I am the editor of PoopReport.com, a site dedicated to the intellectual appreciation of poop humor. I'm also the author of a book about the impact of poop on contemporary culture, to be published this spring. I've done a lot of research on the toilet and its role in our society, so I speak with some authority when I say this: the toilet is deeply flawed. The cosmetic improvements as described in the article are nice, but we have bigger issues to worry about.
First: the toilet has saved millions of people from disease. I recognize that it's one of the great inventions of our day. But when you examine the externalities it's created, you realize that there's a lot of work on it that needs to be done -- and I'm not talking about heated seats and water sprayers.
1.4 gallons per flush = 32 billion gallons of water per day wasted in the US, according to my research. That water flows to 600,000 miles of sewer pipes to 16,000 sewage treatment plants, each costing many millions (an in some cases, billions) of dollars. There they attempt to sequester the solids and cleanse the water. They've gotten pretty good at making the water safe; but the problem is with the solids. The leftover sludge isn't just organic matter -- it's contaminated with household chemicals and industrial pollutants both illegally and legally dumped into the sewers. In many places, this sludge is (after bacterial digestion) applied to farmland as fertilizer.
If it were just organic matter, everyone would be happy. But this application to the land concentrates the contaminants and assures that they will one day return to haunt us, either by moving up into the plants that grow in the soil or down into the water cycle. It's true that there are techniques to maintain a certain pH balance in the soil so that the contaminants remain suspended, but for that to be safe then every farmer will have to apply lime or other chemicals to every acre of land that's been treated with sludge for the rest of time. Unlikely.
We need to recognize the externalities caused by our current waste management infrastructure, and work to eliminate them (without losing any of the sanitary benefits the flush toilet has indubitably brought us). A water sprayer is nice, and I can't argue against heated seats, but that's just cosmetic -- we have a lot more serious issues to worry about.
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First: the toilet has saved millions of people from disease. I recognize that it's one of the great inventions of our day. But when you examine the externalities it's created, you realize that there's a lot of work on it that needs to be done -- and I'm not talking about heated seats and water sprayers.
1.4 gallons per flush = 32 billion gallons of water per day wasted in the US, according to my research. That water flows to 600,000 miles of sewer pipes to 16,000 sewage treatment plants, each costing many millions (an in some cases, billions) of dollars. There they attempt to sequester the solids and cleanse the water. They've gotten pretty good at making the water safe; but the problem is with the solids. The leftover sludge isn't just organic matter -- it's contaminated with household chemicals and industrial pollutants both illegally and legally dumped into the sewers. In many places, this sludge is (after bacterial digestion) applied to farmland as fertilizer.
If it were just organic matter, everyone would be happy. But this application to the land concentrates the contaminants and assures that they will one day return to haunt us, either by moving up into the plants that grow in the soil or down into the water cycle. It's true that there are techniques to maintain a certain pH balance in the soil so that the contaminants remain suspended, but for that to be safe then every farmer will have to apply lime or other chemicals to every acre of land that's been treated with sludge for the rest of time. Unlikely.
We need to recognize the externalities caused by our current waste management infrastructure, and work to eliminate them (without losing any of the sanitary benefits the flush toilet has indubitably brought us). A water sprayer is nice, and I can't argue against heated seats, but that's just cosmetic -- we have a lot more serious issues to worry about.