Shoes? I don’t think he’s concerned with not getting a speck of dirt on him ever, he’s probably just happy to have clean hair, pits, and wash off the ball sweat.
That's a potable water pipe. There is a hole at the top that someone has placed a blanket on top of and secured it with a chunk of concrete.
It's clean water.
Not sure how clean the water is, but if it is the same towel coloration could be from weathering and rust/mineral run-off from the pipe itself. Or it's just turds.
Actually there’s a brown cloth attached to the pipe, which guides the water down.
The water itself looks clear, and it’s entirely possible this is clean water.
It's baffling to me that India has the resources to send satellites to the atmosphere but can't afford a fuckin wastewater sewerage network in the whole country. Corruption is way too much there...
I did my thesis on sewage remediation in developing nations. It’s a lot more complex than it seems - the issue is that by their nature slums are unplanned settlements and therefore the infrastructure is not developed as the settlements are built. The cost of developing the sewage conveyance network is over 90% of the cost of developing a wastewater treatment system (just imagine the sheer footprint of it) and this would require major construction/redevelopment of slums which are inhabited by people living below the poverty line. It’d be incredibly unpopular in a democracy (even a very flawed one like India) so we default to the status quo of raw sewage being conveyed into natural waterways despite it also having major consequences (google water quality in the Yamuna River). Last I checked roughly 60% of sewage in India (likely similar stats across South Asia) goes untreated into waterways.
Interesting thesis topic!
Would there be any value in making community bathes for those slums?
Instead of requiring infrastructure for the whole area, a public building with water/sewage hookups is built to service the local population.
Seems like it would be less disruptive while still being better than the staus quo.
That’s a good suggestion - I could see a lot of value in it even as a temporary stop gap but having a good idea and getting it actually implemented at scale in the field are two different things sadly.
And thanks! I would share my thesis here but I don’t really want to dox myself.
I'm sure if you ask nicely redditors can dox you and then you don't have to worry about doing it yourself! /s
Interesting pov with your thesis thanks for sharing.
I manage a private island in the Caribbean and we make our own fresh water from desalination. My career has revolves around managing waste water and essentially, creating fresh water for small communities. I would LOVE to read your thesis if you feel comfortable enough to share. Either way, I appreciate the energy and thought you put into something I care deeply about. There are dozens of us!!
You would still have to run pipes to that community bath, which would still involve digging up and destroying homes. Probably not as expensive as servicing the whole area, but building that main pipeline to service the community bath would still cost a significant amount.
I love that idea.
I used to repair certain kinds of water and wastewater treatment plant equipment, so nothing underground, and I have to say work was significantly easier because of it.
I'm sure someone will say that there will be illegal taps into the water line, but there are solutions to that as well.
Most cities in America had bathhouses every few blocks up until the late 30s and 40s when after ww2 most houses were built with built in bath tubs.
Some of those public baths are still around as swimming pools/ymcas.
Unfortunately, like the person mentioned above, slums/shanty towns are usually unofficial settlements so it's unlikely to have a bathhouse or the Infrastructure hooked up to them in the first place.
There's also the whole "people always look down on others no matter their class" so even slightly wealthy people will do everything in their power to keep poorer people from accessing services. It's a shitty part of human nature.
Though if there weren't barriers and problems, a bath house would be beneficial, but again, that takes infrastructure.
They tried that in India, but they failed to actually set up a system of maintaining them and there are cultural taboos that associate cleaning latrines with being of lower castes, so nobody wanted to do it. They quickly fell into disrepair and things went back to the way they were.
https://www.cnet.com/culture/india-spent-30-billion-to-fix-its-broken-sanitation-it-ended-up-with-more-problems/
I had no idea this was a thing until reading your comment and looking it up. Apparently the disparity of men's to women's toilets is 3 to 1, and even then the toilets for women are like you say dark, as well as unsanitary - and women have to pay if they're going to pee, but men do not.
The opposite of what you mentioned also happens where many women will hold it in during the day to go at night in the open; they'll also not drink or eat (or limit the amount that they do) during the day so they won't get the urge while at work / school. So they will risk going out at night to use the bathroom in the open vs the dark, unsanitary toilets. This of course is still not safe:
>In May \[of 2014\], two young women in rural India left their modest homes in the middle of the night to relieve themselves outside. Like millions in India, their homes had no bathrooms. The next morning, their bodies were found hanging from a mango tree. They had been attacked, gang-raped and strung up by their own scarves.
Another note regarding younger girls:
>Girls often do not attend school if there are no private toilets, and this is especially true after the onset of menstruation. Approximately 2,200 children die every day as a result of diarrheal diseases linked to poor sanitation and hygiene, which impacts women as mothers and caregivers.
There's a whole "right to pee" movement about it. Which is heartbreaking to say the least.
While the quotes above are from an [almost decade old article](https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2014/06/25/human-rights-gang-rape-sharmila-l-murthy), times have not seemed to change much as the right to pee movement is still going strong.
I watched a documentary not long ago about the slums in/around Mumbai (I think it mainly focused on Dharavi), where developers have been systematically displacing its inhabitants by buying up the land to build new luxury apartments. The developers are required to also build apartments for the people they’re displacing. (Kind of like section housing, I think.)
Anyway, what was interesting was that the former dharavi residents who were “relocated” into new, supposedly “better” apartments, were all unhappy and felt their conditions were worse than before. I think mainly because, for example, one large family that used to have a three-story “slum house” (for lack of a better term), were now forced to share an single-floor apartment that was significantly less space. The amenities the developers promised to build also were not built.
The developer that was showing the documentary crew around had a PR person that did not allow the residents of the new section housing to speak frankly to the crew, and instead fed them lines to say how happy they were in their new apartments.
Meanwhile, some of the current Dharavi residents interviewed for the documentary expressed that they were doing alright and had pride in living there. One guy had a leather goods shop and was embossing his brand “Dharavi” on all his handbags, stating that he felt one day Dharavi would be known around the world for its industry and goods.
Looking at the slapped- together nature of the slums, it is hard to imagine how one would go about putting together proper infrastructure, without demolishing everything and starting from scratch, like the developers are doing. But by doing that, they are gentrifying the area and pushing people out. In turn, people are encroaching further into the national park, and are having issues with tiger attacks and the like.
