Reinventing the toilet
June 21, 2017 1:47 PM Subscribe
Traditional flush toilets aren’t an option in many parts of the world, but neither is leaving people with unsafe and unhygenic choices. Now, one company is piloting a new loo that's waterless, off-grid and able to charge your phone.
bbl working on "poopr" --it's like uber but for poo collection
posted by entropicamericana at 2:06 PM on June 21, 2017 [11 favorites]
posted by entropicamericana at 2:06 PM on June 21, 2017 [11 favorites]
terrified that their young children may one day fall into a pit and literally drown in shit
On the list of probably-rare-but-totally-justified-fears, that one ranks pretty high.
posted by tobascodagama at 2:32 PM on June 21, 2017 [7 favorites]
On the list of probably-rare-but-totally-justified-fears, that one ranks pretty high.
posted by tobascodagama at 2:32 PM on June 21, 2017 [7 favorites]
The Loowatt setup isn’t free – residents pay about £12 as a deposit for a toilet (which remains Loowatt’s property) and about £3 a month for service.
SaaS - Shitting as a Service.
Seriously though, while the toilet could be great, relying on facilities that aren't owned by the user or the city, and that are rented from a profit-taking corporation, seems like an exceptionally bad idea, and a perfect setup for a company to extract a lot of money from people who can least afford it.
posted by hackwolf at 2:33 PM on June 21, 2017 [24 favorites]
SaaS - Shitting as a Service.
Seriously though, while the toilet could be great, relying on facilities that aren't owned by the user or the city, and that are rented from a profit-taking corporation, seems like an exceptionally bad idea, and a perfect setup for a company to extract a lot of money from people who can least afford it.
posted by hackwolf at 2:33 PM on June 21, 2017 [24 favorites]
Okay, reading this article was totally worth it just to discover that there's a book about the history of sanitation called "The Origin of Feces". That is grade-A, masterful level academic research titling right there.
posted by jacquilynne at 3:01 PM on June 21, 2017 [29 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 3:01 PM on June 21, 2017 [29 favorites]
In the FA:
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:52 PM on June 21, 2017 [2 favorites]
European noblemen built ‘garderobes’ in their castles – rooms with stone or wooden benches with holes in them, through which the excrement would fall, down chutes and into the moat. (While masters used the facilities, the servants guarded their elaborate robes, apparently coining the term garderobe, as historian Dan Snow explains.)In the linked BBC article:
The name garderobe - which translates as guarding one's robes - is thought to come from hanging your clothes in the toilet shaft, as the ammonia from the urine would kill the fleas.This doesn't encourage my confidence in the author.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:52 PM on June 21, 2017 [2 favorites]
terrified that their young children may one day fall into a pit and literally drown in shit
On the list of probably-rare-but-totally-justified-fears, that one ranks pretty high.
This exact thing happened to my dad growing up on a rural farm in the 40s. When he was very young they still used an outhouse, but were in the process of finally getting indoor plumbing. My grandfather had dismantled the outhouse, leaving a square pit about a foot deep with a seemingly solid bottom.
The bottom was not solid, as my father found out when he thought it would be fun to jump down. Luckily my grandfather was nearby and able to fish his completely coated filthy son out of the pit. If he hadn't been around, it would have likely been a very different story.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 4:19 PM on June 21, 2017 [3 favorites]
On the list of probably-rare-but-totally-justified-fears, that one ranks pretty high.
This exact thing happened to my dad growing up on a rural farm in the 40s. When he was very young they still used an outhouse, but were in the process of finally getting indoor plumbing. My grandfather had dismantled the outhouse, leaving a square pit about a foot deep with a seemingly solid bottom.
The bottom was not solid, as my father found out when he thought it would be fun to jump down. Luckily my grandfather was nearby and able to fish his completely coated filthy son out of the pit. If he hadn't been around, it would have likely been a very different story.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 4:19 PM on June 21, 2017 [3 favorites]
Reading the article the first thing that came to my mind was that Buckminster Fuller had a similar concept for a toilet. I googled 'dymaxion toilet' and the second link was to a Loowatt page on Buckminster Fuller. So if nothing else they do seem to be giving credit where it's due.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 7:09 PM on June 21, 2017
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 7:09 PM on June 21, 2017
The peach tree in my own backyard would benefit from a similar contribution, I think, but New York’s sanitation system has no way of achieving that. I wonder if my home will ever feature a toilet of the future, capable of converting my waste into a food source for my trees.It easily could.
posted by flabdablet at 9:47 PM on June 21, 2017
...there's a book about the history of sanitation called "The Origin of Feces".
