[HN Gopher] What comes up when you flush
___________________________________________________________________
What comes up when you flush
Author : sciencefreak939
Score : 155 points
Date : 2022-12-08 10:06 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.colorado.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.colorado.edu)
| h2odragon wrote:
| IIRC right at the beginning of COVID there was speculation it
| could be spread by air discharge from sewer stack vent pipes;
| that later turned out to be very likely but no one wanted to talk
| about "airborne" at that time.
|
| "We" as beings are at least as much the micro biome that inhabits
| and surrounds us as we are ourselves. Sharing those pools of
| semi-independent life with each other; letting them taste the
| world we live in and adapt to the locale we're in today, is
| probably more important than we want to recognize. Closing the
| lid when you flush may well be a fundamentally uncivil act.
| bombcar wrote:
| But did they test the King's Throne?
|
| https://www.kohler.com/en/inspiration/intelligent-toilets-an...
| glofish wrote:
| Aren't most of those water bubbles from the fresh water that is
| coming in?
|
| Last time I checked these high powered toilets first suck things
| down, then fill it up with water.
|
| The scary plume seems like a recurring pattern of scientists
| using scaremongering to validate the rationale for doing science.
|
| I recall a similar photo of a scary plume of supposedly
| infectious COVID particles trailing a runner outside ... all that
| turned out to be nonsense.
| SamBam wrote:
| > Last time I checked these high powered toilets first suck
| things down, then fill it up with water.
|
| No toilet except those found in airplanes can actually suck
| things down without first having water come in from the top.
| The sucking action is created by water entering the bowl and
| coming over the top of the trap, and the water exiting down the
| drain then creates a vacuum that sucks the remaining water
| down.
|
| High-pressure toilets simply create more pressure at the top,
| they don't do any suction first.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| To what extent do we know that low-level exposure to degraded /
| intact pathogens is immunoprotective?
| Tepix wrote:
| I remember hearing about this for the first time not too long
| after Covid started, there must be another study that is 1-2
| years old.
|
| Edit:
|
| * Here is one from December 2021: https://www.public-
| health.uiowa.edu/news-items/study-on-toil...
|
| * Here is another one from May 2020:
| https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0013318 ("... _It is
| clear from daily experience that flushing a toilet generates
| strong turbulence within the bowl. Will this flushing-induced
| turbulent flow expel aerosol particles containing viruses out of
| the bowl? This paper adopts computational fluid dynamics to
| explore and visualize the characteristics of fluid flow during
| toilet flushing and the influence of flushing on the spread of
| virus aerosol particles._... ")
| eternauta3k wrote:
| We've known this for ages, and it's useless without quantifying
| the risk of getting sick from it.
| josefresco wrote:
| This is addressed in the article...
|
| > Researchers have known for over 60 years that when a toilet
| is flushed, solids and liquids go down as designed, but tiny,
| invisible particles are also released into the air. Previous
| studies have used scientific instruments to detect the presence
| of these airborne particles above flushed toilets and shown
| that larger ones can land on surrounding surfaces, but until
| now, no one understood what these plumes looked like or how the
| particles got there.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Most science is extremely iterative or investigative, not
| ground breaking.
| karol wrote:
| Why not close the lid first?
| pionar wrote:
| Most public toilets in the US do not have a lid.
| taeric wrote:
| I harbored a thought that this was the prime spreader of COVID
| back when shutdowns were working. Shared bathrooms.
|
| Is also why I hypothesized that home spread was lower. Since many
| homes have naturally segregated bathrooms for kids over the
| parents.
|
| Pretty sure this didn't pan out, mind.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Why the heck did you think the prime spreader of covid was
| through pee or feces instead of, you know, people coughing
| around each other like nearly every other respiratory
| infection?
| taeric wrote:
| Ha! What happens when I post quickly from the phone. I didn't
| mean this to be that I thought it was the prime spreader. I
| thought it was a vector that could explain office and some
| community spread in ways that other events weren't the same.
|
| Edit: I should say, as I realize it isn't obvious on reread.
| I posted this as an amusing confession. Not because I think
| it is a thing.
| adolph wrote:
| Also:
|
| _"It all started with an enquiry from a nurse," Dr Karl
| Kruszelnicki told listeners to his science phone-in show on the
| Triple J radio station in Brisbane. "She wanted to know whether
| she was contaminating the operating theatre she worked in by
| quietly farting in the sterile environment during operations, and
| I realised that I didn 't know. But I was determined to find
| out."_
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1121900/
| conqrr wrote:
| For public toilets, will mask help in avoiding this hazard?
| simple10 wrote:
| If you're interested in how to engineer a state of the art, self-
| cleaning toilet, San Francisco famously spent $1,700,000 on a
| single public toilet installation.
|
| Here's a video on one of SF's new self-cleaning toilet pods:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmFve_DI5mI
|
| [Edit] The toilet in the video is not the $1.7M one, but it's a
| similar design AFAIK. The video is interesting for the
| engineering of the toilet pod. The $1.7M comment references a
| larger story about the politics involved in engineering and
| installing public toilets in the US.
