Sanitation
The Pump Handle
Category archives for Sanitation
Behind the kitchen door: low wages, few benefits for many U.S. restaurant workers
Posted by Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH of George Washington University School of Public Health & Health Services on February 14, 2011 Annual sales revenue in the nation’s restaurant industry tops $515 billion, but few of the 10.3 million workers in the industry earn a living wage. Those are the findings released today of comprehensive surveys of working conditions for 1,700 restaurant workers employed in Washington DC, Miami and Los Angeles. To date, more than 4,300 workers…
From the Broad Street Pump to Flying Toilets: Cities’ Need for Sanitation
Posted by Liz Borkowski on December 8, 2010 In Monday’s post I mentioned how much I loved London when I visited – but London wasn’t always such an appealing place. During the Industrial Revolution, it was filthy and polluted. The stench was appalling, and an episode of particularly foul smells from the Thames River in 1858 was known as the “Great Stink.” Life…
Blog Action Day: Water for the World
Posted by Liz Borkowski on October 15, 2010 Today is Blog Action Day, when bloggers around the world write about an important global topic. This year, the focus is on water. According to the World Health Organization, each year 3.4 million people – most of them children – die from water-related diseases. That includes 1.4 million children dying from diarrhea annually, and 860,000…
In Praise of Toilets
Posted by Liz Borkowski on August 19, 2010 I noted in my post about Pakistan that a shortage of clean water for millions of flood victims may lead to outbreaks of diarrheal diseases. It’s worth getting into the issue of how unclean water causes these diseases. Basically, the problem is water contaminated by human feces. In Clinical Microbiology Reviews, Qadri et al list…