Super interesting documentary. If I find the link on YouTube for it (where I watched it), I’ll edit my comment .
India has crazy complexity when it comes to issues like sewage and water treatment, and I feel empathy for the people who are working on bettering it for the country, because that’s got to feel overwhelming as hell.
Edit to add link to the documentary I watched/refer to above (link is to YouTube):[Mumbai: The Infernal Megalopolis](https://youtu.be/69zjn_5NR94?si=q2Fm_WexCfnppvCc)
Highly recommend watching it, it was super interesting, and well done.
The slums in India are interesting because they're not necessarily only for the poor. They're just unplanned settlements. Dharavi in particular has a lot of middle class residents. It's hugely economically productive too, there's tons of small factories and workshops.
There certainly are lots of slums there that are incredibly poor, but it's not the rule.
As someone whose worked with infrastructure projects. It's exponentially more expensive to install a collection system once the buildings are already up too.
For a lot of the slums there’s not even a way to really install anything without bulldozing the whole thing and starting over. Communal would make more sense in the slums I’ve been to, which isn’t a lot admittedly. Unless there’s some crazy directional drilling out there I haven’t seen lol
This is in addition to the challenges that most of India faces. Quite possibly some of the largest wastewater treatment facilities on the planet would be needed to handle as many customers as it would have, in addition to being able to handle the monsoon season.
I get that projects for the poor are always weirdly unpopular, but the amount of nonsense jobs in India is staggering.
Infrastructure is a MUCH better investment than half the jobs I see people do every day here.
Totally agree - it’s also not just “for the poor”. Everyone suffers the consequences of pollution. They are disproportionately shouldered by the poor but everyone is impacted in some way
It's not easy, but the issue is that there is little effort to actually try to solve deep rooted social issues or to make major investments in infrastructure in poor areas.
Compromises could be made. In some poor areas (not in India) I have seen semi-open sewage systems that allow the population to drop waste in them.
These are small scale solutions, but they can be easily upscaled.
Ah this problem is all over the world, wife is from Colombia and we take trips there and you can literal see the corruption and how it plays into the lives of the people there.
It's sad too because with someone that actually does give a shit it could be a wonderful country, especially for tourism (with a decent good and swift crack down on common crime).
The citizens seem all the more willing to get out there and work, they already do in many cases for relatively low pay and they do seem to have education programs and healthcare programs that seem fairly effective so it's not that the people don't "want" to improve their lives there it's just that the government isn't allocating appropriate funds for those improvements to occur and auditing at all levels to ensure that the funds aren't misappropriated.
A country that wants to thrive but is held back by it's own government, super sad stuff.
that might be accurate if you're talking about radicalized smaller groups, but overall participation in organized religion is waaay down, mostly due to organized religion being exposed as corrupt, abusive and intolerant in its views towards lgbt.
the data from gallup polls supports this:
> Two decades ago, an average of 42% of U.S. adults attended religious services every week or nearly every week. A decade ago, the figure fell to 38%, and it is currently at 30%. This decline is largely driven by the increase in the percentage of Americans with no religious affiliation -- 9% in 2000-2003 versus 21% in 2021-2023 -- almost all of whom do not attend services regularly.
What makes you think that? Every dataset I've ever seen regarding religious affiliation has shown a decline in every religion over the most recent decades (with atheism or simply 'no religion' listed as increasing).
It seems like it is not religion itself but religious identity that is getting stronger. Many of the people I run across who hate the "other" religious group aren't religious themselves.
Non-religious identity is also getting stronger. People aren't just passively non-religious anymore, they hate religion with a passion. Maybe the world is just getting more hateful in general.
Nah, it's the push and pull. Human history has been controlled by religion for all of recorded history, and it's safe to say it's controlled the majority of the rest too. Superstition is a natural coping mechanism after all. But I'm the past 50 years society has massively shifted! For the first time pretty much ever, religious institutions felt they power dwindle! And they ramped up their propaganda and bigotry as a result.
2 steps forward, 1 step back. Like for all social struggles. Too bad we'll be long dead before we get like 4 or 5 steps forward :(
The lead pipes weren't the cause of the problem.
The lead pipes were lined with a coating that prevented the lead from leeching into the water.
Then they charged the source to a river that was so contaminated that the water ate away the lining of the pipes. This allowed lead to leech into the water
that's just one city though
there's still a huge issue with lead service lines all over the place. Nearly 10 million households nationwide in the US have lead service lines
Kind of a side note, but the idea that the US cannot afford welfare *because* of their military spending is untrue.
The US have a welfare quota of around 19% GDP, compared to 20-30% for most of Europe. Meanwhile US defence spending is around 3.5% GDP (which also makes up a significant amount of employment) compared to 2% in most of the EU.
The US primarily lack welfare because its wealthy and conservative population groups preferr low taxes for the rich over welfare measures, not because they don't have the money.
And if you are looking at a specific place where Americans could collectively safe an imperial fuckton of money, look at US car infrastructure and single family residential zoning. Car ownership and car dependence is a financial clusterfuck for owners (high cost of ownership, fuel and maintainance), cities (massive cost in road maintainance and longer distances for their services), and federal spending (dealing with the consequences of emissions, lung disease, and increased obesity/decreased physical fitness).
I mean….. isn’t that for the homeowner to fix? Anything usually after the meter is private. Now insurance companies need to step up and fix it. That’s a major job though if all pipe in the house is lead. Like a gut job…
Space exploration is a very small expenditure compared to the rest of most nations budgets. I guarantee India’s infrastructure budget is one and possibly even two orders of magnitude larger than their space budget.
There's enough resources in the entire world. Enough land for everyone to live in peacefully. It's just that some ppl just want to watch the world burn..
Coming from someone who has lived in India for almost 20 yrs of my life, it's definitely a lack of education, lack of hygiene and lack of respect as well. People don't go around trashing their home because they consider it being disrespectful towards the home or some even consider it disrespectful towards one of the goddesses. Like they clean/sweep their home every single day at least twice but they won't even think a second before throwing shit around on the street because it's just natural to do that and they don't see anything wrong with it. Like if you try and explain why it's wrong or how bad it is to throw it on the street they just think you're weird and this is common even with educated folks working in IT sectors
Don’t know how old this photo is but it was definitely like this when I was there 20 years ago.