| valleyer wrote:
| Your comment might be interpreted incorrectly. According to the
| video, the silver toilet in the video is not the one that cost
| $1.7m; the video says it was provided by JCDecaux in exchange
| for some advertising rights.
| simple10 wrote:
| Thanks valleyer. I edited the comment for clarity. The
| engineering involved is interesting. The politics and cost
| are just noise, but worth referencing because it became a
| clickbait story at the national level. It illustrates the
| complications for balancing good engineering with public
| perception and competing interests in the US.
| dontbenebby wrote:
| I could have sworn this meta level concept was discussed ages ago
| in one of those Klutz press science tween science books they'd
| sell at places like Natural Wonders in the 2000s.
|
| (It's still cool research just jogged my memory- iirc they had
| Mark Hamill telling you the benefits of closing the lid on the
| toilet before flushing.)
| game_the0ry wrote:
| This is big reason why I prefer work form home - I get to
| comfortably shit in my own toilet. That is a luxury that cannot
| be underestimated.
| farnsworth wrote:
| Home is where the bidet is installed
| mrguyorama wrote:
| And I don't have to share a bathroom or office or work space
| with something like 30% of people who just refuse to wash their
| hands after using the bathroom.
|
| What is wrong with all of you?
| piyush_soni wrote:
| Scientists have found it only now, but I have always thought
| about it. :D ... I have always wondered why no one has invented a
| toilet with an auto-closeable, auto-cleanable "inner lid"
| (sitting collapsed just below the seat) that closes only while
| you're flushing so that all that flush water tsunami doesn't come
| out on my floor and everywhere else.
|
| If a potential founder and creator is interested, I have a design
| in mind for the same. :)
| twic wrote:
| There are designs where the flush button is on the front of the
| cistern, so in order to flush, you have to close the lid.
| glenngillen wrote:
| When I was a kid (almost 40 years ago) the family we went
| camping with had this setup. A toilet that that put over a long
| drop, and when you sat on the seat the the pressure would open
| the inner seat, effectively splitting it in two and pulling it
| away to open the hole below.
|
| I'd assumed it was some standard pro camping kit. By no amount
| of searching just now has been able to turn up a device like
| I'm trying to describe!
| piyush_soni wrote:
| Wow. That should have become a household design by now.
| learn_more wrote:
| My Airhead composting toilet has an inner door that's opened
| by a small handle once you are ready to make your deposit.
| soco wrote:
| I'm definitely not a plumber but I know toilets with a rather
| slow flush which probably wouldn't throw much plume - although
| that might be a different design than the US ones and require
| wider drain pipes.
| saboot wrote:
| For urinating, Larry David beat you to it with his innovative
| 'Pee Cube' design.
| koliber wrote:
| Scientists have know that particles come up for a long time.
| This study visualized them. Here's an excerpt from this
| article:
|
| > Researchers have known for over 60 years that when a toilet
| is flushed, solids and liquids go down as designed, but tiny,
| invisible particles are also released into the air.
|
| Do we need to come up with something new? What if we start
| closing the lid that is already there before flushing?
| doctorhandshake wrote:
| This experiment was done on a public-style (commercial)
| toilet. They do not have lids.
| badcppdev wrote:
| Any idea what proportion of public toilets in the US do not
| have lids?
| irrational wrote:
| 100%?
|
| At least, I've never seen a public toilet with a lid.
| voxadam wrote:
| This is very interesting but I'm curious why the researchers
| chose to focus on pressurized commercial toilets as apposed to
| the non-pressurized, gravity-fed residential toilets that most of
| us[0] likely use far more frequently.
|
| [0] I admit, I _might_ be showing my US based western bias here;
| I 'm not sure.
| sneak wrote:
| If you travel a lot in the US, you can go weeks without using a
| toilet with a lid. Many/most midrange business-focused hotels
| have commercial style lidless toilets, and save for custom Toto
| washlet boutique office setups demanded by Americans who have
| had the pleasure of spending time in asia, almost no commercial
| office or workspace in the US has lidded toilets.
| xattt wrote:
| > If you travel a lot in the US, you can _go weeks without
| using a toilet with a lid_.
|
| "Achievement unlocked"
| mitchdoogle wrote:
| The people you share your home toilet with are bound to spread
| any pathogens they're carrying to you in multiple way. You are
| likely touching the same things, eating the same things,
| touching them, kissing them, etc. A public toilet may be used
| by hundreds of people each day and is the single common point
| of contact and thus carries more potential for spread of
| pathogen
| bbarnett wrote:
| But the pathogens your genetically close relatives carry, are
| ones they did not shrug off, and are probably better suited
| to stick around you too.
|
| (Just a thought, loads of holes in it, but it may be true in
| some edge cases.)
