8th December 2024
I was so excited….I was going to see the UK’s deepest toilet…..
Ok, perhaps your reaction to this statement was not my reaction. But I think we can all agree that many of today’s ubiquitous almost mundane items can and have been transformative for the human experience in both expected and unexpected ways and are worthy of our admiration. Because sometimes intractable social problems such as widespread better education and health outcomes need tangential thinking and left-field solutions in order to make headway. The revelation of the flushing toilet was anything but mundane and is curiously fascinating to many today. Regardless of your interest, It is challenging not to agree it is a symbol of human advancement on many fronts and hence worthy of our admiration.
Although for us who have known no different, it is abstract to visualise life and society prior to the flushing toilet. The movement of excrement from our internals to elsewhere was quite basic for thousands of years – from defecating in pits, chamber pots and out of the window onto the street or into moats. Even royalty would end up squatting in unused rooms and corners of their palaces because of a lack of options. Eventually in Crete c4000 years ago water in holes took faeces and urine away. But as Cities grew bigger it became imperative to find sanitation solutions to manage our bodily out-pourings more effectively. I’ve noted more on this a previous piece (https://curiosityandtherascal.co.uk/2021/08/12/a-historical-marvel-beneath-our-feet/) and to quote from it – c3000 BC more formally organised systems operated by people were developed connecting toilets to a sewage system able to swill human faeces and effluent into rivers.
But it wasn’t until the 16th Century the flushing toilet was invented (and not by Thomas Crapper as is widely suggested although he was involved at a later stage!) However it wasn’t capable of being constructed on any scale so remained a niche product. Almost 200 years later the ‘S’ bend pipe was developed which allowed foul smells to be trapped as they passed through the guts of the toilet system and not return back up. It took until the 18th Century with great strides in manufacturing for flushable toilets as we know of to become widespread. Ever since technological toilet advances have continued though the flushing aspect remains a key feature as it did when they first appeared.
Startlingly the average person spends 3 years of their life in the toilet but for most of us the humble flushing toilet is ubiquitous and given little thought. Except whilst some of us may take it for granted, many across the world can only dream of such daily luxury. In fact according to The Guardian, 3.6bn people (or half the world’s population) do not have access to basic sanitation – more people have a mobile phone! Why this disparity? According to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, sanitation is not a one size fits all system – it needs to be tailored for the locality. Secondly not all public officers consider sanitation a priority worthy of their funds. And lastly it is not cheap to put in and maintain a sanitation system.
This is a shame. An obituary I read in The Economist about Bindeshwar Pathak highlighted to me that the flushing toilet should be taken more seriously. Pathak was born in India in the 1950’s. He had a curious obsession with improved sanitation. In essence he believed that an accessible, cheap flushable toilet could reshape and save the lives of millions by allowing the Untouchables (a caste who cleaned pit latrines) to be free to learn other trades, prevent the spread of disease and keep women safe by not having to travel long distances to relieve themselves. His design of said toilet became commercial in 1973 and by 2020 he had installed 110m across India transforming the lives of so many.
Today we continue to improve the features of the flushing toilet with toilets that do not need to be connected to a sewage system by operating with a self sustaining water system, those that kill pathogens onsite or are connected to solar operated treatment plants and even waterless flushing. But If anywhere personifies taking the mundane out of the toilet experience, it is Japan. Although the shape of the toilet is little changed in 150 years, in Japan, public conveniences have been lifted to an art form by combining high tech with architecturally designed homages. Transparent walls which turn opaque upon use. Heated seats, wash-lets that spray water and air onto a users rear and a ‘Sound princess’ delivering flushing noises to mask embarrassing sounds.
But it goes further. Smart toilet innovators are reasoning the toilet could be a tool to monitor our health and particularly as an early warning system. For example by incorporating an inspection of stool samples, information on many diseases including cancers is accessible. Toilet sensors could monitor urine and scent, ascertaining changes in stress levels. Examining a person’s Anoderm (the skin of the anal canal which is apparently unique to each of us), a toilet could be trained to recognise the sitter and so deliver personalised information. Clearly in a world of Fitbit we have become used to the idea of tracking health data so perhaps this isn’t a step too far that my ughhh expression suggests?
If you are now taken with toilets you can purchase a calendar of world toilets or if that might be a bit too much, this link takes you to the Lonely Planet site which offers in their opinion 20 of the more extraordinary around the world. And really, they are. Happy flushing!
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/articles/extraordinary-toilets-around-the-world
Curiosity and the rascal 