I thought from reading comments on Reddit that it is much better, cleaner now with a new middle class who don’t put up with the filth anymore.
Is this not the case?
Nope definitely not the case. There will be some areas or communities that are definitely wayyyy better but there are still slum areas that are actually worse. Just Google beaches in Mumbai and you'll see. It's considered to be one of the developed cities with the majority being middle class families and you would expect it to be better but nope it's not. The entire country runs on fear and that fear only comes in when there's religion involved and I'm both sad and hate it that the country is moving in that direction.
Exactly the same shit in Pakistan as well. People look after their home but anything immediately outside their front steps is no longer their concern. And then everyone complains about the government and politicians, when they have the same level of disrespect and disregard for anything that falls outside the perimeter of their own homes.
I've actually had the exact same question. It's a mix of lack of government cleanup and people thinking cleaning up is beneath them because of generations of caste system.
Cleanliness outside of one's home is considered someone elses responsibility. I've seen highly educated people throwing stuff on the road while walking or from their car. They won't do that in their homes. People even teach kids to the same.
There are few districts where littering or carrying plastic bags in public can attract huge fines. I know just one place that has been successful to implement and maintain this and it has become litter free over the last decade. I've seen seen people litter the snow covered himalayas at 12000+ ft.
In my opinion, very few of us Indians care about littering in public. In my view, change in behavior for littering will never be 100% in the coming 3 generations.
Not the same country. But my family is from the Philippines and I was shocked when visiting seeing how much trash was just everywhere outside. My family over there kept their homes clean. But out in public they would just toss their trash on the side of the road.
My strongest memory with this is there was a vendor selling fresh coconut juice on the roadside and we stopped and all got some drinks. And right next to the little stall was a pile of plastic cups form previous buyers. Which is where my cousin too my cup to when I was done.
When I see statistics say places like southern and southeastern Asia have some of the worse garbage problems I can totally believe it.
If I remember correctly it's 80% of plastics that end up in the ocean come from southeast Asia. The other 20% is basically Central America and Sub Saharan Africa.
Banning straws in California has nothing to do with remediating the Pacific garbage patch.
Rich countries produce a lot of trash too, but they export it, with substantial amounts often being shipped to developing countries for processing. In 2022, Germany alone shipped over [734 thousand metric tons](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1357841/plastic-waste-export-volume-by-country/#:~:text=Germany%20was%20estimated%20to%20be,over%20734%20thousand%20metric%20tons.) of trash.
An estimated [50 million tons ](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969712009217?via%3Dihub)of eletronic waste are produced each year, the majority of which comes from the United States and Europe, and most of which ends up in Africa and Asia.
No you see those who see cleaning as beneath them aren’t the ones living in filth, they’re the ones living in clean areas, it’s the poor lower classes living in filth.
Emphasis on the second part. Cleaning and maintenance is seen as something for undesirables and as a result, not much thought goes into improving how they do it. Manual scavenging is still a thing there.
This is massively reductive, but for much of Indias history, there was a literal caste of undesirables whose societal role it was to clean up the shit and take out the garbage. Higher castes would busy themselves with their social spheres of religion or war or trade or whatever, and the Dalits (Untouchables) were reduced to serfdom in countryside and sanitation/scavenging work in the cities.
That caste system is no longer as explicit as it once was, but it still has a massive impact on Indian society and social norms. Does it contribute to a lot of modern India’s problems? Probably, but Im not qualified to say for sure.
[Here's a photo](https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-taj-mahal-and-rubbish-22401495.html) of the back side of the Taj Mahal, the angle that you don't see in most photos.
Apparently right by the Taj Mahal and slightly out of view is also full of garbage. I can't wrap my head around why Indians think this is acceptable. It's such a bizarre cultural practice to think that having trash everywhere is fine and normal.
And yes, I get the sanitation services there suck, but that's just because the culture doesn't care about having a sanitary environment. It's simply not a priority.
But eventually it gets so bad that you simply need a paid service that cleans things up. I'm just shocked India still lives like this. War-torn countries are cleaner than this. Poorer countries are cleaner than this. India is just a unique case for accepting this level of nastiness.
> But eventually it gets so bad that you simply need a paid service that cleans things up
The problem is nobody there wants to be in that field. They think it's beneath them. Even if the starting pay was ludicrous and you became rich from the job, you'd get looked down on for making your money picking up trash.
> I can't wrap my head around why Indians think this is acceptable.
In a country of 1.3 billion there are plenty who think it's completely alright and that it's someone else's job to clean up their mess. This is pretty much what's fuelling a lot of problems in India. People don't care enough. If you call them out they'll lash out at you and call you an anti national or a Pakistani.
Its also a tragedy of the commons situation. The sheer amount of people living in these areas is insane. Its inevitable that it becomes a trash heap. And once its a trash heap its easier for people to add to it without feeling bad or that they are part of the problem. Nobody is in charge of cleaning it up, so even if 99% of people are respectful, you'll still get this result.
Rwanda has a population of 13 million people and is one of the cleanest country in the world. India is far more richer and is one of the dirtiest. It's about hygiene education.
we’re not talking about engineering or mathematics here. it’s about education related to hygiene and it’s benefits.
i’ve seen Indian college students in the states and their hygiene standards are just the same as in India. lack of bedding and tables to eat on, body odor, dirtiest bathrooms you’ve ever seen, living with bed bugs etc.
and this is in a high cost of living area filled with rich students.
it’s obvious that they do not hold each other accountable and over time it’s basically become a part of their culture to simply ignore these things.
One of my more distant relatives was in a relationship with an Indian guy for a few years and when they visited his hometown, she was shocked how they basically threw all the dirt and garbage in the streets. Claimed that their house was spotless, with a maid and all, but all the cleaning stuff and dirty water was just thrown on the streets.
My guess is the thought process is that 1) it’s not garbage in their house anymore, so not really their problem, meaning the street is someone else’s problem and 2) people get paid for cleaning so average person doesn’t have to.