| bluGill wrote:
| You probably share enough other contact with such people
| that you will get what they have anyway.
| Tepix wrote:
| In fact it would be interested to compare all sorts of toilets
| under this aspect. Perhaps there is one that is superior.
|
| On the other hand it's interesting not just to see water
| particles flying through the room but perhaps also where they
| are coming from. If you design a toilet that sucks everything
| out first (without a splash) and the rapidly replenishes the
| water (in a splashy fashion), the percentage of pathogens might
| be much lower.
| simple10 wrote:
| In the US, commercial toilets like the one tested do not have
| lids. Probably for ease of maintenance and (most likely) a
| misguided notion that not having a lid is more hygienic and
| easier to clean. These are toilets found in office buildings,
| shopping centers, airports, etc.
|
| Anybody know if commercial toilets in UK and EU tend to have
| lids?
| itronitron wrote:
| Not sure about UK but EU at least tends to have fully
| enclosed stalls (no gaps above, below, or between the
| partitions) in public restrooms which should hopefully
| reduce aerosol spread.
| FastEatSlow wrote:
| In the UK we usually have lids, unless it's been
| vandalised.
| jkepler wrote:
| In France, I generally don't see lids on public toilets. In
| fact, its pretty common to see toilets without seats---
| vandalized or perhaps removed for maintenance, I'm not
| sure. (Maybe someone French has an idea why the seats are
| often missing/removed?)
| eru wrote:
| > In fact it would be interested to compare all sorts of
| toilets under this aspect. Perhaps there is one that is
| superior.
|
| You could also just close the lid before you flush?
| [deleted]
| bbarnett wrote:
| Lids _must remain up always_. For family peace, I removed
| the lid completely.
| adlpz wrote:
| What?
|
| How's using the lid a controversial thing at all?
| sidlls wrote:
| The commenter is likely snarking about living with a
| female (or females). Some can be, er, particular about
| the toilet lid.
|
| (Yes, the solution here is to put the lid back up when
| done, but then that ruins a bit of the GP's (I think)
| intended humor.)
| nsxwolf wrote:
| You're thinking of the seat, not the lid. Although women
| are wrong about this. The standard should be a single
| seat manipulation per urinary event. That's the only fair
| way to do it. Why should the men manipulate the seat
| twice and women never?
| itronitron wrote:
| Agreed, lid goes down prior to each flush. Guys raise the
| seat if they are standing up, otherwise anyone else using
| the toilet just needs to raise and lower the lid.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Yeah, this has long been my response to the stupid seat-
| up/seat-down controversy. Fine, lid's going down too.
| That way stuff can't get knocked or dropped in, _and_ it
| reduces flush-spray, so it 's better anyway.
| grahamplace wrote:
| If your goal is to minimize pathogens transferred from
| seat to hand, you can think of the man's second seat
| manipulation as "zero cost" in the sense that their hand
| is already contaminated and they'll need to wash
| thoroughly
|
| Man 2x, Woman 0x = 1 "contamination" cost incurred Man
| 1x, Woman 1x = 2 "contamination" cost incurred
| nsxwolf wrote:
| This is an interesting view. Like anything else it's
| important to establish what the goals actually are.
| SapporoChris wrote:
| Some men are learning to urinate sitting down. Think
| about it, if that toilet is sending aerosols into the
| air, what is your stream of urine doing as you stand
| distantly from the toilet? Also, if you've ever cleaned
| toilets then you know about the accuracy of anyone who
| insists on standing.
|
| https://www.theunconventionalroute.com/men-pee-sitting-
| down/ or just search using terms like: men are learning
| to pee sitting down
| yamtaddle wrote:
| I piss sitting down plenty and always have (sometimes I
| just want to sit and relax a bit, you know? Or sometimes
| you feel like you've got a fart in the mix but aren't
| _entirely_ sure it won 't be a shart, so you sit just to
| be safe) but I do find it doesn't quite empty me out as
| well. Standing's better, like, anatomically, for some
| reason.
| mike_d wrote:
| Studies have shown that there is no difference for
| healthy adult males, but sitting is actually better for
| evacuation as you start to get an enlarged prostate
| (Roughly half of men over 50).
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4106761/
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Lovely, maybe I'm getting one of those way younger than
| I'm "supposed" to, LOL. I think the first time I noticed
| a (small, but non-zero) difference between the two was in
| my late 20s.
| scythe wrote:
| You still splash when sitting. You'd need to measure it
| to know what results in less aerosol exposure
| (particularly considering the distance-to-face factor),
| even though it probably doesn't matter anyway. And anyone
| who has ever cleaned toilets knows that the women's room
| is not a paradise of cleanliness.
| thesuitonym wrote:
| You can, but closing the lid doesn't seal anything.
| gnicholas wrote:
| If you put the lid down before you flush to protect
| yourself from all the dirtiness, doesn't that mean the
| lid (which you have to touch to put up/down) is itself
| extremely dirty?
