Unclean Water Costs $450M A Year, New UN Report Says

Poor sanitation costs Cambodia $450 million a year due to health costs resulting from water-borne diseases such as diarrhea, according to a new report by the UN Environment Program. The report follows data released last week by the World Bank that found that 75 percent of Cambodians still defecate outdoors and that Cambodia’s progress has been slow toward achieving the UN Millennium Development Goal of increasing rural access to sanitation to 30 percent by 2015, up from 8.6 percent in 1996. “7.2  percent of Cambodian GDP is lost because of bad sanitation the report, titled, “Towards a Green Economy,” said.