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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."
It depends on the surfaces being exposed to UV. Surfaces with titanium dioxide in them do tend to be self-cleaning.
I liked the self-cleaning crappers in gas stations on the German/Austrian Autobahn. The seat is circular. As soon as you get up off it, the toilet flushes; a mechanical arm swings down with a sprayer and a brush; and the sprayer shpritzes and the brush spins while the seat rotates 360,
You have to drop one euro in a slot to get in, but it gives you a receipt that gets you your money back if you buy anything.