| rascul wrote:
| Remember to wash your hands.
| gnicholas wrote:
| That works as long as you don't touch anything after
| opening the lid, before washing. Like your phone, for
| example.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > If you put the lid down before you flush to protect
| yourself from all the dirtiness, doesn't that mean the
| lid (which you have to touch to put up/down) is itself
| extremely dirty?
|
| The parts of the lid that you touch to raise and lower it
| are probably relatively distant from the parts of the lid
| that would receive the brunt of any splashback.
| gnicholas wrote:
| The part I touch to lower is the top of the lid, so
| relatively distant. But the part I touch to raise is the
| underside of the lid, at the edge. While it might not be
| in the most direct line-of-fire, I would expect it would
| actually get a decent amount of particles because it is
| adjacent to an air gap, where pressure would escape. But
| I'm no aerodynamicist -- just speculating!
| ygra wrote:
| Toilets on trains (at least in Germany) work that way.
| Presumably because it cuts down on the amount of water
| necessary to flush, but may have other benefits as well.
| chasil wrote:
| ...as do the facilities on commercial airplanes.
| whycome wrote:
| I mean those commercial toilets are what you'll find in a lot
| of office environments, schools, stores, etc etc. And it's the
| time when you're likely present in a room for _someone else 's
| flush_. And, you also have no idea of who's using it. In a
| household, one will probably have an okay sense if someone else
| is sick (eg flu).
| xtiansimon wrote:
| Commercial toilets are designed or engineered, but evidently
| not very well.
|
| And they never have a lid you can close to avoid the spray.
| eru wrote:
| Oh, that's just American weirdness. Toilets in most of the
| rest of the world are saner. They also typically have a
| proper seat, instead of the U shape required by law in many
| places in the US.
| jliptzin wrote:
| The rest of the world also has no problem with bidets, here
| in the US we prefer smearing it around with paper like
| peanut butter until it's good enough
| einherjae wrote:
| That's pretty much standard in all western countries I've
| visited.
| vel0city wrote:
| > Toilets in most of the rest of the world are saner. They
| also typically have a proper seat
|
| Rest of the world? What about the places with squat
| toilets? Those are common in many places in the "rest of
| the world", and they don't even have seats!
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Pooping while squatting is healthier, so maybe that
| qualifies as saner too.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| It's also just, really damn effective. If you are ever
| having trouble squeezing one out on our antiquated and
| stupidly un-designed porcelain throne, get your legs
| higher so you are closer to squatting, and consider
| investing in a stool to put your feet on.
| thesuitonym wrote:
| That's required by law? I thought it was just a cost saving
| measure (like everything else about US...Everything)
|
| What's the purpose?
| rumblefrog wrote:
| I believe it's mostly a matter of hygiene, less contact
| area for your genitals.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| It's included by reference as part of the universal
| plumbing code. There isn't a "toilet seat act of 1927" or
| something.
|
| The original intent was to make it easier for women to
| clean the perineal area without contacting a surface, and
| reduces genital contact with a surface.
|
| How do I know this? My wife was on a safety committee in
| a past job where there was a workplace injury claim
| related to this topic. In our case, there was an
| automated toilet cover dispenser, which made the round
| seat code compliant.
| SapporoChris wrote:
| Commercial toilets are amazing in Japan, they usually do have
| lids.
|
| "In Japan, these high-tech toilets are everywhere: hotels,
| restaurants, bus stations, rest stops and around 80% of
| homes."
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2020/02/25/808791622/why-.
| ..
|
| The quote is somewhat exaggerated but mostly true. I've even
| found the public toilets to be incredibly clean. While it is
| possible to occasionally find older porcelain squat toilets
| they are becoming very rare.
|
| https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=public+toilets+in+japan
| darrylb42 wrote:
| Or you get a squatter toilette. Also you need to bring your
| own paper for a lot of public toilettes. Though it has been
| almost 20 years since I last visited. At the time I
| wondered why they handed out so many advertising Kleenex
| travel size packs. It was for the train station bathroom.
| jkepler wrote:
| I think squat pots are anatomically better than simply
| sitting.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| The last time I saw a serious study on the issue, which did
| include lid testing, the lid did little to stop the spray. It
| just blows out from the sides under the seat.
| bombcar wrote:
| Clearly we need over engineered toilet lids that seal all
| around with double locks.
|
| Or perhaps even if they do spray in all directions it's not
| quite as horrible as it's made out to be.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Probably with one way valves so they can flush despite
| the seal. I agree with the idea that it is probably not a
| big deal. Good for headlines grossing people out, but
| probably a non-issue for average humans with functioning
| immune systems.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| According to Slavoj Zizek, Germans love Hermeneutic stool
| diagnostics.
|
| >Zizek on toilets. Slavoj Zizek during an architecture congress
| in Pamplona, Spain.
