It’s Time to Knock the Toilet Off Its Pedestal
April 26, 2021 3:25 PM Subscribe
The flush toilet may be the world’s gold standard for sanitation, but the sewer infrastructure it demands is inefficient, costly and outdated.
There's a free signup wall. If you'd rather hop the wall than unlatch the gate, here's the archived copy.
There's a free signup wall. If you'd rather hop the wall than unlatch the gate, here's the archived copy.
MetaFilter: pretty well emulsified by bile
posted by The Tensor at 3:48 PM on April 26, 2021 [74 favorites]
posted by The Tensor at 3:48 PM on April 26, 2021 [74 favorites]
PS - I ran with the wall metaphor, but I don't think it holds water. Hopefully it won't derail the conversation.
posted by aniola at 3:52 PM on April 26, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by aniola at 3:52 PM on April 26, 2021 [9 favorites]
If you're interested in what installing alternatives to a flush toilet look like, drop the Swedish national home sanitation guide website (Avloppsguiden) into Google translate. Its very practical and has installed prices.
Then go complain to your local plumbing inspector and building codes department to adopt new rules that will let you save money and stop polluting at the same time.
A greywater system and a composting toilet form a complete alternative to a septic tank or sewer hookup and should be a legal alternative.
posted by head full of air at 3:53 PM on April 26, 2021 [10 favorites]
Then go complain to your local plumbing inspector and building codes department to adopt new rules that will let you save money and stop polluting at the same time.
A greywater system and a composting toilet form a complete alternative to a septic tank or sewer hookup and should be a legal alternative.
posted by head full of air at 3:53 PM on April 26, 2021 [10 favorites]
The sign-up wall appears to be a pop-up window that you can just close. Let Bloomberg have its clicks!
posted by Going To Maine at 4:13 PM on April 26, 2021
posted by Going To Maine at 4:13 PM on April 26, 2021
Pooping in perfectly clean drinking water bothers me so much. I really wish I had access to a functional composting toilet.
I've lived in a lot of alternative places and spaces, and one place I lived had a functioning grey water system that stored grey water from the showers and washing machines for use to flush the toilet.
To be honest it was super funky but it was already a super funky place. Every so often we needed to add some live digester cultures to the grey water tank, and it was always something of an intelligence test when someone new to the system went to use the restrooms, and myself and a few other people kind of had a running policy to see how long it would take new guests to figure it out or ask about how to flush.
Namely that the cistern or toilet tank did not automatically refill itself, and you had to refill it manually using a hose and valve that was fed by the greywater storage tanks.
It was always really smart, resourceful people that figured it out right away and didn't even ask about it and they would often come out of the restroom saying something like "Woah, cool! You guys have a greywater system!"
While on the other end of the spectrum we sometimes had people stuck in there for up to 30 minutes before coming out to ask about it and often even worried they broke something. Somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of this very particular and specific intelligence test were the people who came out and asked about it right away with a perfectly honest and earnest "Ok, how the heck do I flush that thing?"
posted by loquacious at 4:14 PM on April 26, 2021 [4 favorites]
I've lived in a lot of alternative places and spaces, and one place I lived had a functioning grey water system that stored grey water from the showers and washing machines for use to flush the toilet.
To be honest it was super funky but it was already a super funky place. Every so often we needed to add some live digester cultures to the grey water tank, and it was always something of an intelligence test when someone new to the system went to use the restrooms, and myself and a few other people kind of had a running policy to see how long it would take new guests to figure it out or ask about how to flush.
Namely that the cistern or toilet tank did not automatically refill itself, and you had to refill it manually using a hose and valve that was fed by the greywater storage tanks.
It was always really smart, resourceful people that figured it out right away and didn't even ask about it and they would often come out of the restroom saying something like "Woah, cool! You guys have a greywater system!"
While on the other end of the spectrum we sometimes had people stuck in there for up to 30 minutes before coming out to ask about it and often even worried they broke something. Somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of this very particular and specific intelligence test were the people who came out and asked about it right away with a perfectly honest and earnest "Ok, how the heck do I flush that thing?"
posted by loquacious at 4:14 PM on April 26, 2021 [4 favorites]
Let Bloomberg have its clicks!
Why? Are they running out?
posted by loquacious at 4:15 PM on April 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
Why? Are they running out?
posted by loquacious at 4:15 PM on April 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
I work with wastewater engineers and their number one enemy is "flushable" wipes.
posted by emjaybee at 4:24 PM on April 26, 2021 [25 favorites]
posted by emjaybee at 4:24 PM on April 26, 2021 [25 favorites]
(rtfa)
Wow this really is all over the place. A lot of the issues, like storm water flooding sewage lines, or not using newer tech like anerobic digesters/methane harvesting/etc. have nothing to do with toilets and everything to do with bad wastewater system design.
Could a dense urban city switch to composting toilets? What infrastructure would that require? What problems might occur? Whatever the answers might be, this writer absolutely did not attempt to find out!
posted by emjaybee at 4:31 PM on April 26, 2021 [38 favorites]
Wow this really is all over the place. A lot of the issues, like storm water flooding sewage lines, or not using newer tech like anerobic digesters/methane harvesting/etc. have nothing to do with toilets and everything to do with bad wastewater system design.
Could a dense urban city switch to composting toilets? What infrastructure would that require? What problems might occur? Whatever the answers might be, this writer absolutely did not attempt to find out!
posted by emjaybee at 4:31 PM on April 26, 2021 [38 favorites]
It's distressing to consider how much human waste 7.9 billion people extrude on a daily basis. Private Pyle knew.
posted by thelonius at 4:32 PM on April 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 4:32 PM on April 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
You can have my toilet when you take it from my... cold... dead...
I did not think this through.
posted by Splunge at 4:36 PM on April 26, 2021 [14 favorites]
I did not think this through.
posted by Splunge at 4:36 PM on April 26, 2021 [14 favorites]
this writer absolutely did not attempt to find out!
Based on the byline the author actually just wrote a whole books on toilets & sewers and I suspect this article is an excessively short precis of the entire book. Thus it's a disjointed jumble of random sewer facts.
posted by GuyZero at 4:46 PM on April 26, 2021 [13 favorites]
Based on the byline the author actually just wrote a whole books on toilets & sewers and I suspect this article is an excessively short precis of the entire book. Thus it's a disjointed jumble of random sewer facts.
posted by GuyZero at 4:46 PM on April 26, 2021 [13 favorites]
Yeah, the article reads more as a link roundup more than an investigation.
Emjaybee, check out the Bullitt Center in Seattle for an example of a dense urban building constructed with composting toilets and greywater in 2013. They ripped the composting toilets out last year and replaced them with a vacuum flush system discharging to city sewers.
The custom-built foam flush fixtures were a maintenance nightmare (i've talked to their maintenance staff twice over the course of the project). Their white paper on lessons learned (linked above) is instructive.
posted by head full of air at 4:53 PM on April 26, 2021 [28 favorites]
Emjaybee, check out the Bullitt Center in Seattle for an example of a dense urban building constructed with composting toilets and greywater in 2013. They ripped the composting toilets out last year and replaced them with a vacuum flush system discharging to city sewers.
The custom-built foam flush fixtures were a maintenance nightmare (i've talked to their maintenance staff twice over the course of the project). Their white paper on lessons learned (linked above) is instructive.
posted by head full of air at 4:53 PM on April 26, 2021 [28 favorites]
emjaybee: I work with wastewater engineers and their number one enemy is "flushable" wipes.
I have watched probably way too many episodes of Drain Addict on YouTube and there's clearly two constants: there is always corn and there are always wipes.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 4:57 PM on April 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
I have watched probably way too many episodes of Drain Addict on YouTube and there's clearly two constants: there is always corn and there are always wipes.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 4:57 PM on April 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
from my... cold... dead...
hams?
