The eighth annual World Toilet Summit and Expo convened today in Macau, China. I suppose you expect a joke here - sorry. The fact is, 2.5 billion people don't have access to sanitary toilets (and this doesn't include you when stranded between two McDonald's), and the misery that stems from that lack is enormous. The U.N. has declared 2008 The International Year of Sanitation, and the American Restroom Association (yeah, I was surprised too) is a supporter of the conference.

The only Platinum sponsor of the conference is the Swiss company Geberit International AG (VTX:GEBN), which sells sanitary tech throughout the world. It might be worth considering for your green portfolio.

According to the World Toilet Association, 60% of the world's rural disease can be traced to poor sanitation. Legendary killers such as cholera and typhoid thrive when human waste is not properly contained and processed.

The issue also goes hand in hand with the availability of clean drinking water. The WTA promotes the use of dry toilets, for the simplicity, cost efficiency and protection of water resources.

The World Health Organization funded a study to put numbers to the cost of providing toilets and clean water to the world's deprived. The costs were amazingly slight- $22.6 billion to provide minimal services to all of those in need, chump change in the era of bailouts. The savings in public health could translate into economic growth, as well as reduce the cost of disease treatment.

How seriously does the founder of the World Toilet Association, Sim Jae-duck, take the issue? Check out the photo of his own abode, built in the shape of a commode.

The news has been particularly commodious this week. Among the highlights:

Sim Jae-Duck of Seoul, Korea is so serious about campaigning for clean restrooms for the world's needy that he is constructing a new $1.6 million manor in the shape of an enormous loo. Jae-Duck, founder of the World Toilet Association, will open the Toilet House to the public next month. Visitors can rent the home for a night for a mere $50,000, proceeds of which go to fund the Association's goal of providing toilets to those in need.

Theme restaurants may have finally reached their pinnacle (or bottomed out) in the Toilet Restaurant, a restaurant in a Taiwan spot that features toilets for seating and serves its noodle dishes in dog-dish sized ceramic toilet bowls. I'm hoping they don't have any chocolate desserts on the menu.

India is playing host this month to the seventh World Toilet Summit (WTS). Representatives from forty-plus countries will gather in New Delhi to track progress on their goal of providing sanitary toilets to the entire human population by 2025. According to the World Health Organization, as referenced by Reuters, 2.6 billion people currently have no access to a proper toilet. This does not include tourists wandering around Manhattan.

Finally, I can't adequately describe this flash game created by the World Toilet Association, other than to say that if you're up for a scatological challenge...