Unilever’s Hygiene Brand Domestos To Break Taboo Of The Loo

Monday, November 19, 2012

LONDON And ROTTERDAM, Nov. 19 /CSRwire/ – Unilever, through its leading hygiene brand Domestos, today – World Toilet Day – announced new initiatives to raise awareness for the global sanitation crisis. ‘Toilets for Health’, a white paper by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Domestos, gives new insights in the sanitation crisis. In Ho Chi Minh City the first Domestos Toilet Academy was opened and in London an interactive statue ‘The Public Toilet’ was revealed. The United Nations has declared access to sanitation a basic human right, yet almost a third of the world’s population suffer from a lack of access to improved sanitation. Unilever, under its Sustainable Living Plan, has committed to helping more than one billion people take action to improve their health and well-being.

The white paper ‘Toilets for Health’ highlights how improved sanitation could greatly reduce diseases such as diarrhoea, which results in at least 1.1 million deaths of children under five every year. Also, the report provides an overview of the main diseases linked to poor sanitation which include cholera, typhoid, hepatitis A&E and many parasitic diseases. The paper revealed:

  • Improved sanitation & handwashing facilities have a particularly positive impact on the education opportunities for young girls;
  • Up to 443 million school days are lost every year due to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) related diseases;
  • Diarrhoea causes under nutrition, it also reduces a child’s resistance to subsequent infections creating a vicious circle of malnutrition & infection.

Source: CSR Wire (link opens in a new window)

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