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:05 PM on April 26, 2021 [18 favorites]
hams?
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:05 PM on April 26, 2021 [18 favorites]
Metafilter: a disjointed jumble of random sewer facts
posted by emjaybee at 5:12 PM on April 26, 2021 [11 favorites]
posted by emjaybee at 5:12 PM on April 26, 2021 [11 favorites]
this very particular and specific intelligence test
Oh god, the idea that someone might be judging me based on how well I figure out an unfamiliar toilet system is incredibly precisely targeted to trigger my social anxiety. I don't usually have any bathroom-related anxieties but this does it.
posted by biogeo at 5:12 PM on April 26, 2021 [69 favorites]
I mean, you've got the plot for at least one whole episode of a British sitcom right there.
posted by biogeo at 5:13 PM on April 26, 2021 [18 favorites]
posted by biogeo at 5:13 PM on April 26, 2021 [18 favorites]
Could a dense urban city switch to composting toilets? What infrastructure would that require?
Mainly: a commercial supply chain for collection bucket cover material, and service providers to move collection bucket contents to neighbourhood-scale hot composting facilities.
posted by flabdablet at 5:14 PM on April 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
Mainly: a commercial supply chain for collection bucket cover material, and service providers to move collection bucket contents to neighbourhood-scale hot composting facilities.
posted by flabdablet at 5:14 PM on April 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
...the idea that someone might be judging me based on how well I figure out an unfamiliar toilet system ...
Bean Dad: Toilet Edition.
posted by Drastic at 5:29 PM on April 26, 2021 [25 favorites]
Bean Dad: Toilet Edition.
posted by Drastic at 5:29 PM on April 26, 2021 [25 favorites]
If we can’t dump buckets of shit onto our fellow passing medieval peasants why are we even doing this?
posted by Huffy Puffy at 5:31 PM on April 26, 2021 [14 favorites]
posted by Huffy Puffy at 5:31 PM on April 26, 2021 [14 favorites]
That Bullit Center whitepaper is pretty interesting. Thanks.
posted by clockwork at 5:33 PM on April 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by clockwork at 5:33 PM on April 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
Reading through the white paper head full of air posted above. Very interesting. Thanks!
...but in the spirit of the thread I can't help but snicker at phrases like "...this paper captures the key toilet-related lessons from the Bullitt Center."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:36 PM on April 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
...but in the spirit of the thread I can't help but snicker at phrases like "...this paper captures the key toilet-related lessons from the Bullitt Center."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:36 PM on April 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
Without the fans, smells from the composters moved quickly into the bathrooms and office spaces, which was not popular. If the power to the building was cut by a storm, or when the fans needed maintenance, indoor air quality declined very rapidly.
Yeah, I bet that wasn't popular!
posted by tavella at 6:05 PM on April 26, 2021 [14 favorites]
Yeah, I bet that wasn't popular!
posted by tavella at 6:05 PM on April 26, 2021 [14 favorites]
Sometimes I wonder if people who say toilets are a waste of fresh water are aware that the water can be treated and reused in an endless cycle. Indeed, I spent a decade of my life living in a city that sourced its drinking water from the very same watershed the city's sewage treatment plant discharged into.
I currently live in a city that stupidly discharges the treated water into the ocean, but it doesn't have to be that way, that's a choice. They could use injection wells to recharge the aquifer and help combat the saltwater intrusion, but no.
posted by wierdo at 6:08 PM on April 26, 2021 [20 favorites]
I currently live in a city that stupidly discharges the treated water into the ocean, but it doesn't have to be that way, that's a choice. They could use injection wells to recharge the aquifer and help combat the saltwater intrusion, but no.
posted by wierdo at 6:08 PM on April 26, 2021 [20 favorites]
something something a sewage treatment plant in Florida will cost $156MM to move it inland -- raise taxes duh (I live and teach public school in Florida and I now say this in my dreams)
posted by toodleydoodley at 6:26 PM on April 26, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by toodleydoodley at 6:26 PM on April 26, 2021 [4 favorites]
and it was always something of an intelligence test
That does not sound scalable!
posted by pelvicsorcery at 6:34 PM on April 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
That does not sound scalable!
posted by pelvicsorcery at 6:34 PM on April 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
Wierdo,
Pulling drinking water from sewage-laden rivers is why water is chlorinated. Treatment plant discharges are better than they've ever been, but people can still get sick from most city's effluent.
Joel Tarr, writing on the official Clean Water Act historical committee, referred to sewer construction as "ironic." On the balance, US enteric disease of casualties were the same or slightly higher after universal sewer coverage (shifting from primarily cholera to typhoid) since almost everyone was downstream from somebody. Sewers didn't prevent disease, chlorinating the dilute sewage universally contaminating rivers did.
Real treatment came to the US with the CWA's 25-year and 40-year mandates. 1995 marks when the US had actual treatment of sewage in all municipal systems, and 2010 was when sewer overflows during storms were supposed to end (unless, like New York City, you have a "hardship" exemption).
Currently 3% of the electricity in the US is being used to run sewage treatment plants, and to make the effluent drinkable you have to run much, much more energy intensive treatment, like a membrane bioreactor, the way San Diego does. They only do it because desalination is more expensive.
posted by head full of air at 6:54 PM on April 26, 2021 [13 favorites]
Pulling drinking water from sewage-laden rivers is why water is chlorinated. Treatment plant discharges are better than they've ever been, but people can still get sick from most city's effluent.
Joel Tarr, writing on the official Clean Water Act historical committee, referred to sewer construction as "ironic." On the balance, US enteric disease of casualties were the same or slightly higher after universal sewer coverage (shifting from primarily cholera to typhoid) since almost everyone was downstream from somebody. Sewers didn't prevent disease, chlorinating the dilute sewage universally contaminating rivers did.
Real treatment came to the US with the CWA's 25-year and 40-year mandates. 1995 marks when the US had actual treatment of sewage in all municipal systems, and 2010 was when sewer overflows during storms were supposed to end (unless, like New York City, you have a "hardship" exemption).
Currently 3% of the electricity in the US is being used to run sewage treatment plants, and to make the effluent drinkable you have to run much, much more energy intensive treatment, like a membrane bioreactor, the way San Diego does. They only do it because desalination is more expensive.
posted by head full of air at 6:54 PM on April 26, 2021 [13 favorites]
Imagine using a toilet in someone elses household, not knowing that instructions are needed but have been withheld, panicking because you can't find a way to flush and don't want others to see or smell your effluvia, trying your hardest to figure something out without breaking anything or making more of a mess, and then being judged as unintelligent for your trouble.
As someone who has played "I absolutely need to remove this tampon but there are no garbage cans in this bathroom" and "oh god, I flushed the restaurant's toilet and suddenly the water is about to overflow," that sounds like a game that's been designed to ruin my day.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 6:54 PM on April 26, 2021 [56 favorites]
As someone who has played "I absolutely need to remove this tampon but there are no garbage cans in this bathroom" and "oh god, I flushed the restaurant's toilet and suddenly the water is about to overflow," that sounds like a game that's been designed to ruin my day.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 6:54 PM on April 26, 2021 [56 favorites]
loquacious: "it was always something of an intelligence test when someone new to the system went to use the restrooms, and myself and a few other people kind of had a running policy to see how long it would take new guests to figure it out or ask about how to flush."
Wow this is terrible. You guys couldn't bother to put a set of instructions in the bathroom? Seems like a perverse kind of condescension and arrogance to leave people to their own devices.
posted by crazy with stars at 7:02 PM on April 26, 2021 [31 favorites]
Wow this is terrible. You guys couldn't bother to put a set of instructions in the bathroom? Seems like a perverse kind of condescension and arrogance to leave people to their own devices.
posted by crazy with stars at 7:02 PM on April 26, 2021 [31 favorites]
Sometimes I wonder if people who say toilets are a waste of fresh water are aware that the water can be treated and reused in an endless cycle.