Another good book about human waste/sanitation around the world is The Big Necessity (2008), by a contributor to that same Mosaic website named Rose George.
posted by LeLiLo at 10:18 PM on June 21, 2017
Another good book about human waste/sanitation around the world is The Big Necessity (2008), by a contributor to that same Mosaic website named Rose George.
posted by LeLiLo at 10:18 PM on June 21, 2017
This sounds like a much-improved version of the arrangements in Melbourne's post-war suburbs. Clive James on the dunny man.
posted by Paul Slade at 11:21 PM on June 21, 2017
posted by Paul Slade at 11:21 PM on June 21, 2017
terrified that their young children may one day fall into a pit and literally drown in shit
On the list of probably-rare-but-totally-justified-fears, that one ranks pretty high.
Relevant Peace Corps story (not mine).
This is an interesting idea, but I agree with hackwolf's concerns. Plus they conveniently elide over the fact that there already are some pretty clever latrine designs out in the world now that mitigate a lot of the problems without introducing these new ones. For example.
posted by solotoro at 4:49 AM on June 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
On the list of probably-rare-but-totally-justified-fears, that one ranks pretty high.
Relevant Peace Corps story (not mine).
This is an interesting idea, but I agree with hackwolf's concerns. Plus they conveniently elide over the fact that there already are some pretty clever latrine designs out in the world now that mitigate a lot of the problems without introducing these new ones. For example.
posted by solotoro at 4:49 AM on June 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
terrified that their young children may one day fall into a pit and literally drown in shit
On the list of probably-rare-but-totally-justified-fears, that one ranks pretty high.
Happened to my Costa Rican aunt as a kid (the first bit. She survived, thankfully)
posted by iffthen at 7:47 AM on June 22, 2017
On the list of probably-rare-but-totally-justified-fears, that one ranks pretty high.
Happened to my Costa Rican aunt as a kid (the first bit. She survived, thankfully)
posted by iffthen at 7:47 AM on June 22, 2017
The collection/processing part seems like an ideal place for automation, eventually, the kind of jobs only robots should have to do.
I work with wastewater (no one likes the term "sewage" so that's what they say now) engineers, and they are a fun bunch. Protip: when visiting a treatment plant, never lick your lips.
We have built both aerobic and anaerobic systems, and full reuse systems. The older way was, wastewater was treated/cleaned, then released into rivers/lakes, then water treatment plants would intake it, clean it, and it went to your drinking water pipes. Reuse systems skip the rivers/lakes stage and just continue to treat it to drinkability. It's less wasteful, but next to something like this, still uses a lot of water.
I wonder a bit about the biofilm; what does it cost to make, does it create environmental impacts/use a lot of water to create, etc.?
posted by emjaybee at 8:15 AM on June 22, 2017 [2 favorites]
I work with wastewater (no one likes the term "sewage" so that's what they say now) engineers, and they are a fun bunch. Protip: when visiting a treatment plant, never lick your lips.
We have built both aerobic and anaerobic systems, and full reuse systems. The older way was, wastewater was treated/cleaned, then released into rivers/lakes, then water treatment plants would intake it, clean it, and it went to your drinking water pipes. Reuse systems skip the rivers/lakes stage and just continue to treat it to drinkability. It's less wasteful, but next to something like this, still uses a lot of water.
I wonder a bit about the biofilm; what does it cost to make, does it create environmental impacts/use a lot of water to create, etc.?
posted by emjaybee at 8:15 AM on June 22, 2017 [2 favorites]
and able to charge your phone.
Junk robocalls go directly to nightsoil:
They killed the Kennedys with microwave radiation!
Kerfloosh!
posted by y2karl at 9:56 AM on June 22, 2017
Junk robocalls go directly to nightsoil:
They killed the Kennedys with microwave radiation!
Kerfloosh!
posted by y2karl at 9:56 AM on June 22, 2017
I saw photos of the thing in another thread... it's basically a diaper genie in a toilet-shaped shell. Not exactly breakthrough tech there, although the collection/biogas angle is new. Maybe we can do that with my kid's diapers.
posted by skullhead at 12:16 PM on June 22, 2017
posted by skullhead at 12:16 PM on June 22, 2017
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Between things like this and composting toilets, and I'm a big fan of the latter where properly implemented, I can't help but to think how much of a net (and gross, *ba dum ching*) improvement it would be for human kind the world over.
posted by RolandOfEld at 2:01 PM on June 21, 2017 [4 favorites]