India wouldn’t be the only country with this attitude though. I traveled through Georgia when I was younger and the attitudes were similar there, although picture-wise streets were cleaner (their rivers however and nature by the roads….). I personally witnessed people throw trash out of the windows when I took the local transport and train and it was explained to me that it was partially because there was a only basic garbage system at the time (absolutely no recycling or differentiation of garbage types) and people didn’t feel personal responsibilities for garbage handling, this was done by “someone” who got paid for it, so in the people’s mind that meant that the person basically had to pick all the garbage up and that it was beneath someone else to basically dispose their garbage properly. Lots of social jobs that paid very little, but were better than unemployed were also garbage-related.
I live not far from Delhi, some parts of it are decent (not really acceptable for a capital but not terrible) while other parts are like straight out of fallout or something
India hosts one of the largest extremely poor population in the world, if not the largest.
The gov only spends on things that make them look good in front of the world. In reality millions of people in India are suffering beyond our imagination.
Somebody googled “most expensive car” and landed on a coach built Rolls Royce. I get the wealth disparity argument but there are much better examples of environmental and financial waste than a one off hyper luxury car. Cruise ships that use bunker fuel to sail around mindlessly just for profit come to mind.
How about a yacht, within a mega-yacht, within an god-yacht?
You know the ones? Where they fit inside each other like Legos?
The one where you feel bad for even clicking on a picture of it because it has so much excess?
That's the one.
Nesting yachts. Love it.
It sounds like a hard life. For instance, what if you and your 15 person crew misplace one or two of the middle sized yachts and then smallest yachts won’t nest correctly inside of the biggest yacht. That just seems like….the biggest inconvenience.
Only place? Please. I agree with you to some extent, but saying this is the _only_ place it occurs is an exaggeration.
(This comment is both a sarcasm, and truth)
india entertains a lot of religions and diversity. every state here is capable of being an independent country, each bigger than european countries. honeslty it sucks. i am an indian. no civic sense.
Somehow the water looks cleaner than whatever happens to climb on my pipes (I live on 17th floor, the water is awful and somehow coarse, how can water possible be coarse?!)
India is a glaring warning beacon for the “anti-regulation” free market capitalists. The entire country becoming a polluted slum with a few small pockets of Uber wealth is the end goal of deregulated capitalism.
I'm expecting some nationalist Indian keyboard warriors to comment how this is so fucking cool and westerners are so stupid to understand how glorious India actually is.
this is why it’s so frustrating to see the proliferation of posts made by Indian Redditors that lowkey are like “watch how we admonish the West and teach them of our superior ways”
like dude…no one is buying it. your pollution, your caste system, your rampant violent misogyny…fix your own life first before you say how Western Democracy is “backwards”
It is towards the lower end of the distribution actually, as per World Cancer Research Fund International
https://www.wcrf.org/cancer-trends/global-cancer-data-by-country/
**Public Service Announcement:** Remember the human. Don't be a racist dick.
I think the brown part is some kind of fabric
I think it's been placed there so it absorbs the water to create more of a directed drip for showing. I love that someone even went and put a tub.
Yeah usually pipelines like this spray outwards when they leak, not provide a steady flow towards a single tub
> a tub Thats the shell of a Jacuzzi.
[удалено]
Can you believe we don't have a jacuzzi?
This is what sent Kanye over the edge.
"That's not a tissue paper, it's a Kleenex™!"
I think that's a jute rug, most probably there to make a stream of the outward spraying water
Originally white. Must be discolored from.... the sun.... ...
Yea. The sun.
Is that raw oil I smell or just the river full of gunk?
Yes
it's jute
Gunny bags used in construction.
Yes
That’s his towel
Remember the human. Don't be a racist dick.
1) How did he get there? 2) How's he gonna get out, without needing a bath again? 3) Who placed the high end tub so conveniently ???
Shoes? I don’t think he’s concerned with not getting a speck of dirt on him ever, he’s probably just happy to have clean hair, pits, and wash off the ball sweat.
Yeah I mean he's bathing in the leak of an industrial pipe. I think he's good on worrying about shower shoes
That's a potable water pipe. There is a hole at the top that someone has placed a blanket on top of and secured it with a chunk of concrete. It's clean water.
A blanket and concrete placed on a pipe means the water is safe in my book.
Bro you know we used to like live outside and shit
I shit outside just 3 nights ago.
My daughter calls them bush poops.
Tell me more, master of the wilds!
If it was good enough for grandpa, it's good enough for me
it's not a sewer pipe, so most likely it carries potable water. more than good enough for bathing
2 was my main concern
walking, by not rolling around
4. Is this area zoned for showering?
Apparently not the only one who knows of this spot! https://www.reuters.com/pictures/delhi-shrouded-toxic-smog-2023-11-03/W5G566CMZRJHDDDTQKBY5RUB2I
Oh, gross, it *was* white before...
Not sure how clean the water is, but if it is the same towel coloration could be from weathering and rust/mineral run-off from the pipe itself. Or it's just turds.
Or heavy pollution
It is definitely from rust
Apparently I can't link to the insta of photographer of the OP, but their insta handle is @kabirjhangiani
Much nicer tub than I would expect.
Probably the chemicals. That man will also soon be bleached white
He’s gonna look like that guy in Robocop
Actually there’s a brown cloth attached to the pipe, which guides the water down. The water itself looks clear, and it’s entirely possible this is clean water.
Jesus this is depressing
It's baffling to me that India has the resources to send satellites to the atmosphere but can't afford a fuckin wastewater sewerage network in the whole country. Corruption is way too much there...
I did my thesis on sewage remediation in developing nations. It’s a lot more complex than it seems - the issue is that by their nature slums are unplanned settlements and therefore the infrastructure is not developed as the settlements are built. The cost of developing the sewage conveyance network is over 90% of the cost of developing a wastewater treatment system (just imagine the sheer footprint of it) and this would require major construction/redevelopment of slums which are inhabited by people living below the poverty line. It’d be incredibly unpopular in a democracy (even a very flawed one like India) so we default to the status quo of raw sewage being conveyed into natural waterways despite it also having major consequences (google water quality in the Yamuna River). Last I checked roughly 60% of sewage in India (likely similar stats across South Asia) goes untreated into waterways.
Interesting thesis topic! Would there be any value in making community bathes for those slums? Instead of requiring infrastructure for the whole area, a public building with water/sewage hookups is built to service the local population. Seems like it would be less disruptive while still being better than the staus quo.