Treating wastewater back into potable water is a very energy-intensive process, as is extracting, storing, and delivering potable water to residents. Don't think of "wasting fresh water" in terms of there being a limited supply of fresh water, think about it as the amount of energy expended to fill up a bowl of pure, drinkable water just so you can piss in it.
That said, it's also a bad idea to expect fresh watersheds to continue being available as climate change affects rainfall patterns. A city that currently has no trouble sourcing fresh water might find itself in a more arid climate in 50 or 100 years.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 7:03 PM on April 26, 2021 [10 favorites]
Treating wastewater back into potable water is a very energy-intensive process, as is extracting, storing, and delivering potable water to residents. Don't think of "wasting fresh water" in terms of there being a limited supply of fresh water, think about it as the amount of energy expended to fill up a bowl of pure, drinkable water just so you can piss in it.
That said, it's also a bad idea to expect fresh watersheds to continue being available as climate change affects rainfall patterns. A city that currently has no trouble sourcing fresh water might find itself in a more arid climate in 50 or 100 years.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 7:03 PM on April 26, 2021 [10 favorites]
How many people commenting here have ever had to use an outhouse in Montana in December?
posted by Ideefixe at 7:07 PM on April 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by Ideefixe at 7:07 PM on April 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
unless, like New York City, you have a "hardship" exemption
That explains a lot, actually.
Locally, the city has been punting on building two federally mandated sewer overflow tanks, which won't quite match current demand, even as they rezone the neighborhood to increase it's population by at least 6,000 people.
We do have a graywater system, at least. It's just in the form of an open-air canal.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 7:12 PM on April 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
That explains a lot, actually.
Locally, the city has been punting on building two federally mandated sewer overflow tanks, which won't quite match current demand, even as they rezone the neighborhood to increase it's population by at least 6,000 people.
We do have a graywater system, at least. It's just in the form of an open-air canal.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 7:12 PM on April 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
Thaaaat sounds like blackwater.
posted by aniola at 7:15 PM on April 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by aniola at 7:15 PM on April 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
That's just the coal tar. Don't worry about it.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 7:32 PM on April 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by evidenceofabsence at 7:32 PM on April 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
Confusing and poorly-functioning bathroom systems is such a common feature of a certain kind of ecological house/cabin. I hated them as a kid and still hate them. Good design is transparent and easy for people to use; the last place someone should feel confused is in the bathroom. (And, the badly designed homemade systems tend to make cross-contamination easier, if not inevitable.)
There are plenty of issues with conventional sewerage, but one of the problems it solves is the need for thousands or millions of individual users to correctly handle their sewage individually. (It also centralizes the smell issue, which sucks if you are immediately downwind of the treatment plant but overall is a good thing.)
posted by Dip Flash at 7:59 PM on April 26, 2021 [12 favorites]
There are plenty of issues with conventional sewerage, but one of the problems it solves is the need for thousands or millions of individual users to correctly handle their sewage individually. (It also centralizes the smell issue, which sucks if you are immediately downwind of the treatment plant but overall is a good thing.)
posted by Dip Flash at 7:59 PM on April 26, 2021 [12 favorites]
How many people commenting here have ever had to use an outhouse in Montana in December?
Oh, I'm not that particular. When I have to go, whichever toilet is nearest is usually fine for me.
posted by biogeo at 8:10 PM on April 26, 2021 [11 favorites]
Drinking water has to be treated regardless of human activity in the watershed. First off, animals shit in it. Secondly, raw water is a great way to get outbreaks of fungal and amoeba infections.
Secondly, any sewage treatment plant built since the 70s purifies the water sufficiently to be drinkable, usually without using anything but a flocculant, so long as it is operating within its design capacity. Of course, given the disinvestment we have seen over the past thirty years and NIMBYism, we often fail to keep up with demand.
Composting toilets and gray water recycling are a reasonable alternative to septic systems for rural homes, to be sure. Using such systems in cities and suburbia, on the other hand, still requires substantial infrastructure (and energy expenditure) for distribution of sawdust or other covering materials, waste collection, and the actual composting. Plus it creates even greater opportunities for failure in ways that affect more people.
posted by wierdo at 8:27 PM on April 26, 2021 [19 favorites]
Secondly, any sewage treatment plant built since the 70s purifies the water sufficiently to be drinkable, usually without using anything but a flocculant, so long as it is operating within its design capacity. Of course, given the disinvestment we have seen over the past thirty years and NIMBYism, we often fail to keep up with demand.
Composting toilets and gray water recycling are a reasonable alternative to septic systems for rural homes, to be sure. Using such systems in cities and suburbia, on the other hand, still requires substantial infrastructure (and energy expenditure) for distribution of sawdust or other covering materials, waste collection, and the actual composting. Plus it creates even greater opportunities for failure in ways that affect more people.
posted by wierdo at 8:27 PM on April 26, 2021 [19 favorites]
Oh god, the idea that someone might be judging me based on how well I figure out an unfamiliar toilet system is incredibly precisely targeted to trigger my social anxiety. I don't usually have any bathroom-related anxieties but this does it.
Ask me about the place I stayed in university housing in Pisa, where flushing the toilet required banging on a metal button on the wall with the palm of your hand as hard as you could over and over while praying that you might someday succeed in getting the toilet to flush.
Now ask me how I felt about being jet lagged, not speaking Italian, and having to get help from the front desk on a daily basis to get someone stronger than I to bash the everloving fuck out of that button in order to say goodbye to my shit.
Now ask me how I felt when I found out that all the other invited speakers at the conference (who were men) got to stay in a nice hotel, while I (the sole woman invited speaker) was assigned to student housing with a toilet I was insufficiently brawny to punch hard enough to flush. If they had just told me about the sexist housing policy earlier, I probably would have been angry enough to punch that fucking toilet hard enough to flush it.
Now ask me how I felt when I learned that the student cafeteria had wine dispensing machines, like the bulk milk dispensers you see dining halls in the US. Only for wine.
posted by medusa at 8:49 PM on April 26, 2021 [52 favorites]
Ask me about the place I stayed in university housing in Pisa, where flushing the toilet required banging on a metal button on the wall with the palm of your hand as hard as you could over and over while praying that you might someday succeed in getting the toilet to flush.
Now ask me how I felt about being jet lagged, not speaking Italian, and having to get help from the front desk on a daily basis to get someone stronger than I to bash the everloving fuck out of that button in order to say goodbye to my shit.
Now ask me how I felt when I found out that all the other invited speakers at the conference (who were men) got to stay in a nice hotel, while I (the sole woman invited speaker) was assigned to student housing with a toilet I was insufficiently brawny to punch hard enough to flush. If they had just told me about the sexist housing policy earlier, I probably would have been angry enough to punch that fucking toilet hard enough to flush it.
Now ask me how I felt when I learned that the student cafeteria had wine dispensing machines, like the bulk milk dispensers you see dining halls in the US. Only for wine.
posted by medusa at 8:49 PM on April 26, 2021 [52 favorites]
Now ask me how I feel about realizing I've spent my evening shitposting on Metafilter.
posted by medusa at 8:55 PM on April 26, 2021 [17 favorites]
posted by medusa at 8:55 PM on April 26, 2021 [17 favorites]
I have no interest managing a composting toilet, but the idea that modern bathrooms aren't designed to fill toilets with grey water if it's available is super dumb. That should be the default! Even if it's just a small tank that refills each time someone takes a shower!
posted by deludingmyself at 9:14 PM on April 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by deludingmyself at 9:14 PM on April 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
the idea that modern bathrooms aren't designed to fill toilets with grey water if it's available is super dumb. That should be the default! Even if it's just a small tank that refills each time someone takes a shower!