|
| >The German toilets, the old kind -- now they are disappearing,
| but you still find them. It's the opposite. The hole is in
| front, so that when you produce excrement, they are displayed
| in the back, they don't disappear in water. This is the German
| ritual, you know? Use it every morning. Sniff, inspect your
| shits for traces of illness. It's high Hermeneutic. I think the
| original meaning of Hermeneutic may be this.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneutics
|
| >Hermeneutics (/,he:rm@'nju:tIks/)[1] is the theory and
| methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of
| biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts.
| Hermeneutics is more than interpretive principles or methods we
| resort to when immediate comprehension fails. Rather,
| hermeneutics is the art of understanding and of making oneself
| understood.
|
| >"In a traditional German toilet, the hole into which shit
| disappears after we flush is right at the front, so that shit
| is first laid out for us to sniff and inspect for traces of
| illness. In the typical French toilet, on the contrary, the
| hole is at the back, i.e. shit is supposed to disappear as
| quickly as possible. Finally, the American (Anglo-Saxon) toilet
| presents a synthesis, a mediation between these opposites: the
| toilet basin is full of water, so that the shit floats in it,
| visible, but not to be inspected. [...] It is clear that none
| of these versions can be accounted for in purely utilitarian
| terms: each involves a certain ideological perception of how
| the subject should relate to excrement. Hegel was among the
| first to see in the geographical triad of Germany, France and
| England an expression of three different existential attitudes:
| reflective thoroughness (German), revolutionary hastiness
| (French), utilitarian pragmatism (English). In political terms,
| this triad can be read as German conservatism, French
| revolutionary radicalism and English liberalism. [...] The
| point about toilets is that they enable us not only to discern
| this triad in the most intimate domain, but also to identify
| its underlying mechanism in the three different attitudes
| towards excremental excess: an ambiguous contemplative
| fascination; a wish to get rid of it as fast as possible; a
| pragmatic decision to treat it as ordinary and dispose of it in
| an appropriate way. It is easy for an academic at a round table
| to claim that we live in a post-ideological universe, but the
| moment he visits the lavatory after the heated discussion, he
| is again knee-deep in ideology." -Slavoj Zizek
| wincy wrote:
| Is it supposed to float? I don't think I've ever had a poo
| that floated.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| You have your guts to thank for that.
|
| Where's dang and his helpful links to recent relevant
| discussions when you need him? I'm happy to drop this in:
|
| Why some feces float and others sink (phys.org)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33691619
|
| https://phys.org/news/2022-11-feces.html
|
| There needs to be another "fart content" dimension to the
| Bristol Stool Scale.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_stool_scale
| nibbleshifter wrote:
| In the old school German (and dutch) toilets, the shit
| lands on basically a shelf, for inspection.
|
| You then flush it and it fucks off into the abyss.
|
| The reason for the "poop inspection shelf" apparently was
| so you could take a quick look at your turd and see if it
| displayed signs of illness. Like say, blood.
| postscapes1 wrote:
| I wish there were more modern thinkers like Zizek.
| nibbleshifter wrote:
| Oh, the poop shelf, so you can examine your stool before you
| send it into the abyss.
|
| They are also occurring in the Netherlands.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Zizek is fashionable nonsense and is a charlatan and hack at
| the same level as Jacques Lacan (who he also cites a lot)
|
| Better to avoid their kind of drivel.
| eatbitseveryday wrote:
| So a curtesy flush on these toilets seems quite disgusting now.
| Geezus-42 wrote:
| Someone watched Mythbusters...
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| I remember Dave Barry bringing this up the mid 90s. " _So we see
| that a toilet is really nothing more than -- to use scientific
| parlance -- a Yuck Bomb._ "
|
| I've kept my toothbrush in my bedroom ever since.
|
| ref: https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-
| xpm-1995-04-30-19951201...
| jeffrallen wrote:
| News flash: the world is dirty. Maybe they should take their
| magical green laser outside and play, like we ask our children to
| do. I bet there's lots of horrible things coming up from walking
| through the underbrush behind my house.
| tamaharbor wrote:
| And don't get me started about urinal troughs...
| [deleted]
| dncornholio wrote:
| I think a little exposure to aerosolized particles is nothing
| bad. Hygiene is important but I also think building resistance is
| important.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Sounds like something could be learned here from space toilets,
| which rely on suction (not gravity). Check out NASA's $23 million
| new design:
|
| https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/nasa-just-sent...
|
| > "The new toilet is a compact cylinder standing about 28 inches
| tall and features the same type of fan system, as well as a
| funnel attached to a hose, as previous iterations. It also has a
| removable waste compactor for the astronauts to deposit their
| droppings in. Each time an astronaut poops, their business is
| sucked into a baggie. Once finished, the astronaut will seal the
| baggie up, and push the packaged poop down into the canister.
| They then install a new baggie and the process repeats until the
| canister is full. As the canister fills up, the bathroom stall
| may not always smell so fresh. The collection bin holds roughly
| 30 deposits. Once the bin is full, the poop is then discarded
| with the rest of the trash into outer space."
|
| The idea of bags of human poop (including trillions of microbiome
| bacteria) floating forever in deep space orbits is rather odd.
| This seems like an orbital debris hazard?
