worlds apart.
 

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapc...ets/index.html

The remote town of Musiri in the Tamil Nadu state has hit upon a unique idea to teach its residents proper hygiene: pay them money each time they use the toilet.

Users can make up to $0.14 a month to relieve themselves in a specially constructed toilet. Not a princely sum, but it's extra cash flow that low-income residents can make just for answering nature's call.

Quite the recycling process...

They're paying people... to not crap in the roads? Lets pay people who don't let their dogs crap on the running trails :wtf:

Not bad when you convert to local currency.
http://www.xe.com/ucc/

0.14 USD = 6.02280 INR

United States Dollars India Rupees

1 USD = 43.0200 INR
1 INR = 0.0232450 USD

It's probably cheaper to pay them to use the toilet than to pay someone to clean it up. Crappy economics.

People clean it up? lmao. There aren't people in India who are paid to clean up garbage either, yet it's pretty much standard practice to throw your garbage wherever you are in public, side of the road, etc. Maybe in large cities there are government workers to clean up trash, but still not so much.

You have to remember that the people this program is targeted at are homeless. The poverty-line standard of living in the western world would be considered luxurious to these people. To compound the problem India has over 1 billion people, the second largest population in the world, the largest democracy, a significant portion of which is homeless / poverty. While it has a total area that's 1/3 the size of the US. The whole issue stems from a LOT of people not having a proper place to do their business, so it's good the gov't is stepping up even if it's just experimentally.

Defecating- it's not like you'll see people's crap lying around; I haven't ever, so I'm not sure where they do it. Urinating- it's common practice to just go on a tree.

Poverty in India has declined very rapidly over the years. The country has developed at an astonishing pace since 2000 and seems to be accelerating.

All in all, I think Ryan very appropriately titled this thread. Amazing how we all live on the same planet yet lead such different lives.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._Data_GOI_.png