This would need surprisingly careful design and maintenance.
Common Greywater Mistakes: Storage
much, much more energy intensive treatment, like a membrane bioreactor
There's been interesting work done in integrating membrane bioreactors with microbial fuel cells, potentially allowing wastewater treatment to become a net energy source rather than a sink.
posted by flabdablet at 10:03 PM on April 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
This would need surprisingly careful design and maintenance.
Common Greywater Mistakes: Storage
much, much more energy intensive treatment, like a membrane bioreactor
There's been interesting work done in integrating membrane bioreactors with microbial fuel cells, potentially allowing wastewater treatment to become a net energy source rather than a sink.
posted by flabdablet at 10:03 PM on April 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
I'm sorry you went through that Medusa.
(Except for the wine part. That sounds good.)
I have to confess that I ended up reading the "Now ask me" paragraphs in the style of that Isaiah Mustafa Old Spice commercial, with "shitposting on Metafilter" taking the place of "I'm on a horse."
posted by evidenceofabsence at 11:11 PM on April 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
(Except for the wine part. That sounds good.)
I have to confess that I ended up reading the "Now ask me" paragraphs in the style of that Isaiah Mustafa Old Spice commercial, with "shitposting on Metafilter" taking the place of "I'm on a horse."
posted by evidenceofabsence at 11:11 PM on April 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
There's a free signup wall.
There is no such thing as a free signup wall.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 11:15 PM on April 26, 2021
There is no such thing as a free signup wall.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 11:15 PM on April 26, 2021
Flushing toilets is a good use for collected rainwater (which you shouldn't or can't legally use for much else in many places) which I'm still flabbergasted isn't standard in new builds basically anywhere. I know it doesn't make sense everywhere, but there are a lot of rainy places where rainwater collection is not routine, despite all houses having guttering to deal with rain on the roof.
posted by Dysk at 11:35 PM on April 26, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 11:35 PM on April 26, 2021 [4 favorites]
Flushing toilets is a good use for collected rainwater (which you shouldn't or can't legally use for much else in many places) which I'm still flabbergasted isn't standard in new builds basically anywhere.
Both rainwater and melted snow!
How many people commenting here have ever had to use an outhouse in Montana in December?
Not Montana in December, but upstate NY in November. Not fun, but smelled better than in July.
It was always really smart, resourceful people that figured it out right away and didn't even ask about it and they would often come out of the restroom...
...flushed with success!
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:05 AM on April 27, 2021 [5 favorites]
Both rainwater and melted snow!
How many people commenting here have ever had to use an outhouse in Montana in December?
Not Montana in December, but upstate NY in November. Not fun, but smelled better than in July.
It was always really smart, resourceful people that figured it out right away and didn't even ask about it and they would often come out of the restroom...
...flushed with success!
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:05 AM on April 27, 2021 [5 favorites]
Mainly: a commercial supply chain for collection bucket cover material, and service providers to move collection bucket contents to neighbourhood-scale hot composting facilities.
Return of the night man.
posted by zamboni at 4:46 AM on April 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
Return of the night man.
posted by zamboni at 4:46 AM on April 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
Yeah, I bet that wasn't popular!
But think of the super-potent feeling of superiority you get when you rationalise it.
posted by acb at 5:13 AM on April 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
But think of the super-potent feeling of superiority you get when you rationalise it.
posted by acb at 5:13 AM on April 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
As always, it's important to remember that unlike energy, water is typically not transported long distance and therefore the inherent energy cost of water varies wildly. There is a sort of Californian colonialism which is quite common in environmental circles and which implicitly assume that everywhere is equally water-scarce. There's lots of places where using clean water for this purpose is perfectly fine considering the alternatives.
Second, none of the alternatives are actually all that simple. As soon as you're using grey-water, you've created immense complications in a system that was previously fool-proof. Not only is storage a big issue, that water also has to be moved. If you want to do that with pumps you've now created something that is guaranteed to clog.
Third, infrastructure lasts for decades. Even clearly marked, greywater systems will eventually end up cross-connected and contaminating drinking water. This is especially true of systems that cross property boundaries but even single property systems that are more than very basic diversions of laundry water to the garden sub-surface are prone to it. At present, every cold water pipe in a building is safe drinking water. Move away from that and you have plumbers in the 2040s not realising that PVC with orange stripes or whatever was used in 2021 to mark greywater pipes in this one development and contaminating drinking water.
posted by atrazine at 5:24 AM on April 27, 2021 [22 favorites]
Second, none of the alternatives are actually all that simple. As soon as you're using grey-water, you've created immense complications in a system that was previously fool-proof. Not only is storage a big issue, that water also has to be moved. If you want to do that with pumps you've now created something that is guaranteed to clog.
Third, infrastructure lasts for decades. Even clearly marked, greywater systems will eventually end up cross-connected and contaminating drinking water. This is especially true of systems that cross property boundaries but even single property systems that are more than very basic diversions of laundry water to the garden sub-surface are prone to it. At present, every cold water pipe in a building is safe drinking water. Move away from that and you have plumbers in the 2040s not realising that PVC with orange stripes or whatever was used in 2021 to mark greywater pipes in this one development and contaminating drinking water.
posted by atrazine at 5:24 AM on April 27, 2021 [22 favorites]
How many people commenting here have ever had to use an outhouse in Montana in December?
How about an outhouse in Vermont in December-February?
posted by doctornemo at 5:54 AM on April 27, 2021
How about an outhouse in Vermont in December-February?
posted by doctornemo at 5:54 AM on April 27, 2021
There's a free signup wall. If you'd rather hop the wall than unlatch the gate, here's the archived copy.
I appreciate your doing that, aniola.
posted by doctornemo at 5:54 AM on April 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
I appreciate your doing that, aniola.
posted by doctornemo at 5:54 AM on April 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
Flushing toilets is a good use for collected rainwater (which you shouldn't or can't legally use for much else in many places) which I'm still flabbergasted isn't standard in new builds basically anywhere.
Not an environmental engineer, but I don't see much difference between flushing my toilet with 1.6 gallons drawn from Lake Erie and 1.6 gallons of rainwater that I divert from Lake Erie. Either way Lake Erie is down 1.6 gallons until my terlet water is treated and discharged?
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:57 AM on April 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
Not an environmental engineer, but I don't see much difference between flushing my toilet with 1.6 gallons drawn from Lake Erie and 1.6 gallons of rainwater that I divert from Lake Erie. Either way Lake Erie is down 1.6 gallons until my terlet water is treated and discharged?
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:57 AM on April 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
Composting toilets are not outhouses. Not even close. Well designed, they give a better, splash-free, odor-free experience than a wet toilet.
Experiences with hippy homestead nightmares should not be generalized.
posted by head full of air at 6:33 AM on April 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
Experiences with hippy homestead nightmares should not be generalized.
posted by head full of air at 6:33 AM on April 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
Flushing toilets is a good use for collected rainwater
In a small number of jurisdictions (in the US) it's illegal to collect rainwater!
posted by achrise at 6:45 AM on April 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
In a small number of jurisdictions (in the US) it's illegal to collect rainwater!
posted by achrise at 6:45 AM on April 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
. . . building service into the model is key. . .And, at least in the US, historically shifts that burden from a municipality with progressive taxes and straightforward oversight to the individual with a patchwork of poorly enforced regulations.
I grew up with a cesspool in the US, just a bit uphill from a creek. (Not a creek people generally drank from, but one that fed a river that went directly into the ocean.) It was never maintained, even at the level of preventing it from regularly overflowing. Expecting people who are struggling to pay for food to prioritize pollution of water far away is unlikely to lead to a better outcome than paying a little extra for municipal water treatment engineers to design and maintain better sewers.
posted by eotvos at 7:28 AM on April 27, 2021 [8 favorites]
I've done the outhouse-in-winter-in-Pennsylvania thing. I was potty-trained in that outhouse as a wee child....
