CurrentTV did a good documentary in the Vanguard documentary series on the 'global toilet crisis', as rural populations need basic education on the health issues.
It covers India's open air problem and how the river gets polluted, and cultural issues around the river, but also a village in Indonesia showing change and education.
I think it's a very good documentary, and you can watch it for free:
http://current.com/shows/vanguard/92482205_worlds-toilet-crisis.htm
Charming facts from the documentary's first 5 minutes:
- Los Angeles' sewage treatment facility gets enough excrement to fill three Rose-bowl stadiums every day
- 3.2 billion people don't have toilets
- In India, 1000 children are killed every day by disease from exposure to excrement
On another note, I've had a cultural comment I heard on Inida:
The culture there is that public areas don't matter to keep clean, it's indoor ones, so people will trash the street outside their home but keep the home very clean.
On a slightly related note, Mad Men made a point about how the US was a bit closer to this in the 1960's, where the family went out for a picnic, and when they were done, they just dumped all their trash off the blanket and left it there, without any notice of the pollution - based on cultural norms at the time - and if it's hard to remember that, remember how the US government had a major education program to get the US public not to litter in the Eisenhower to Nixon period - when the EPA was created as well.
Ever see this public education campaign (from when the government served the public interest rather than the polluters like the Koch brothers)?
Flush toilets weren't really invented until the mid 19th century; consumer toilet paper only started being made in the US a little over a century ago. From one web site: