toilets.
It is also very dangerous to use these toilets at night.
It’s impossible for kids or women to go to the toilet there.
Then what could the poor do
if they need to go to the toilet at night?
One solution is this:
the "Flying Toilet."
As the name suggests, the toilet flies in the sky.
When someone desperately needs the toilet
but there isn't one nearby,
they use a plastic bag instead.
But they can't keep it at home as it smells so bad,
so they throw it away outside.
(Laughter)
So it is called a flying toilet.
So what happens after that?
This is a place in Kibera.
Piled up are garbage in plastic bags,
about half of which are flying toilets containing pee and poo.
Plastic bags break easily, and the contents come out.
And beside them, as the photo shows,
children love to play with the mud.
This mud most likely contains human waste.
Children eat with their hands that touched the mud.
So many children get diarrhea.
According to UNICEF, 1,400 children die of diarrhea everyday.
We have to do something.
It may be best to adopt the solution of developed countries,
but it isn't practical because of the lack of water.
800 million people are still struggling
to gain access to drinking water.
There are no water or sewerage systems in the slums.
They barely even have access to drinking water.
Water is too valuable to use for flushing waste away.
That is why I am working in Kenya to solve this situation.
I am trying to implement a new toilet system,
the Ecological Waterless Toilet System.
As the name suggests, it doesn't require water.
It will recycle the waste to become fertilizer for the soil.
I want to create a society where we eat food, go to the bathroom,
and the discharged waste gets reduced to fertilizer,
and the fertilizer is put into the soil that make vegetables for us to eat again
This lifestyle may ring a bell.
This is the way we used live.
My ambition is to make this way of living happen in Kenya.
I insist on this recycling lifestyle because of this:
The increase in population leads to issues
such as water and food scarcity.
Our waste still contains a lot nutrients.
We should utilize these valuable resources and return them to the soil again
for a sustainable green society.
Kenyan people understand this concept.
If it were like the old pit-toilets,
they would not want to use them.
So we have to make the system comfortable.
My ecological waterless toilet system can collect urine and feces separately.
This reduces the smell caused by the generation of ammonia.
This recycling lifestyle and this comfortable toilet system
is what I want to share with the Kenyans,
and gain their understanding to spread this system in Kenya.
That is what I am working for everyday.
Modern type flush toilets were created in Britain some 500 years ago.
I am developing new toilets that will lead to future generations.
This is my determination.
After establishing this toilet system in Kenya, I have another dream:
I want to bring this toilet system back to Japan as well.
I have one reason.
Japan is an earthquake-ridden country.
A huge earthquake is likely to bring about water failure.
A water failure can lead to the dysfunction of our flush toilets.
Even if the water system was fixed,
we wouldn't be able to use the toilet if the sewerage was broken.
Temporary toilets would also be useless
if we don't have a cesspool cleaner truck.
In case of natural disasters,
all we could use are the plastic bags and collect the bags in one place,
just like how the people do in the slums.
In order to confront future disasters,
we must develop toilet systems independent of water infrastructure.
I also think Japanese people use too much water.
You may think Japan has plenty of water, but we actually don't.
We have a lot of rain, but we can't store it.
Most of the rainfall flow into the sea.
Japan is known as the largest importer of water.
We import a large amount of food,
but to produce that food, a large amount of water is necessary.
Japan can't produce that amount of food, as we don't have enough water to do so.
We use a large amount of energy to make clean water.
From downstream to upstream regions,
we recycle just enough water to procure the amount we need.
You may not have known, but actually, we've also been fighting for water.
If a disaster hits us, we may be faced directly with this battle.
This is why I have a proposal to prepare ourselves for this battle.
You must love toilets.
We must become aware of toilets.
Thinking about toilets means thinking about your current environment.
Thinking about toilets will lead you to think about your future environment.
Please do not hesitate to love your toilets.
It might be something very simple.
Have you ever noticed that your toilet has two different types of flushes?
Do you use them accordingly?
This feature is a Japanese invention, which is widely praised around the world.
If you make good use of this function,
a family of four can spare 2,000 liters of water a year.
Are you also watching how much toilet paper you use?
It actually requires more water and energy
to wash away toilet paper than human waste.
So, by using less paper,
we can contribute to the environment as well as energy reduction.
Toilet is never an exit, but an entrance for the human waste.
You send off your poo to its travels from there.
By thinking about your poo's travels,
you will begin to think more about your environment.
Please be more considerate of the toilet, and love the toilet a little more.
It will lead you to better your future environment.
Improving your attitude towards toilets will also improve your environment.
And you'll be prepared for the near future
when the waterless toilet system gets imported into Japan.
Let's love toilets.
Again, let me say,
Love for toilets!
Thank you.
(Applause)