We had a rainwater cistern for a number of years as well until the nearby city ran water pipes to our area. Then my parents had indoor toilets and a septic field installed when I was 5? 6?
That was pretty great.
posted by Wilbefort at 7:31 AM on April 27, 2021 [5 favorites]
We had a rainwater cistern for a number of years as well until the nearby city ran water pipes to our area. Then my parents had indoor toilets and a septic field installed when I was 5? 6?
That was pretty great.
posted by Wilbefort at 7:31 AM on April 27, 2021 [5 favorites]
I’m sure we’re the only land mammals that intentionally shit in their drinking water.
posted by waving at 8:16 AM on April 27, 2021
posted by waving at 8:16 AM on April 27, 2021
Just gonna stop for a moment to appreciate a great headline and accurate use of the apostrophe.
posted by jumanjinight at 8:33 AM on April 27, 2021
posted by jumanjinight at 8:33 AM on April 27, 2021
Mainly: a commercial supply chain for collection bucket cover material, and service providers to move collection bucket contents to neighbourhood-scale hot composting facilities.
Having to haul a literal bucket of shit to the curb every week is going to be unpopular to say the least. And that's even before getting into failure modes; it's one thing when curious raccoons, incompetent parkers, or drunken assholes leave you with a heap of trash to police, it's another when it's a pool of biohazardous excrement and urine.
I mean, I expect it's the sort of degradation of life quality that is going to creep up the income ladder as many other such degradations have in late capitalism and early climate change; the escape from the outhouse and the honeybucket may turn out to be another brief century-long outlier of unsustainability. But I can't say I view such with enthusiasm.
posted by tavella at 9:01 AM on April 27, 2021 [9 favorites]
Having to haul a literal bucket of shit to the curb every week is going to be unpopular to say the least. And that's even before getting into failure modes; it's one thing when curious raccoons, incompetent parkers, or drunken assholes leave you with a heap of trash to police, it's another when it's a pool of biohazardous excrement and urine.
I mean, I expect it's the sort of degradation of life quality that is going to creep up the income ladder as many other such degradations have in late capitalism and early climate change; the escape from the outhouse and the honeybucket may turn out to be another brief century-long outlier of unsustainability. But I can't say I view such with enthusiasm.
posted by tavella at 9:01 AM on April 27, 2021 [9 favorites]
I’m sure we’re the only land mammals that intentionally shit in their drinking water.
You should watch cows and other animals in watering holes and creeks.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:47 AM on April 27, 2021 [11 favorites]
You should watch cows and other animals in watering holes and creeks.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:47 AM on April 27, 2021 [11 favorites]
Not an environmental engineer, but I don't see much difference between flushing my toilet with 1.6 gallons drawn from Lake Erie and 1.6 gallons of rainwater that I divert from Lake Erie.
I did say that it doesn't make sense everywhere. My cousin just built himself a house by the coast in Denmark, and put a rainwater collection system in for toilet water. Anything he doesn't collect flows into the area. Local regulations allow it. Guess how many other houses in his area have a similar system? None.
posted by Dysk at 9:49 AM on April 27, 2021
I did say that it doesn't make sense everywhere. My cousin just built himself a house by the coast in Denmark, and put a rainwater collection system in for toilet water. Anything he doesn't collect flows into the area. Local regulations allow it. Guess how many other houses in his area have a similar system? None.
posted by Dysk at 9:49 AM on April 27, 2021
into the area
Into the sea. Ugh, autocorrect.
posted by Dysk at 10:01 AM on April 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
Into the sea. Ugh, autocorrect.
posted by Dysk at 10:01 AM on April 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
I have biked for transportation for many years. A long time ago, my dad asked me a lot of difficult questions about biking that I didn't have good answers for. I finally told my dad that if I was important to him, he'd do the work of figuring out bike-friendly answers to those questions himself. And he did. I <3 my dad.
There's a lot of momentum around flush toilets. They're easy for the user. They're subsidized. They're already there. They're not the only way. Easiest is not always best. See also: fast food, cars, and Somebody Else's Problem:
Wouldn't it be great if the boundaries of water scarcity magically ended at the tidy straight lines that form the boundaries of California? Here's a brief article on water scarcity. Over a third of the people in this world already experience water scarcity. It's a brief article. Go read it.
Over 6,000 people are using a subsidized humanure system in Haiti. And it's working.
Compost toilets are part of a bigger system. They'll work better if we're also reducing our use of cars, and repurposing the public space for something more alive. Like food forests. Get rid of the monocrops along the way. I don't know how to connect all the dots for y'all. But they're there. A healthier world is possible. "If you can believe it, you can achieve it."
posted by aniola at 10:13 AM on April 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
There's a lot of momentum around flush toilets. They're easy for the user. They're subsidized. They're already there. They're not the only way. Easiest is not always best. See also: fast food, cars, and Somebody Else's Problem:
An SEP is something we can't see, or don't see, or our brain doesn't let us see, because we think that it's somebody else's problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it's like a blind spot.California colonialism
The Somebody Else's Problem field... relies on people's natural predisposition not to see anything they don't want to, weren't expecting, or can't explain. If Effrafax had painted the mountain pink and erected a cheap and simple Somebody Else’s Problem field on it, then people would have walked past the mountain, round it, even over it, and simply never have noticed that the thing was there.
Wouldn't it be great if the boundaries of water scarcity magically ended at the tidy straight lines that form the boundaries of California? Here's a brief article on water scarcity. Over a third of the people in this world already experience water scarcity. It's a brief article. Go read it.
Over 6,000 people are using a subsidized humanure system in Haiti. And it's working.
Compost toilets are part of a bigger system. They'll work better if we're also reducing our use of cars, and repurposing the public space for something more alive. Like food forests. Get rid of the monocrops along the way. I don't know how to connect all the dots for y'all. But they're there. A healthier world is possible. "If you can believe it, you can achieve it."
posted by aniola at 10:13 AM on April 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
I mean, I expect it's the sort of degradation of life quality that is going to creep up the income ladder as many other such degradations have in late capitalism and early climate change; the escape from the outhouse and the honeybucket may turn out to be another brief century-long outlier of unsustainability. But I can't say I view such with enthusiasm.
YES! I mean. We seem look at work really quite differently, but YES!
posted by aniola at 10:15 AM on April 27, 2021
YES! I mean. We seem look at work really quite differently, but YES!
posted by aniola at 10:15 AM on April 27, 2021
Not an environmental engineer, but I don't see much difference between flushing my toilet with 1.6 gallons drawn from Lake Erie and 1.6 gallons of rainwater that I divert from Lake Erie. Either way Lake Erie is down 1.6 gallons until my terlet water is treated and discharged?
I don't know, let's see. pull water from lake erie. lake erie is like, "heyyy I was using that!". It has a microbial ecosystem, do they have to treat it before they send it to your toilet? I don't know. shit in the water, treat the water in a huge, centralized facility, put it back. do something with the sludge. Let's pretend they manage to get the water back into the same condition it was before.
collect rainwater. store it in a tank. shit in a bucket. cover with brown matter so it smells pretty and doesn't spread disease. take it out to the compost bin later. you needed oodles less rainwater to rinse out the bucket than you did to flush the toilet, so send most of that rainwater directly to lake erie. let the compost bin sit for a year. Let the remainder of that rainwater find its way back to lake erie, having gotten cleaned up by the earth along the way. Former poo nourishes the soil.