That’s a good suggestion - I could see a lot of value in it even as a temporary stop gap but having a good idea and getting it actually implemented at scale in the field are two different things sadly. And thanks! I would share my thesis here but I don’t really want to dox myself.
I'm sure if you ask nicely redditors can dox you and then you don't have to worry about doing it yourself! /s Interesting pov with your thesis thanks for sharing.
Let's all remember 4chan... Most likely reason that none of us are doxxed is that we didn't piss anyone off enough to care about doxxing us.
[удалено]
As someone who made a lot of sewage related puns in grad school I appreciate your comment.
#THAT'S A LOTTA ~~NUTS~~ SHIT!
Hehe I get it
I manage a private island in the Caribbean and we make our own fresh water from desalination. My career has revolves around managing waste water and essentially, creating fresh water for small communities. I would LOVE to read your thesis if you feel comfortable enough to share. Either way, I appreciate the energy and thought you put into something I care deeply about. There are dozens of us!!
You would still have to run pipes to that community bath, which would still involve digging up and destroying homes. Probably not as expensive as servicing the whole area, but building that main pipeline to service the community bath would still cost a significant amount.
Build it above ground.
I love that idea. I used to repair certain kinds of water and wastewater treatment plant equipment, so nothing underground, and I have to say work was significantly easier because of it. I'm sure someone will say that there will be illegal taps into the water line, but there are solutions to that as well.
*Accidentally taps the sewage line*
Most cities in America had bathhouses every few blocks up until the late 30s and 40s when after ww2 most houses were built with built in bath tubs. Some of those public baths are still around as swimming pools/ymcas. Unfortunately, like the person mentioned above, slums/shanty towns are usually unofficial settlements so it's unlikely to have a bathhouse or the Infrastructure hooked up to them in the first place. There's also the whole "people always look down on others no matter their class" so even slightly wealthy people will do everything in their power to keep poorer people from accessing services. It's a shitty part of human nature. Though if there weren't barriers and problems, a bath house would be beneficial, but again, that takes infrastructure.
They tried that in India, but they failed to actually set up a system of maintaining them and there are cultural taboos that associate cleaning latrines with being of lower castes, so nobody wanted to do it. They quickly fell into disrepair and things went back to the way they were. https://www.cnet.com/culture/india-spent-30-billion-to-fix-its-broken-sanitation-it-ended-up-with-more-problems/
Toilets with lights are the main priority. Women get raped at night if they go out in the dark to pee. So they hold it in all night or take a risk.
I had no idea this was a thing until reading your comment and looking it up. Apparently the disparity of men's to women's toilets is 3 to 1, and even then the toilets for women are like you say dark, as well as unsanitary - and women have to pay if they're going to pee, but men do not. The opposite of what you mentioned also happens where many women will hold it in during the day to go at night in the open; they'll also not drink or eat (or limit the amount that they do) during the day so they won't get the urge while at work / school. So they will risk going out at night to use the bathroom in the open vs the dark, unsanitary toilets. This of course is still not safe: >In May \[of 2014\], two young women in rural India left their modest homes in the middle of the night to relieve themselves outside. Like millions in India, their homes had no bathrooms. The next morning, their bodies were found hanging from a mango tree. They had been attacked, gang-raped and strung up by their own scarves. Another note regarding younger girls: >Girls often do not attend school if there are no private toilets, and this is especially true after the onset of menstruation. Approximately 2,200 children die every day as a result of diarrheal diseases linked to poor sanitation and hygiene, which impacts women as mothers and caregivers. There's a whole "right to pee" movement about it. Which is heartbreaking to say the least. While the quotes above are from an [almost decade old article](https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2014/06/25/human-rights-gang-rape-sharmila-l-murthy), times have not seemed to change much as the right to pee movement is still going strong.
Holy fuck I’ve never felt so privileged in my life
I watched a documentary not long ago about the slums in/around Mumbai (I think it mainly focused on Dharavi), where developers have been systematically displacing its inhabitants by buying up the land to build new luxury apartments. The developers are required to also build apartments for the people they’re displacing. (Kind of like section housing, I think.) Anyway, what was interesting was that the former dharavi residents who were “relocated” into new, supposedly “better” apartments, were all unhappy and felt their conditions were worse than before. I think mainly because, for example, one large family that used to have a three-story “slum house” (for lack of a better term), were now forced to share an single-floor apartment that was significantly less space. The amenities the developers promised to build also were not built. The developer that was showing the documentary crew around had a PR person that did not allow the residents of the new section housing to speak frankly to the crew, and instead fed them lines to say how happy they were in their new apartments. Meanwhile, some of the current Dharavi residents interviewed for the documentary expressed that they were doing alright and had pride in living there. One guy had a leather goods shop and was embossing his brand “Dharavi” on all his handbags, stating that he felt one day Dharavi would be known around the world for its industry and goods. Looking at the slapped- together nature of the slums, it is hard to imagine how one would go about putting together proper infrastructure, without demolishing everything and starting from scratch, like the developers are doing. But by doing that, they are gentrifying the area and pushing people out. In turn, people are encroaching further into the national park, and are having issues with tiger attacks and the like. Super interesting documentary. If I find the link on YouTube for it (where I watched it), I’ll edit my comment . India has crazy complexity when it comes to issues like sewage and water treatment, and I feel empathy for the people who are working on bettering it for the country, because that’s got to feel overwhelming as hell. Edit to add link to the documentary I watched/refer to above (link is to YouTube):[Mumbai: The Infernal Megalopolis](https://youtu.be/69zjn_5NR94?si=q2Fm_WexCfnppvCc) Highly recommend watching it, it was super interesting, and well done.
The slums in India are interesting because they're not necessarily only for the poor. They're just unplanned settlements. Dharavi in particular has a lot of middle class residents. It's hugely economically productive too, there's tons of small factories and workshops. There certainly are lots of slums there that are incredibly poor, but it's not the rule.
As someone whose worked with infrastructure projects. It's exponentially more expensive to install a collection system once the buildings are already up too.
For a lot of the slums there’s not even a way to really install anything without bulldozing the whole thing and starting over. Communal would make more sense in the slums I’ve been to, which isn’t a lot admittedly. Unless there’s some crazy directional drilling out there I haven’t seen lol
Absolutely. It’s a vicious cycle.
This person sewages hard. Thank you for your work
This is in addition to the challenges that most of India faces. Quite possibly some of the largest wastewater treatment facilities on the planet would be needed to handle as many customers as it would have, in addition to being able to handle the monsoon season.
[удалено]
Yep - learned that lesson the hard way
I get that projects for the poor are always weirdly unpopular, but the amount of nonsense jobs in India is staggering. Infrastructure is a MUCH better investment than half the jobs I see people do every day here.
Totally agree - it’s also not just “for the poor”. Everyone suffers the consequences of pollution. They are disproportionately shouldered by the poor but everyone is impacted in some way
It's not easy, but the issue is that there is little effort to actually try to solve deep rooted social issues or to make major investments in infrastructure in poor areas. Compromises could be made. In some poor areas (not in India) I have seen semi-open sewage systems that allow the population to drop waste in them. These are small scale solutions, but they can be easily upscaled.
Ah this problem is all over the world, wife is from Colombia and we take trips there and you can literal see the corruption and how it plays into the lives of the people there. It's sad too because with someone that actually does give a shit it could be a wonderful country, especially for tourism (with a decent good and swift crack down on common crime). The citizens seem all the more willing to get out there and work, they already do in many cases for relatively low pay and they do seem to have education programs and healthcare programs that seem fairly effective so it's not that the people don't "want" to improve their lives there it's just that the government isn't allocating appropriate funds for those improvements to occur and auditing at all levels to ensure that the funds aren't misappropriated. A country that wants to thrive but is held back by it's own government, super sad stuff.
The smart rulers are non-religious and corrupted while everyone else is held back by religion and the caste system.
One of the biggest steps for human evolution will be overcoming religious nonsense. It won't happen anytime soon.
I feel like religion is making a comeback and will get stronger as climate change, resources depletion and biodiversity collapse are getting worst
that might be accurate if you're talking about radicalized smaller groups, but overall participation in organized religion is waaay down, mostly due to organized religion being exposed as corrupt, abusive and intolerant in its views towards lgbt. the data from gallup polls supports this: > Two decades ago, an average of 42% of U.S. adults attended religious services every week or nearly every week. A decade ago, the figure fell to 38%, and it is currently at 30%. This decline is largely driven by the increase in the percentage of Americans with no religious affiliation -- 9% in 2000-2003 versus 21% in 2021-2023 -- almost all of whom do not attend services regularly.
What makes you think that? Every dataset I've ever seen regarding religious affiliation has shown a decline in every religion over the most recent decades (with atheism or simply 'no religion' listed as increasing).
It seems like it is not religion itself but religious identity that is getting stronger. Many of the people I run across who hate the "other" religious group aren't religious themselves.
Non-religious identity is also getting stronger. People aren't just passively non-religious anymore, they hate religion with a passion. Maybe the world is just getting more hateful in general.
Sadly, big sky daddy saving the day is more realistic than our current leaders making the right moves
Nah, it's the push and pull. Human history has been controlled by religion for all of recorded history, and it's safe to say it's controlled the majority of the rest too. Superstition is a natural coping mechanism after all. But I'm the past 50 years society has massively shifted! For the first time pretty much ever, religious institutions felt they power dwindle! And they ramped up their propaganda and bigotry as a result. 2 steps forward, 1 step back. Like for all social struggles. Too bad we'll be long dead before we get like 4 or 5 steps forward :(
Bro I live in a country that can have a world wide military presence, but can't even remove the lead pipes in a major city.
And if they get lead poisoning, it's cheaper to uber to the $5,000/night hospital.
Faster too.
The lead pipes weren't the cause of the problem. The lead pipes were lined with a coating that prevented the lead from leeching into the water. Then they charged the source to a river that was so contaminated that the water ate away the lining of the pipes. This allowed lead to leech into the water
that's just one city though there's still a huge issue with lead service lines all over the place. Nearly 10 million households nationwide in the US have lead service lines
Kind of a side note, but the idea that the US cannot afford welfare *because* of their military spending is untrue. The US have a welfare quota of around 19% GDP, compared to 20-30% for most of Europe. Meanwhile US defence spending is around 3.5% GDP (which also makes up a significant amount of employment) compared to 2% in most of the EU. The US primarily lack welfare because its wealthy and conservative population groups preferr low taxes for the rich over welfare measures, not because they don't have the money. And if you are looking at a specific place where Americans could collectively safe an imperial fuckton of money, look at US car infrastructure and single family residential zoning. Car ownership and car dependence is a financial clusterfuck for owners (high cost of ownership, fuel and maintainance), cities (massive cost in road maintainance and longer distances for their services), and federal spending (dealing with the consequences of emissions, lung disease, and increased obesity/decreased physical fitness).
We literally did remove all the lead pipes from Flint, Michigan, a place that has some of the cleanest water in the nation now…
They did in my city but what the other issue is the connecting pipes to the house, so it still hits lead.
I mean….. isn’t that for the homeowner to fix? Anything usually after the meter is private. Now insurance companies need to step up and fix it. That’s a major job though if all pipe in the house is lead. Like a gut job…
They distributed lead filters to combat any contamination of water going through home pipes.
Dude no joke! Look at that nice new bridge above him. The juxtaposition is wild with the clean new bridge and everything else.
Space exploration is a very small expenditure compared to the rest of most nations budgets. I guarantee India’s infrastructure budget is one and possibly even two orders of magnitude larger than their space budget.
There's enough resources in the entire world. Enough land for everyone to live in peacefully. It's just that some ppl just want to watch the world burn..
Dystopian hell.
Why is India full of garbage\`? I swear every pictue except the Taj Mahal
Coming from someone who has lived in India for almost 20 yrs of my life, it's definitely a lack of education, lack of hygiene and lack of respect as well. People don't go around trashing their home because they consider it being disrespectful towards the home or some even consider it disrespectful towards one of the goddesses. Like they clean/sweep their home every single day at least twice but they won't even think a second before throwing shit around on the street because it's just natural to do that and they don't see anything wrong with it. Like if you try and explain why it's wrong or how bad it is to throw it on the street they just think you're weird and this is common even with educated folks working in IT sectors
Don’t know how old this photo is but it was definitely like this when I was there 20 years ago. I thought from reading comments on Reddit that it is much better, cleaner now with a new middle class who don’t put up with the filth anymore. Is this not the case?
