Want a better world? Stop treating toilets like crap.

The toilet is one of the most important innovations of modern life. Still, around 2 billion people lack access to basic sanitation services. To make matters worse, human factors – from plastic waste and toxic pollution to climate change and overpopulation – add an enormous strain on the toilet systems that do exist.

Despite this gloomy scenario, Chelsea Wald, science writer and author of Pipe Dreams: The Urgent Global Quest to Transform the Toilet, sees an opportunity. For Wald, rethinking our relationship with toilets can lead us to a much healthier and more sustainable world.