So to answer your question, composting uses less water, enriches the soil, and Lake Erie ends up more full, and cleaner.
posted by aniola at 10:16 AM on April 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
I don't know, let's see. pull water from lake erie. lake erie is like, "heyyy I was using that!". It has a microbial ecosystem, do they have to treat it before they send it to your toilet? I don't know. shit in the water, treat the water in a huge, centralized facility, put it back. do something with the sludge. Let's pretend they manage to get the water back into the same condition it was before.
collect rainwater. store it in a tank. shit in a bucket. cover with brown matter so it smells pretty and doesn't spread disease. take it out to the compost bin later. you needed oodles less rainwater to rinse out the bucket than you did to flush the toilet, so send most of that rainwater directly to lake erie. let the compost bin sit for a year. Let the remainder of that rainwater find its way back to lake erie, having gotten cleaned up by the earth along the way. Former poo nourishes the soil.
So to answer your question, composting uses less water, enriches the soil, and Lake Erie ends up more full, and cleaner.
posted by aniola at 10:16 AM on April 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
YES! I mean. We seem look at work really quite differently, but YES!
To clarify, I think it's necessary, and I hope that compost toilet systems do work their way up the economic ladder ASAP. Along with a bunch of other changes that help us to live a happier, healthier, more pleasant lifestyle.
I imagine that a world with a lot fewer cars, and a lot more compost toilets, and a lot less Big Ag and so forth would certainly involve more direct, hands-on work. That there would be less of a class divide between, e.g., the maintainers and the consumers. But I also imagine that the tradeoff of not being so cut off by so much concrete, asphalt, motor noises and so forth from the plants and fresh air part of nature would be well-worth the effort.
posted by aniola at 10:30 AM on April 27, 2021
To clarify, I think it's necessary, and I hope that compost toilet systems do work their way up the economic ladder ASAP. Along with a bunch of other changes that help us to live a happier, healthier, more pleasant lifestyle.
I imagine that a world with a lot fewer cars, and a lot more compost toilets, and a lot less Big Ag and so forth would certainly involve more direct, hands-on work. That there would be less of a class divide between, e.g., the maintainers and the consumers. But I also imagine that the tradeoff of not being so cut off by so much concrete, asphalt, motor noises and so forth from the plants and fresh air part of nature would be well-worth the effort.
posted by aniola at 10:30 AM on April 27, 2021
Lake Erie goes up and down by up to a meter every year based on stuff that happens thousands of kilometers away. In 2019 it was 33 inches above normal, "obliterating beaches." So removing water from it isn't really a bad thing all the time and I doubt that human usage changed the lake's level is any meaningful way.
Centralized waste management system are a way of shifting costs, like every centralized system. Flush toilets are cheap and easy to maintain BUT the central sewage processing plant is large, capital-intensive and expensive to run. Composting toilets just devolve all the work to the edge fo the graph which is in some ways an arbitrary decision, but in general people kinda prefer centralized systems. We could also all have our own drinking water treatment systems and electricity generating systems and run our own cellular base stations, but that's hard. Letting people specialize and building infrastructure is good.
posted by GuyZero at 10:32 AM on April 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
Centralized waste management system are a way of shifting costs, like every centralized system. Flush toilets are cheap and easy to maintain BUT the central sewage processing plant is large, capital-intensive and expensive to run. Composting toilets just devolve all the work to the edge fo the graph which is in some ways an arbitrary decision, but in general people kinda prefer centralized systems. We could also all have our own drinking water treatment systems and electricity generating systems and run our own cellular base stations, but that's hard. Letting people specialize and building infrastructure is good.
posted by GuyZero at 10:32 AM on April 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
Let people specialize and build infrastructure for composting systems and diverse food systems. If it must be centralized systems, how about resilient centralized systems.
posted by aniola at 11:05 AM on April 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by aniola at 11:05 AM on April 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
I will again point out "more direct, hands-on work" with your bodily wastes is a serious degradation in quality of life for most people. There's a reason why so many people in the early 20th century saw replacing their chamber pots and outhouses with plumbing as a huge improvement to be longed for. People who have still been using such due to lack of access to sanitation indeed will likely find a good composting toilet an improvement; people who have had access to plumbing all their lives, probably not. So the Haiti project, worthy as it is, is not a great guide to acceptance elsewhere.
Some number of people may find the glow of environmental responsibility a sufficient dopamine rush to outweigh the annoyance of hauling 5-gallon containers of excrement to the curb every week, but I would guess not the majority. And that's even considering the young and healthy -- for the elderly and physically limited it will be even more unpleasant. Again, I'm not disagreeing that we may very well be heading for a future where once again only the rich have access to flush toilets; I just don't think it's a great thing to bubble over.
posted by tavella at 11:14 AM on April 27, 2021 [21 favorites]
Some number of people may find the glow of environmental responsibility a sufficient dopamine rush to outweigh the annoyance of hauling 5-gallon containers of excrement to the curb every week, but I would guess not the majority. And that's even considering the young and healthy -- for the elderly and physically limited it will be even more unpleasant. Again, I'm not disagreeing that we may very well be heading for a future where once again only the rich have access to flush toilets; I just don't think it's a great thing to bubble over.
posted by tavella at 11:14 AM on April 27, 2021 [21 favorites]
If your toilet is bubbling over you're doing it wrong, composter or otherwise.
posted by flabdablet at 11:27 AM on April 27, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 11:27 AM on April 27, 2021 [4 favorites]
less rainwater to rinse out the bucket
Mmm, algae blooms. If your poo-laden rinse water ends up filtering through the ground, it'll probably be OK, but even with retention ponds and such to partly treat the runoff, anything that makes it into the lake is going to cause algae blooms that deplete the oxygen in the water and kill a bunch of fish. The more untreated poop rinsing that gets done, the larger the proportion that runs off along the surface will be.
It ain't like the people who came up with the idea for sewers were unaware of composting. I'm sure they would have loved to save the effort and expense of digging all those tunnels and running all those pipes if they could have.
Given that many areas with relatively large fractions of renewable energy on their grids are already finding themselves with excess energy during peak periods and are nowhere near having enough renewable capacity on average, I'm not too worried about the availability of water in areas that are either close to the ocean or have brackish groundwater, which is most of the country by land area. As we get closer to a (close to) 100% renewable grid, desalination will have an energy cost of effectively zero.
Anyway, I'm all for eliminating rules that outright ban the use of flush toilet alternatives, grey water systems, and so on. What I'm not on board with is the argument that they are necessary for sustainability. That is simply untrue. It's a good option to have that makes the most sense for some circumstances. It is not, however, a universal imperative.
posted by wierdo at 11:45 AM on April 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
Mmm, algae blooms. If your poo-laden rinse water ends up filtering through the ground, it'll probably be OK, but even with retention ponds and such to partly treat the runoff, anything that makes it into the lake is going to cause algae blooms that deplete the oxygen in the water and kill a bunch of fish. The more untreated poop rinsing that gets done, the larger the proportion that runs off along the surface will be.
It ain't like the people who came up with the idea for sewers were unaware of composting. I'm sure they would have loved to save the effort and expense of digging all those tunnels and running all those pipes if they could have.
Given that many areas with relatively large fractions of renewable energy on their grids are already finding themselves with excess energy during peak periods and are nowhere near having enough renewable capacity on average, I'm not too worried about the availability of water in areas that are either close to the ocean or have brackish groundwater, which is most of the country by land area. As we get closer to a (close to) 100% renewable grid, desalination will have an energy cost of effectively zero.
Anyway, I'm all for eliminating rules that outright ban the use of flush toilet alternatives, grey water systems, and so on. What I'm not on board with is the argument that they are necessary for sustainability. That is simply untrue. It's a good option to have that makes the most sense for some circumstances. It is not, however, a universal imperative.
posted by wierdo at 11:45 AM on April 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
My wife and I have been composting humanure for over 15 years now at our residential house. It's easier to do than you might imagine and has a lot of unexpected benefits, still many people would not even consider doing it because the ick factor. Our experience has been pretty positive, with a learning curve related to building a compost pile successfully for this purpose. We have three in rotation for two people, three years before they are recycled into landscaping. That's probably not going to work for anyone who doesn't live in close proximity to open land they can use like this, preferably fenced in.