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Space stations aren't deep space it's like 200 miles away from
| where I'm sitting. Geostationary is something like 100 times
| that and even out there orbital decay is on the scale of like,
| a human lifetime or two.
|
| This general concept is definitely something for us to consider
| but this isn't a specific case we need to worry about, I think.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Orbital decay is indeed quite fast at space station levels,
| but geostationary decay takes roughly forever. (There are
| geosynchronous orbits that decay quickly, but only at certain
| inclinations.)
| vikingerik wrote:
| Geostationary orbits are well beyond measurable atmospheric
| drag; the expected lifetime is on the order of millions of
| years. Geostationary satellites do have a limited oeprational
| lifespan, but it's not because of orbital decay, it's because
| they need propellant for stationkeeping to adjust for
| irregularities in the orbit, and that propellant is finite
| and eventually runs out.
| vikingerik wrote:
| They don't float forever - any object orbiting at the altitude
| of the ISS will decay from atmospheric drag, generally on time
| scales of a few months to years.
|
| Human spaceflights at altitudes beyond significant atmospheric
| drag would need another solution, but we haven't done any of
| those since 1972.
| sgu999 wrote:
| So on top of having to raise the seat to pee, we now have to
| lower the lid to flush?!
| rob74 wrote:
| Or use a urinal (should be available in most public toilets).
| They have no lid, but often an automatic flushing mechanism, so
| if you run away fast enough you have a chance to avoid the
| plume...
| Tepix wrote:
| There are also urinals with lids, but i have not seen them on
| public toilets.
| Jorengarenar wrote:
| What do you think the lid is there for?
| tunap wrote:
| To keep the dog & cat from drinking out of it. Very unpopular
| with the quadrupeds & half of the bipeds.
|
| The growth that occurs on the underside of the lid makes for
| a good reminder that cleaning the toilet is (over-)due.
| cperciva wrote:
| Also to keep the toddler from playing in it.
| ginko wrote:
| I mainly use it as a footstool when I cut my toenails.
| hgomersall wrote:
| To sit down whilst the kids are in the bath.
| unglaublich wrote:
| It's to assist you when you need to replace the ceiling light
| bulb, no?
| whycome wrote:
| Or to change a clock? But you might slip off, hit your
| head, and invent time travel.
| mythhouse wrote:
| to escape life and watch tiktok for 2 hrs.
| watchdogtimer wrote:
| Many public toilets where I live have no lids.
| tremon wrote:
| And raise the lid to pee, preferably.
| jraph wrote:
| > raise the seat to pee
|
| You don't need to do this. Just sit, it's cleaner and healthier
| :-)
| captainredbeard wrote:
| Only if I start writing managed code
| scythe wrote:
| Sitting is the _worst_. It 's impossible to pee completely.
| Even when defecating I need to stand up and pee afterwards.
| Also not sure why _touching_ the toilet seat with my legs
| would be "cleaner".
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Do you have any evidence of this? I've sat to pee my entire
| life and have never run into this and indeed experience the
| opposite, where no matter how much you shake it and try and
| force everything out, when you put your dick back in your
| pants it always finds more pee to drip down your shorts.
| scythe wrote:
| It's my direct personal experience. What kind of evidence
| do you expect, a video?
| recuter wrote:
| Ah, the decline of western civilization continues.
| hgomersall wrote:
| Or stop worrying about it unless you are shedding pathogens, in
| which case I suspect it's not really enough to achieve the
| objective of stopping cross contamination.
| femboy wrote:
| Yes.
| foehrenwald wrote:
| Published paper: Commercial toilets emit energetic and rapidly
| spreading aerosol plumes
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-24686-5
|
| Related: Lifting the lid on toilet plume aerosol: A literature
| review with suggestions for future research
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4692156/
| IndySun wrote:
| We collectively have been operating loos this way, or similar,
| for decades. I wonder, is it causing health issues of
| significance? And, should a 'cleaner' way of flushing be adopted,
| will we collectively be ill less?
| flushaway wrote:
| At home, I do this thing where I push the flush lever right as
| doody is coming out. When I time it right, it sort of goes down
| exactly at the bottom of the whirlpool, no smell. I figure if I
| keep under the rim and everything else clean, it hopefully makes
| for no offensive ejecta. I can't be the only one who cares about
| this.
| stoicjumbotron wrote:
| > Thanks to new CU Boulder research, scientists see the impact of
| flushing the toilet in a whole new light--and now, the world can
| as well.
|
| Great pun if intended
| smm11 wrote:
| Add a bidet to this equation and it will blow your mind. Best not
| to dive too deep into this.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| At least you don't need UV light to see the spray!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu2psmj1whE
| the-smug-one wrote:
| I seriously have no clue whether you guys are being sarcastic, do
| you actually not close the lid before flushing? Also, public
| toilets with lids is the majority of cases in Sweden. And peeing
| on a metal sheet also releases particles, so who cares about the
| urinal.
