For most FilterForGoodians, opting to take back the tap and ditch disposable water bottles is a lifestyle choice. For many around the world, however, neither reliable tap water nor expensive bottled water is available or affordable as an option — making clean water a major human rights issue.

That’s why I love the work that environmental nonprofit Wherever the Need** is doing. Now, Wherever the Need creates eco-friendly toilet facilities in poor regions — so you may ask, why focus on getting people toilets, instead of first just making sure people have clean water to drink? In fact, toilet and tap are inextricably connected. Having clean toilet facilities actually means having clean drinking water too!

I got the explanation from Wherever The Need UK’s Executive Director David Crosweller, who spoke about the nonprofit at an informational dinner in Santa Monica last year. When there are no sanitary toilets — let alone facilities for washing hands after using toilets — human waste can easily contaminate the food chain and nearby bodies of water where people draw their drinking water. That contamination then quickly spreads diseases like cholera, typhoid and dysentery, killing many as well as perpetuating a cycle of poverty as frequent illness keeps kids from getting to school for education and prevents adults from working.

That’s why Wherever the Need promotes clean toilet facilities as the first step towards alleviating poverty. The nonprofit builds each toilet facility for about $3000 – $4000, then works locally to educate people about using and maintaining these facilities to save water, prevent contamination of water resources, and even use the resulting human compost to increase soil fertility for better agriculture and food security. Watch this 7-minute video** to see how Wherever the Need’s eco-san toilets can change a community.

Since 1.6 million children under 5 still die each year due to lack of clean water and sanitation facilities, Wherever the Need really has its work cut out for them. In the L.A. area, environmental activists have been working hard to raise funds for the water-wise charity. Last year, Wherever the Need threw an 80s-themed fundraiser at the V Lounge in Santa Monica and held an Architectural School Eco-san Design Competition** that got students at SCI-Arc, USC, and Otis to design new eco-san toilets, for a chance to get their design built in India or Sierra Leone.

Want to help? You can donate directly to Wherever the Need** — which, by the way, is also involved with relief efforts in Haiti** by delivering clean water and sanitation. Or if you’re more of a donate-with-a-purchase type, peruse the eco-friendly goods at USELESS,** a green store that gives 10% of its profits to water and sanitation projects, mostly through Wherever the Need.

I wish USELESS based its donations on a percentage of sales — which would let me know exactly how much of what I spend is actually going to be donated. Still, if you happen to need a 100% post-consumer recycled notebook or laptop bag made of upcycled billboards anyway, you can shop USELESS with the happy knowledge that some of what you spend will help build ecosan toilets in a village called Kundorwahun in Sierra Leone and a middle school in Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu, India.**

Images via Wherever the Need and USELESS

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