We realized after attending a week long camping event we could bring our own latrine rather than use the awful porta potties serving thousands. From there, light bulb moment, let's do this at home.
posted by diode at 11:52 AM on April 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
We realized after attending a week long camping event we could bring our own latrine rather than use the awful porta potties serving thousands. From there, light bulb moment, let's do this at home.
posted by diode at 11:52 AM on April 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
Over a third of the people in this world already experience water scarcity.
In other words, two-thirds don't. But the conversation around water usage tends to get dominated by the issues affecting the third of the world that happens to contain California. I think that's what was meant by "California colonialism."
Personally, my take is a bit more charitable. In areas like California with chronic water shortages, people naturally spend a lot more time thinking about it and are more prepared to jump into, and perhaps unintentionally dominate, discussions on the topic, whereas in areas like, for example, the US East Coast, where water shortages are comparatively less frequent and more localized, people have the luxury of not thinking about it as much. Nevertheless, waste water solutions tailored to arid climates like California may be just as environmentally inappropriate for rainier watersheds as the water-intensive solutions that were imported to US West Coast states have proved to be there. A waste water system that can expect to have large volumes of water run through it has certain advantages in terms of reduced maintenance, reduced complexity, and ultimately reduced energy consumption. The adage "the solution to pollution is dilution" can also apply during water treatment. If the watershed is routinely full enough that drawing sufficient volume from it to handle waste water management doesn't stress the reservoirs, this may be a more environmentally friendly solution than a more complex, more energy-intensive system might be. In my opinion this type of infrastructure should be considered on a case-by-case basis, with environmental engineers using their expertise to assess the local conditions and come up with an appropriate solution for the city they serve.
posted by biogeo at 11:59 AM on April 27, 2021 [8 favorites]
If it must be centralized systems, how about resilient centralized systems.
Sure. I don't think it's actually that hard to build a resilient centralized system, mostly I think the #1 problem is that it's really expensive. And shock of shocks, the US underinvests in most forms of public infrastructure.
Also I think anything involving a human being seeing or smelling the poop for more than 5 seconds is not going to succeed on a wide scale. Poop's bad.
posted by GuyZero at 12:09 PM on April 27, 2021 [5 favorites]
Sure. I don't think it's actually that hard to build a resilient centralized system, mostly I think the #1 problem is that it's really expensive. And shock of shocks, the US underinvests in most forms of public infrastructure.
Also I think anything involving a human being seeing or smelling the poop for more than 5 seconds is not going to succeed on a wide scale. Poop's bad.
posted by GuyZero at 12:09 PM on April 27, 2021 [5 favorites]
> In other words, two-thirds don't.
IOW, more than 2 billion people, more than the whole human population only 100 years ago, do.
But everytime sewage discussion comes up it's always bogged down by fresh water concerns when the more severe issue is nutrients.
Shitting into the ocean is effectively washing topsoil away, when there's less than a century's worth of mineral phosphorus left, and nitrogen fertiliser production is also dependent on natural gas.
posted by Bangaioh at 12:23 PM on April 27, 2021 [6 favorites]
IOW, more than 2 billion people, more than the whole human population only 100 years ago, do.
But everytime sewage discussion comes up it's always bogged down by fresh water concerns when the more severe issue is nutrients.
Shitting into the ocean is effectively washing topsoil away, when there's less than a century's worth of mineral phosphorus left, and nitrogen fertiliser production is also dependent on natural gas.
posted by Bangaioh at 12:23 PM on April 27, 2021 [6 favorites]
IOW, more than 2 billion people, more than the whole human population only 100 years ago, do.
No one is claiming that water usage is not an issue, just that it's not the same type of issue everywhere, and it's too important a point to afford parochialism.
everytime sewage discussion comes up it's always bogged down
I see what you did there.
by fresh water concerns when the more severe issue is nutrients.
Shitting into the ocean is effectively washing topsoil away,
Agreed, this is a more universal concern, and pretty orthogonal to the question of the amount of water used. Water treatment/reclaimation systems need to sequester and/or recycle nutrients, and that's true no matter where you live.
posted by biogeo at 12:30 PM on April 27, 2021 [6 favorites]
Agreed, this is a more universal concern, and pretty orthogonal to the question of the amount of water used. Water treatment/reclaimation systems need to sequester and/or recycle nutrients, and that's true no matter where you live.
And if nutrient harvesting was actually a priority (which it, with caveats, should be), it would be most easily done from a centralized system. Your local sewage plant already produces sludge, whether or not anything productive is done with it.
There has been a lot of writing over the past couple of decades about the problems with pilot projects, especially for development work (eg, water and sanitation projects) . Pilot projects are a great way to test out an idea before implementing at a wide scale, but the danger is that they can give an unrealistically successful outcome because the pilot project always gets extra attention, extra funding, and/or attracts more motivated people. People in wealthy countries with composting toilets are basically an individual example of this -- they are highly motivated (usually by ecological reasons), have financial or technical resources, and are willing to work through the learning curve and resolve problems. Their success is great, but doesn't tell you much about whether or not the approach would scale up to a population-level.
And, there are issues (like mentioned in that white paper linked above) that only become apparent at scale, like smell. Vent stacks remove the smell from the bathroom itself, but the odor still goes somewhere. It's not an issue when there is just a few vented toilets in the neighborhood, but at higher densities you can certainly smell it out in the street.
I'm actually a major fan of composting toilets in the right setting; I just don't agree with simplistic assertions about their interchangeability with conventional sewerage. They are a tool that needs to be in the toolkit (ie, shouldn't be banned by local code, and should be encouraged or even required where appropriate), but are not a solution that is appropriate for many settings.
posted by Dip Flash at 12:57 PM on April 27, 2021 [9 favorites]
And if nutrient harvesting was actually a priority (which it, with caveats, should be), it would be most easily done from a centralized system. Your local sewage plant already produces sludge, whether or not anything productive is done with it.
There has been a lot of writing over the past couple of decades about the problems with pilot projects, especially for development work (eg, water and sanitation projects) . Pilot projects are a great way to test out an idea before implementing at a wide scale, but the danger is that they can give an unrealistically successful outcome because the pilot project always gets extra attention, extra funding, and/or attracts more motivated people. People in wealthy countries with composting toilets are basically an individual example of this -- they are highly motivated (usually by ecological reasons), have financial or technical resources, and are willing to work through the learning curve and resolve problems. Their success is great, but doesn't tell you much about whether or not the approach would scale up to a population-level.
And, there are issues (like mentioned in that white paper linked above) that only become apparent at scale, like smell. Vent stacks remove the smell from the bathroom itself, but the odor still goes somewhere. It's not an issue when there is just a few vented toilets in the neighborhood, but at higher densities you can certainly smell it out in the street.
I'm actually a major fan of composting toilets in the right setting; I just don't agree with simplistic assertions about their interchangeability with conventional sewerage. They are a tool that needs to be in the toolkit (ie, shouldn't be banned by local code, and should be encouraged or even required where appropriate), but are not a solution that is appropriate for many settings.
posted by Dip Flash at 12:57 PM on April 27, 2021 [9 favorites]
I vote let's keep toilets
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 2:14 PM on April 27, 2021 [15 favorites]
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 2:14 PM on April 27, 2021 [15 favorites]
I've spent years working for various utilities around the world including in very water scarce places such as the Middle East and South India (seasonally very wet but that brings its own challenges) but also in Wales which is very wet year round.
