Toilet protest

In 2013 a series of protests took place in Cape Town that used ‘porta potty’ canisters filled with human waste, as a protest against the portable toilets supplied by the Cape Town municipality in informal settlements and for higher levels of sanitation. The porta potty canister became a tool of protest as human waste was flung “at Premier Helen Zille’s convoy, on the N2 highway, on the steps of the Western Cape Legislature, in the Cape Town International Airport departures terminal, and… at the Bellville Civic Centre. These poo protests targeted the Western Cape government’s sanitation policies” (from University of Stellenbosch academic Steve Robbins’ article ‘How poo became a political issue’, July 3 2013 http://www.iol.co.za/dailynews/opinion/how-poo-became-a-political-issue-1.1541126#.VFddW-e-K1h). Steve Robbin’s editorial on the subject for Anthropology Today (February 2014) can be downloaded here. Cape Town Partnership listed the toilet as one of the 50 objects which tell the story of Cape Town because of the contention that surrounds it (Cape Town in 50 objects, 2014).