Zheng Enguang, a 70-year-old farmer on the rural outskirts of north China's Tianjin Municipality, no longer has to walk some 40 meters to his hutong (lane)'s public toilet. Recently, with funds from the local government, Zheng has built a bathroom inside his house.

Zheng was among the first group of about 350,000 farmers to benefit from the "Toilet Renovation Project" launched by the local government.

The project, introduced in 2003, is expected to renovate one million facilities in Tianjin's suburban area over three years and help more than 90 percent of rural residents to have a flush toilet at home.

In China, some 70 percent of people live either on farms or in villages and no formal waste management systems are in place for these people.

There are approximately 200 million latrines in rural areas in China, which are no more than a pit or trough running to a storage pit in courtyards or behind buildings. Clearly, this poses a sanitary problem and health departments call rural latrines a breeding ground for infectious diseases.

As part of its effort to improve living standards, the Tianjin municipal government has allocated more than 5 million yuan (about US$600,000) for the project. The money will provide 50 yuan (US$6) in subsidy for each rural household to renovate their toilet.

Despite the subsidies, it was not easy to persuade villagers to build new flush toilets, said Zhang Changshan, deputy director of a commission in charge of environment of the city.

In the eyes of Chinese farmers, latrines are dirty, stinking and filthy and so should not be allowed into their homes.

In Tongjiagou village of the city's Baodi rural district, the village-level government met with resistance when advising farmers to renovate their latrines. Many village folk said they felt quite comfortable with their traditional ones.

To help convince local villagers, officials invited them to visit the homes of people who had taken advantage of the subsidy. It turned out that kids were among the first to accept the change. After coming back, all the kids were reluctant to use the public latrines and asked their parents to renovate the local toilets.

"But for those who didn't want to or those who really had no money to invest, we did not oblige them to do so. It's of their own free will," said Zhang. "But most farmers getting relatively affluent are willing to have a better life environment when they come to realize they could choose one."

The initiative has prompted other clean-up measures as well. Shuigaozhuang village of suburban Tianjin was polluted for a long time; garbage littered the village and the stench of a neglected pool permeated the atmosphere.

Whilst renovating the toilets, the local government allocated more than 500,000 yuan (some US$60,000) to clean the pool up and plant trees around the bank, transforming it into to a lovely, green park.

(Xinhua News Agency November 1, 2004)