The cost to produce and deliver a litre of drinking water to a house can vary by two orders of magnitude so ideas which are crucial to sustainably living in Dubai, LA, or Sydney are largely pointless in Wuhan or Cardiff. Conversely, waste disposal concepts developed in wet northwest Europe may not be suitable for deployment unchanged in much drier places.
The attitude that water conservation works the same way everywhere also shows up in people putting in Xeriscaping in Portland or Seattle. They're full of invasive non-native plants but luckily so ill-suited that they soon die rather than establish themselves in the wild.
I genuinely do not understand the idea that we would be better off doing things like this in a completely decentralised way. Like other utilities, we've turned water and waste disposal from something that took hours of hard human labour every day even in wet areas into something that is completely boring and costs barely anything for the majority of the human population. If there are better technologies then certainly we should use them and if those technologies are decentralised then that's great but I tend to see this absolute mania for decentralisation most among Americans and ironically I think it's driven by the same cultural drivers that led to American suburbia. (that's ironic because most of the fervent ideological decentralisers claim to hate American suburbia and car culture).
Given that many areas with relatively large fractions of renewable energy on their grids are already finding themselves with excess energy during peak periods and are nowhere near having enough renewable capacity on average, I'm not too worried about the availability of water in areas that are either close to the ocean or have brackish groundwater, which is most of the country by land area. As we get closer to a (close to) 100% renewable grid, desalination will have an energy cost of effectively zero.
The Israelis are really the pioneers here with their pressure-centre desalination plant design. Unlike most membrane reverse osmosis, it can throttle down to 10% production without putting a lot of strain on membranes and pumps. They run them at high power when there's a lot of solar on the grid or power is otherwise cheap and turn them way down when the grid power is dirtier and more expensive.
Water companies also set their pumps to run less during times of high power price / low renewables but the degree to which that can be done depends on the size of the various vessels in water and wastewater treatment plants. The newest generation of treatment plants are being designed with load dispatchability in mind so that they can run on the cheapest and greenest 4-6 hours a day.
posted by atrazine at 3:10 PM on April 27, 2021 [20 favorites]
The cost to produce and deliver a litre of drinking water to a house can vary by two orders of magnitude so ideas which are crucial to sustainably living in Dubai, LA, or Sydney are largely pointless in Wuhan or Cardiff. Conversely, waste disposal concepts developed in wet northwest Europe may not be suitable for deployment unchanged in much drier places.
The attitude that water conservation works the same way everywhere also shows up in people putting in Xeriscaping in Portland or Seattle. They're full of invasive non-native plants but luckily so ill-suited that they soon die rather than establish themselves in the wild.
I genuinely do not understand the idea that we would be better off doing things like this in a completely decentralised way. Like other utilities, we've turned water and waste disposal from something that took hours of hard human labour every day even in wet areas into something that is completely boring and costs barely anything for the majority of the human population. If there are better technologies then certainly we should use them and if those technologies are decentralised then that's great but I tend to see this absolute mania for decentralisation most among Americans and ironically I think it's driven by the same cultural drivers that led to American suburbia. (that's ironic because most of the fervent ideological decentralisers claim to hate American suburbia and car culture).
Given that many areas with relatively large fractions of renewable energy on their grids are already finding themselves with excess energy during peak periods and are nowhere near having enough renewable capacity on average, I'm not too worried about the availability of water in areas that are either close to the ocean or have brackish groundwater, which is most of the country by land area. As we get closer to a (close to) 100% renewable grid, desalination will have an energy cost of effectively zero.
The Israelis are really the pioneers here with their pressure-centre desalination plant design. Unlike most membrane reverse osmosis, it can throttle down to 10% production without putting a lot of strain on membranes and pumps. They run them at high power when there's a lot of solar on the grid or power is otherwise cheap and turn them way down when the grid power is dirtier and more expensive.
Water companies also set their pumps to run less during times of high power price / low renewables but the degree to which that can be done depends on the size of the various vessels in water and wastewater treatment plants. The newest generation of treatment plants are being designed with load dispatchability in mind so that they can run on the cheapest and greenest 4-6 hours a day.
posted by atrazine at 3:10 PM on April 27, 2021 [20 favorites]
Anyone who wants to replace centralized sewer systems should really have an engineer give them a tour of a wastewater plant and explain what it does in detail. They are really amazing and make life so much better for so many people. It is a really complex process to turn sewage into something nontoxic.
But uh, as an old engineer once told me, don't lick your lips during the tour.
posted by emjaybee at 5:57 PM on April 27, 2021 [6 favorites]
But uh, as an old engineer once told me, don't lick your lips during the tour.
posted by emjaybee at 5:57 PM on April 27, 2021 [6 favorites]
I loved being a TA at UGA, for the mandatory intro Ecology course, we got to take the freshmen on the Athens sewage plant. It was an amazing class to teach.
Head full of air, you mentioned the Clean Water Act mandates, but weren't those mandates coupled with infrastructure funding?
I have always heard that Reagan gutted the EPA's infrastructure budget, in order to cripple the Agency, and take contracting power away from the agency that could otherwise hurt profits.
Certainly moat of the EPA research into alternative water treatment concepts seems to have ended in the 70's. I think the new drinking water fund, like WRDA, is administered by the Army Corps.
Anyway, I wonder if anyone has tracked federal spending on poop systems since 1930, and what impact increased funding could have for all of these ideas.
posted by eustatic at 6:39 PM on April 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
Head full of air, you mentioned the Clean Water Act mandates, but weren't those mandates coupled with infrastructure funding?
I have always heard that Reagan gutted the EPA's infrastructure budget, in order to cripple the Agency, and take contracting power away from the agency that could otherwise hurt profits.
Certainly moat of the EPA research into alternative water treatment concepts seems to have ended in the 70's. I think the new drinking water fund, like WRDA, is administered by the Army Corps.
Anyway, I wonder if anyone has tracked federal spending on poop systems since 1930, and what impact increased funding could have for all of these ideas.
posted by eustatic at 6:39 PM on April 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
Ballcocks.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:46 PM on April 27, 2021
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:46 PM on April 27, 2021
One of the things that makes me sad about dual-flush toilets is the lack of a ballcock. They're such simple and easily adjustable devices. Want to use less water? Just unscrew the ball a bit so it hangs lower and bob's your uncle.
posted by wierdo at 11:58 PM on April 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by wierdo at 11:58 PM on April 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
Not the pun I would have gone with, but I respect it.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 10:43 AM on April 28, 2021
posted by evidenceofabsence at 10:43 AM on April 28, 2021
On the subject of wastewater treatment, one of the last things I did before the pandemic was go on a Valentine's Day tour of the Newtown Creek Wastewater Resource Recovery Facility, home of Brooklyn's digester eggs. (Previously home to an eternal poop flame and, uh, smells.)
I'd highly recommend the in-person tour if that ever becomes a thing again. It's edutaining! In the meantime, there's this video, which is a bit more focused on architecture, and less on wastewater, than the tour I was on.
If people are aware of any similar tours (or videos) around the world I'd love to learn about them.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 11:05 AM on April 28, 2021
I'd highly recommend the in-person tour if that ever becomes a thing again. It's edutaining! In the meantime, there's this video, which is a bit more focused on architecture, and less on wastewater, than the tour I was on.
If people are aware of any similar tours (or videos) around the world I'd love to learn about them.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 11:05 AM on April 28, 2021
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It talks about waste water plants being overloaded, which seems easily resolved by building more of them. the "Where sewers aren’t feasible..." section seems to be a fancier version of septic tanks, which have their own issues the article conveniently ignores except to say you need to "build service into the model" which seems to be the same as waste treatment plants... ?
Anyway, sure, sewers got problems.
posted by GuyZero at 3:43 PM on April 26, 2021 [32 favorites]