Even people who are enthusiastic recyclers of plastics and cans and paper can be squeamish when it comes to talking about how we deal with human waste. It doesn’t seem like a polite topic for conversation.

But the discussions – and more importantly, the technology – has been changing. Now it’s time to talk about ‘toilet resources’ rather than human waste. When I was teaching human security and peacebuilding, I used to show learners an entertaining TED Talk given by the Malaysian entrepreneur who took on the task of putting toilets on the world map. He used humour because otherwise, people found the topic distasteful.