90% Vietnam trains directly drop feces on tracks

Only 10% of trains in Vietnam have modern toilets equipped with waste reservoirs while the rest just have simple Hopper toilets that directly release human feces onto tracks.
The latter toilets are simply round holes cut through the floor of the train.
The figures were announced yesterday by the Steering Committee on Railway Hygiene at a conference in Nha Trang.
The Committee has instructed relevant agencies to install composting rest rooms that can hold in human wastes for later treatment at future trains.
The conference is meant to lay out a hygiene roadmap for the railway sector towards 2015.
Nguyen Minh Dao, a senior official from the state-run Viet Nam Railway Corp., once told Sai Gon Giai Phong that since 2001, all newly-built freight cars already have composting rest rooms.
The 900 freight cars that are dropping waste directly onto the tracks are old ones, he added.
However, to do so means firstly having to upgrade the water system and the freight cars’ floors. Then, a set of composting rest rooms cost US$10,000, not to mention installation fees, Dao said.
Trains in Viet Nam now mostly consists of ten freight cars, each accommodating up to 70 passengers. The railway covers approximately 2,600 kilometres of track from the North to the South.
source : tuoi tre

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