Toilet Habits

Today as we stand we find ourselves more magnificent and refined society, a society that has everything intact. But, as long as the entire stretch of time Bhutan do not have any good and healthy toilet habits.

The most people are interested in clean toilets and it's no exception for Khengpas. Although this place is far left place yet people around are well aware of 'the importance of Toilets'.

The only public toilet we'll find in zhemgang is below the main town; few meters away from vegetable markets. Anyone can use this toilet free but as a responsible citizen we need to flash down one’s own waste with water while making a visit.  

In Bhutan, toilet habits seemed to be the poorest of all the habits. As, it was passed down from a very ancient time, from our grandparents in using forest, bushes, stone tops and dead logs and so on as a toilets. We never think of replacing our toilets with better water supply, flash system and resting pot. We only think off easy ways to ease the problem without thinking its side effect and health hazards. So, if this trend continues we can never stand as civilized society even in thousand years down. The concept of "ours" isn’t there in our culture and community; we leave everything to government and to others without thinking it's all our investments or property.  

The clean toilets policy is always the common talk and the challenges in every place; be it in public, individual home and schools.  So, why is there always a question of unclean toilets although it is one basic part of life? My understanding on the issues very simple, our people are not aware of personal hygiene and long run possessions, since there are free medical services available.

Honestly, we're a very bad toilet users since we don't have the habit of using water, we only think of one time use, be it toilet or any other public property. We never bother on government's property; we hardly consider things like public toilet usage, dustbin for waste disposal and street lighting system. However, on clean toilet usage there is always a question of Bhutan being bad in toilet habits and Bhutan even don’t have good toilets. So, to my knowledge recently many tourists have left notable feedback on the common toilet issues, they were not happy with the toilet facilities and the conditions of existing toilets nationwide.    

I've over-heard people averring the very clean toilets in country like Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Finland, Denmark and Norway. Because every individual in this place takes their own shares of responsibilities/duties, they're well established to be called as civic society since individual shoulders their own task rightly.

Friends of mine who have visited Australia and lived there for almost four years have narrated me several systems and the one that I liked the most is 'paying taxes' to government for them meant so much. As, they believe that government property is also their own property because through huge tax collections government pay back in term of required facilities and that becomes theirs property. Apart from this, if anybody is found to temper and mis-use any of the facility - toilet services, street electricity and trash bin, anyone on the spot can penalize and fine the individual. So, I also wanted to have same rules being implemented in our community so that we will feel the pinch of our exudate. Nevertheless, with similar kinds of policy being in place can certainly place our country's development and reputation to high profile like any other nation.

The people in the west are equally responsible and they've the sense of belongingness always. If they find anyone not complying with rules and the policy they try looking for the right solutions and fix it aptly. Thus, that is how we find these countries having world class facilities at every point, safe drinking water tap, street light in place and safe trash bin.

However, it is time for us to think of healthy ways otherwise we'll remain as same throughout. It is also time for us to replace our raw and unhygienic toilets. It is time to stop our most used traditional habits of using "sticks and stones" with water. So, by maintaining clean toilets we can keep every disease at bay.  Let's join our hand and make our toilet habits a grand success, more clean and healthy as always.