| sneak wrote:
| Public/industrial/commercial toilets in the US generally do not
| have lids, only seats.
|
| They also seem to flush a lot more violently than residential
| toilets, relevant to the issue raised by TFA.
|
| It is strange to me that there are two parallel systems. I
| imagine the commercial ones require less maintenance but are
| more expensive?
| hgsgm wrote:
| eru wrote:
| > It is strange to me that there are two parallel systems. I
| imagine the commercial ones require less maintenance but are
| more expensive?
|
| There's a lot more laws and regulations for the 'commercial'
| toilets. Eg the U-shaped open seat is mandatory for public
| toilets in many places in the US. It's not a choice they make
| for commercial considerations.
|
| Btw, 'commercial' toilet is a bit of a misnomer: it's against
| the law to run a toilet business in most of the US.
| (Specifically paid toilets are outlawed.)
| Oxidation wrote:
| It's fascinating to me how often things get codified into
| law or standards[1], but the reasoning behind it becomes
| legend.
|
| Apparently the u-shape is intended to allow women to wipe
| without touching the seat, and maybe also reduce male
| contact with the front. But you have to take a bunch of
| people's word (which I suspect to be guesses) for that.
|
| [1] and I've been on standards committees where people are
| trying to imagine what the previous generation were trying
| to say, since standards usually only tell you what, and are
| short on the why.
| bombcar wrote:
| Where is the "commercial toilets must have U-shaped seats"
| law found?
|
| Most "commercial toilets" are designed to be easy to clean
| and run off of "mains" pressure - commercial buildings have
| enough flow that they can flush directly without storing a
| buffer in a tank. And many commercial businesses have
| normal "home" toilets, at least around here.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| A lid is not a panacea. The force behind a toilet flush,
| especially a commercial one, just blows the particles out the
| sides under the seat and lid.
|
| You pee on a metal sheet? Fascinating. Does nobody wear shorts
| in Sweden? ;-)
| the-smug-one wrote:
| >You pee on a metal sheet? Fascinating. Does nobody wear
| shorts in Sweden? ;-)
|
| Average bar urinal: https://www.sweppomn.se/wp-
| content/uploads/2020/02/14800038_...
|
| Also yes, we do wear shorts, that's how no one sees that
| we've peed on our own legs :-).
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Complete with art! Looks almost exactly like a bar I go to
| here (in Oregon), all the way down to the blue walls and
| graffiti. But most of our establishments have regular
| toilets, by far. Another local bar has a pretty spacious
| bathroom, the requisite graffiti and such, but a lone
| lidless toilet. Concrete floor and a drain, too, which is
| good because it seems that drunk people like to use the
| open toilet as a challenge, to see if they can hit it from
| afar. They often miss.
| eru wrote:
| The US has some crazy toilet regulations and customs.
|
| No lids. In many places the law requires weird U-shaped open
| seats. Paid toilets are verboten in most places, too. And the
| cubicles of public toilets typically don't got all the way to
| the floor nor ceiling and even have vertical slits to peek.
| brigandish wrote:
| Apparently, the reason the doors don't go all the way to the
| floor is to meet stipulations in the Americans with
| Disabilities Act which are to allow wheelchair users to
| turn[1].
|
| [1] https://travel.stackexchange.com/a/62354/19042
| guntherhermann wrote:
| West europe uses a separate disabled toilets, typically
| much larger, have plenty of places to hold and grip, larger
| toilet seat, a "help me" cord to pull, friendlier taps,
| etc.
|
| An example: https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VQ-
| IG8pFfcs/WQYWuWexVmI/AAAAAAAAd...
|
| No, too much work? Instead just infringe on the privacy of
| everyone else.
|
| Honestly...
| kube-system wrote:
| I understand we all have different cultural norms, but I
| have never felt that my privacy was infringed on by the
| potential that a stranger may see my shoes while taking a
| crap.
|
| But then again, I went to plenty of bars in college with
| trough urinals, so maybe I have a different point of
| comparison.
| iso1631 wrote:
| That's what's really weird in the states - there's a
| partition between urinals, but turn around and there's
| half-inch gaps between the door and rest of the cubicle!
| kube-system wrote:
| There's not always partitions, i.e. the troughs I
| referenced.
|
| The clearances around the stall doors have never occurred
| to me as an issue. Nobody stands outside of a stall door
| with their face stuck in the door crack.
| abecedarius wrote:
| That pattern preceded the ADA, as far back as I can
| remember. Wouldn't surprise me if this law locked it in
| after it became standard, though.
| itronitron wrote:
| Probably started in saloons so that the local sheriff
| could walk through and check for any fugitives by looking
| at their cowboy boots.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Yesterday I was in a Boston, MA bathroom where the stall
| doors were floor to ceiling. Even the wheelchair accessible
| stall had a floor-to-ceiling door.