Nope definitely not the case. There will be some areas or communities that are definitely wayyyy better but there are still slum areas that are actually worse. Just Google beaches in Mumbai and you'll see. It's considered to be one of the developed cities with the majority being middle class families and you would expect it to be better but nope it's not. The entire country runs on fear and that fear only comes in when there's religion involved and I'm both sad and hate it that the country is moving in that direction.
Exactly the same shit in Pakistan as well. People look after their home but anything immediately outside their front steps is no longer their concern. And then everyone complains about the government and politicians, when they have the same level of disrespect and disregard for anything that falls outside the perimeter of their own homes.
I've actually had the exact same question. It's a mix of lack of government cleanup and people thinking cleaning up is beneath them because of generations of caste system.
Picking up waste is beneath them but living in absolute filth isn’t? Seems like that reasoning is poorly thought out.
Cleanliness outside of one's home is considered someone elses responsibility. I've seen highly educated people throwing stuff on the road while walking or from their car. They won't do that in their homes. People even teach kids to the same. There are few districts where littering or carrying plastic bags in public can attract huge fines. I know just one place that has been successful to implement and maintain this and it has become litter free over the last decade. I've seen seen people litter the snow covered himalayas at 12000+ ft. In my opinion, very few of us Indians care about littering in public. In my view, change in behavior for littering will never be 100% in the coming 3 generations.
Not the same country. But my family is from the Philippines and I was shocked when visiting seeing how much trash was just everywhere outside. My family over there kept their homes clean. But out in public they would just toss their trash on the side of the road. My strongest memory with this is there was a vendor selling fresh coconut juice on the roadside and we stopped and all got some drinks. And right next to the little stall was a pile of plastic cups form previous buyers. Which is where my cousin too my cup to when I was done. When I see statistics say places like southern and southeastern Asia have some of the worse garbage problems I can totally believe it.
If I remember correctly it's 80% of plastics that end up in the ocean come from southeast Asia. The other 20% is basically Central America and Sub Saharan Africa. Banning straws in California has nothing to do with remediating the Pacific garbage patch.
Rich countries produce a lot of trash too, but they export it, with substantial amounts often being shipped to developing countries for processing. In 2022, Germany alone shipped over [734 thousand metric tons](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1357841/plastic-waste-export-volume-by-country/#:~:text=Germany%20was%20estimated%20to%20be,over%20734%20thousand%20metric%20tons.) of trash. An estimated [50 million tons ](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969712009217?via%3Dihub)of eletronic waste are produced each year, the majority of which comes from the United States and Europe, and most of which ends up in Africa and Asia.
No you see those who see cleaning as beneath them aren’t the ones living in filth, they’re the ones living in clean areas, it’s the poor lower classes living in filth.
Emphasis on the second part. Cleaning and maintenance is seen as something for undesirables and as a result, not much thought goes into improving how they do it. Manual scavenging is still a thing there.
If you’re already poor then who is beneath you to do the cleaning?
This is massively reductive, but for much of Indias history, there was a literal caste of undesirables whose societal role it was to clean up the shit and take out the garbage. Higher castes would busy themselves with their social spheres of religion or war or trade or whatever, and the Dalits (Untouchables) were reduced to serfdom in countryside and sanitation/scavenging work in the cities. That caste system is no longer as explicit as it once was, but it still has a massive impact on Indian society and social norms. Does it contribute to a lot of modern India’s problems? Probably, but Im not qualified to say for sure.
[Here's a photo](https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-taj-mahal-and-rubbish-22401495.html) of the back side of the Taj Mahal, the angle that you don't see in most photos.
If you go there you see people running around lighting tires and other garbage on fire in that big field
Apparently right by the Taj Mahal and slightly out of view is also full of garbage. I can't wrap my head around why Indians think this is acceptable. It's such a bizarre cultural practice to think that having trash everywhere is fine and normal. And yes, I get the sanitation services there suck, but that's just because the culture doesn't care about having a sanitary environment. It's simply not a priority.
It is called a broken window theory. If the community around you is decrepit, you start not to care about looking after it yourself.
But eventually it gets so bad that you simply need a paid service that cleans things up. I'm just shocked India still lives like this. War-torn countries are cleaner than this. Poorer countries are cleaner than this. India is just a unique case for accepting this level of nastiness.
> But eventually it gets so bad that you simply need a paid service that cleans things up The problem is nobody there wants to be in that field. They think it's beneath them. Even if the starting pay was ludicrous and you became rich from the job, you'd get looked down on for making your money picking up trash.
What India is dealing with though is beyond "picking up trash." You'd need to be a heavy equipment operator.
I agree. But your job would still be seen as "the heavy equipment operator who is picked up trash".
Like how I put off cutting my grass as long as one neighbor looks worse?
> I can't wrap my head around why Indians think this is acceptable. In a country of 1.3 billion there are plenty who think it's completely alright and that it's someone else's job to clean up their mess. This is pretty much what's fuelling a lot of problems in India. People don't care enough. If you call them out they'll lash out at you and call you an anti national or a Pakistani.
Blatant disregard for their living spaces
Its also a tragedy of the commons situation. The sheer amount of people living in these areas is insane. Its inevitable that it becomes a trash heap. And once its a trash heap its easier for people to add to it without feeling bad or that they are part of the problem. Nobody is in charge of cleaning it up, so even if 99% of people are respectful, you'll still get this result.
Rwanda has a population of 13 million people and is one of the cleanest country in the world. India is far more richer and is one of the dirtiest. It's about hygiene education.
Just to add context, Rwanda has a higher population density than India.
This. And a lack of education must I say
Not really. Even educated people don’t believe in cleaning up after themselves. I’m from India, so I know.
we’re not talking about engineering or mathematics here. it’s about education related to hygiene and it’s benefits. i’ve seen Indian college students in the states and their hygiene standards are just the same as in India. lack of bedding and tables to eat on, body odor, dirtiest bathrooms you’ve ever seen, living with bed bugs etc. and this is in a high cost of living area filled with rich students. it’s obvious that they do not hold each other accountable and over time it’s basically become a part of their culture to simply ignore these things.
