Seattle Flushes $5M High-Tech Toilets

theodp writes "Hopes were high back in 2004 as Seattle's posh public potties opened for business. But four years later, city officials have said good riddance to the five high-tech toilets, self-cleaning and cylindrical, that had cost Seattle $5 million. The city unloaded them on eBay for just $12,549. The commodes had become filthy hide-outs for drug use and prostitution."

Comments

Re:Just Remember...

[Archangel Michael]

No no no no.

If people urinate and defecate in public places, you arrest them for health hazards. The homeless will not just take a crap wherever and whenever they feel like it, they will learn not to do it in public.

As for drugs and prostitution, those too are "Health Hazards" and should be treated as such, and not as Moral issues (which they are as well).

And I don't care about people's "deeper problems". Not unless they care about their own "deeper problems" themselves. If they don't care about their own problems, why should I????

I can't fix their problems for them, and neither can the government. It is called SELF RESPONSIBILITY, and should be the basis for all laws. It should be RARE, especially in this country (US) that someone isn't capable of taking care of themselfs to the point that society comes in to rescue them.

I'm kinda sick of all the excuse makers giving people the easy way out, and rescuing people who don't want to be helped, but just want a handout.

I've seen plenty of people capable of working who DON'T or WON'T, because of some reason or another. I have little or no sympathy for people who don't want to work hard to get out of their situation.