Boeing's Self-Cleaning Aircraft Bathroom Lets You Use Loo Without Touching Anything

coondoggie writes: With barely enough space to um, sit, and with high capacity usage, the commercial airline toilet perhaps is an engineering marvel but little else. Boeing however is looking to that notion with a self-cleaning aircraft bathroom -- known as the Fresh Lavatory -- that the company says uses ultraviolet (UV) light to kill 99.99% of germs in the loo -- and even puts down the toilet seat lid. "We're trying to alleviate the anxiety we all face when using a restroom that gets a workout during a flight," said Jeanne Yu, Boeing Commercial Airplanes Director of Environmental Performance in a statement. "In the prototype, we position the lights throughout the lavatory so that it floods the touch surfaces like the toilet seat, sink and countertops with the UV light once a person exits the lavatory. This sanitizing even helps eliminate odors."

Comments

UV light =/= self cleaning

[MrLogic17]

Sure, it's a good idea to kill of germs with UV light - but that ain't self cleaning. Someone sprinkles all over the seat, and leaves shaving hair in the sink, and you're going to need a lot more than a black light bulb.

Sounds like this is a PR stunt to make passengers happy, without doing much on their end.

I do wonder how all the plastics in the room will hold up with the extra UV light.

Re:UV light =/= self cleaning

[hawguy]

There is the issue about someone being in the bathroom. A small kid that the IR sensor doesn't detect, someone accidentally tapping the "door closed sensor twice", or other items... UV lights come on, and now the airline has a big fat lawsuit on their hands.

Look at toilet sensors and how relatively inaccurate they are. Yes, they tend to be OK to not spray water on you in general, but cataract-causing UV light isn't something to be considered "good enough".

If you didn't have those cataracts, you'd have been able to read the (short) article:

The lavatory uses Far UV light that would be activated only when the lavatory is unoccupied. Far UV is different from the UVA or UVB light in tanning beds, and is not harmful to people

Re:Article title

[Applehu Akbar]

Not as good as the self-cleaning street toilets I have seen in Paris.

Not the filthiest thing on an airplane

[Edis Krad]

That jewel goes to the pulldown tray in front of you... where you eat your meals.
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/09...

Re: Article title

[Idarubicin]

Soap doesn't kill germs. All it does is makes oily substances more likely to be pulled along by water than they were before.

Soap certainly kills some germs. There are lots of bacteria and viruses which are vulnerable to the SDS (sodium dodecyl sulfate), a detergent widely used in hand soaps, shampoos, and a bunch of other sudsy consumer products. The detergent disrupts the cell membranes of many bacteria, and it denatures (unfolds) important proteins in many strains of viruses and bacteria.

Sure, the improvements to mechanical cleaning and suspension of oily matter are important, too. And there are certainly some things (spores and other more robust pathogens) which are resistant to SDS and other detergents, particularly at short exposure times. But "soap doesn't kill every germ" is a long way from "soap doesn't kill germs".