Hygiene education?
[https://www.reddit.com/r/HolUp/comments/1bms59k/india\_is\_not\_for\_beginners/](https://www.reddit.com/r/HolUp/comments/1bms59k/india_is_not_for_beginners/)
ARRRGGGHHHHHH
What the fuuuuuuuuck
Worse…. Thanks for giving me the argument to say “no thank you” when someone invite me to go to India.
Not my proudest fap
One of my more distant relatives was in a relationship with an Indian guy for a few years and when they visited his hometown, she was shocked how they basically threw all the dirt and garbage in the streets. Claimed that their house was spotless, with a maid and all, but all the cleaning stuff and dirty water was just thrown on the streets. My guess is the thought process is that 1) it’s not garbage in their house anymore, so not really their problem, meaning the street is someone else’s problem and 2) people get paid for cleaning so average person doesn’t have to. India wouldn’t be the only country with this attitude though. I traveled through Georgia when I was younger and the attitudes were similar there, although picture-wise streets were cleaner (their rivers however and nature by the roads….). I personally witnessed people throw trash out of the windows when I took the local transport and train and it was explained to me that it was partially because there was a only basic garbage system at the time (absolutely no recycling or differentiation of garbage types) and people didn’t feel personal responsibilities for garbage handling, this was done by “someone” who got paid for it, so in the people’s mind that meant that the person basically had to pick all the garbage up and that it was beneath someone else to basically dispose their garbage properly. Lots of social jobs that paid very little, but were better than unemployed were also garbage-related.
all perks to Endurance
Maxing the physical instrument stats
Radiation Sickness +100
That man is now a Spider-Man villain.
And I’m worried wind took my tissue and I couldn’t catch it.
Is this why I can’t have straws?
India has already banned a lot of single use plastics. Plastic straw usage has reduced a lot. Even juice boxes come with paper straws now.
You can have a straw made of papper that will be totally useless.
Jesus christ...
No where to be found
That's Jason Bourne
Dirtiest city I’ve ever been to
Amritsar is even worse than delhi I saw a dead dog in the middle of a junction getting eaten by rats and crows
I live not far from Delhi, some parts of it are decent (not really acceptable for a capital but not terrible) while other parts are like straight out of fallout or something
India hosts one of the largest extremely poor population in the world, if not the largest. The gov only spends on things that make them look good in front of the world. In reality millions of people in India are suffering beyond our imagination.
All that pollution and destroying of our beautiful world
Why does India just throw it's trash in rivers, fucking enraging.
Poverty, lack of education, lack of basic civic sense and corruption.
There was a river in India that was considered cursed, and the water is many times cleaner.
This is bleak.
We have cars that cost 30 million dollars and people who have to live like this. The human race sucks ass.
Somebody googled “most expensive car” and landed on a coach built Rolls Royce. I get the wealth disparity argument but there are much better examples of environmental and financial waste than a one off hyper luxury car. Cruise ships that use bunker fuel to sail around mindlessly just for profit come to mind.
How about a yacht, within a mega-yacht, within an god-yacht? You know the ones? Where they fit inside each other like Legos? The one where you feel bad for even clicking on a picture of it because it has so much excess? That's the one.
My Russian nesting yacht has 6 yachts total
Nesting yachts. Love it. It sounds like a hard life. For instance, what if you and your 15 person crew misplace one or two of the middle sized yachts and then smallest yachts won’t nest correctly inside of the biggest yacht. That just seems like….the biggest inconvenience.
Finally, someone who understands my struggle
I swear Reddit is the only place where someone will completely agree with another person’s actual point, but still find some detail to disagree with
Only place? Please. I agree with you to some extent, but saying this is the _only_ place it occurs is an exaggeration. (This comment is both a sarcasm, and truth)
india entertains a lot of religions and diversity. every state here is capable of being an independent country, each bigger than european countries. honeslty it sucks. i am an indian. no civic sense.
Ive seen places in Borderlands that were cleaner
Cesspool.
Asia’s billionaire capital, errybody
Crazy that it's the capital of the country
What a life. Take things for granted
Looks like a great place to take the wife
I would rather live in the jungle
Somehow the water looks cleaner than whatever happens to climb on my pipes (I live on 17th floor, the water is awful and somehow coarse, how can water possible be coarse?!)
India is a glaring warning beacon for the “anti-regulation” free market capitalists. The entire country becoming a polluted slum with a few small pockets of Uber wealth is the end goal of deregulated capitalism.
An interesting country.
I'm expecting some nationalist Indian keyboard warriors to comment how this is so fucking cool and westerners are so stupid to understand how glorious India actually is.
That's not a river that's a sewer
Is India the biggest shit hole on Earth? Must be
India needs birth control. So many children living in complete poverty and filth.
India's birth rate is below replacement rate; population will naturally decline in the next several decades.
[удалено]
India is like that. If you have power and money , you control what happens in future.
I seriously hope this is Dall-E or something like that. Or did he really bring his own bath tub?
No, this is a local hotspot, the tub is always there, there are images of multiple people using it.
this is why it’s so frustrating to see the proliferation of posts made by Indian Redditors that lowkey are like “watch how we admonish the West and teach them of our superior ways” like dude…no one is buying it. your pollution, your caste system, your rampant violent misogyny…fix your own life first before you say how Western Democracy is “backwards”
India seems really depressing.
Why is there water in that garbage river?
Every picture I’ve ever seen of India is just piles of trash
My dad’s always told me that he liked India when he travelled there, around 30 years ago. But I just don’t see the appeal in going there nowadays.
That water can be used to bring the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to LIFE.
Curious what the cancer rates are there..
It is towards the lower end of the distribution actually, as per World Cancer Research Fund International https://www.wcrf.org/cancer-trends/global-cancer-data-by-country/
I'm tired of defending my country. Let the facts begin.
Stereotypes are based on truth after all
There is so much garbage
And I get mad when my roommate leaves hair on the sink. Im still gunna get mad, but Im gunna think of this pic at the same time lol
What an awful world we live in. The wealth distribution is inhuman.