|
| I've always understood the difference to be cultural and
| economics driven: US stall partitions are cheaper than
| walls and floor-to-ceiling doors; so the (cough) pooping
| closets really are only in upscale bathrooms.
|
| (BTW, in the 1990s a Boston-area radio station used to
| broadcast bits where they would sit in a stall and strike
| up a conversation with whoever sat next to them.)
| deathanatos wrote:
| Low rep poster, no citations. I'm going to call [citation
| needed] on that. The door is often perpendicular to the
| toilet so the explanation doesn't even really make sense...
| tsimionescu wrote:
| I thought it was bunk as well, but there is a comment
| actually quoting an ADA building guide directly that
| confirms it:
|
| https://up.codes/viewer/ada/chapter/6/plumbing-elements-
| and-...
| iso1631 wrote:
| "Toe clearance at the front partition is not required in
| a compartment greater than 62 inches (1575 mm) deep"
| remedan wrote:
| No, I don't, and I don't think I've suffered any negative
| consequences. But I've also never lived in a place that had the
| toilet placed in the bathroom. I guess if I were flushing the
| toilet next to my sink and my toothbrush, I might think
| differently about it.
| christophilus wrote:
| > I've also never lived in a place that had the toilet placed
| in the bathroom.
|
| Where is your toilet?
| millerm wrote:
| In the water closet, of course.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Can't speak for OP particularly, but many newer houses in
| the US have the toilet in its own small room separate from
| the rest of the bathroom where the sinks, shower, and
| soaker tub are.
|
| Though in my household I can say the door to the small room
| rarely gets closed and I can't convince anyone else to put
| the damn lid down. Until slurp-slurp-slurp the dog starts
| drinking it, in which case there's a "stop drinking from
| the bowl!" followed by closing the lid. I'm not bitter. I
| try to choose my battles, and "turn the fan on when you
| poop" is a hill more worthy of dying on. Still haven't
| really succeeded with the kids yet.
| roxymusic1973 wrote:
| > turn the fan on when you poop
|
| Windows also work well.
| vel0city wrote:
| A window might blow air out, but it also might blow air
| in. This would result in drawing your bathroom air deeper
| into the house instead of exiting it. A proper vent fan
| will undoubtedly move the air outside.
| deathanatos wrote:
| > _A proper vent fan_
|
| I don't think I have ever, in my life, been in a bathroom
| with a "proper" vent fan. AFAICT by observation,
| regulations must require a fan that makes seems to only
| make "chugchugchug" noises while seemingly doing nothing
| to the air.
| vel0city wrote:
| Lots of vent fans in houses tend to not actually vent
| anywhere, or they're covered up with insulation. I know I
| had to dig my vent fans out when I moved into my house.
| Uncovering them led them to be much quieter and actually
| exhaust from the bathroom.
|
| Good bathroom ventilation is important. Controlling
| humidity is a big thing, but also properly ventilating
| things like acetone or hairspray or other things along
| with bad odors is important.
| rascul wrote:
| > Lots of vent fans in houses tend to not actually vent
| anywhere, or they're covered up with insulation.
|
| I do a lot of house repairs. I don't think I've ever seen
| a bathroom fan that goes outside except in mobile homes.
| They just vent into the attic. Same with many kitchen
| fans. They should all go to the outside otherwise they
| could cause moisture issues in the future.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| > Can't speak for OP particularly, but many newer houses
| in the US have the toilet in its own small room separate
| from the rest of the bathroom where the sinks, shower,
| and soaker tub are.
|
| I hate this type of setup, because it means I have to
| walk to another room before I can properly wash. Then
| again, I believe many people only use toilet paper in the
| US, so they are probably used to it..
| OJFord wrote:
| I hate it, but loads of people don't close the lid at all, it's
| just some sort of decoration to them, I don't know.
|
| You can often tell these people without ever sharing a lavatory
| with them - they'll joke about the woman/women in their life
| training them to 'put the seat down' (or similar from the
| female perspective) - as if that's all there is to put down,
| and consequently the women using it have nothing to close.
|
| (It sounds like a weirdly niche thing to joke about, but for
| some reason it seems to be popular. I suppose such people think
| it's very relatable, not realising how exposing or even class-
| determining it is.)
| mejutoco wrote:
| Playing devil's advocate in this important topic... There are
| arguments to have the lid down or up, and I get that you find
| it vulgar, but exposing your class?
| turboaspie wrote:
| Ultimately the hygiene benefits of closing the lid when
| flushing are negligible in most situations. These studies
| always show evocative images of aerosol spreading from
| toilets when flushing, which understandably elicits a disgust
| response in certain individuals, but they fail to show that
| e.g. homes where the lid always stays up have higher rates of
| disease, or that the pathogen exposure from flushing has any
| real impact on health.
|
| Also given that the majority of people flush without closing
| the lid (I suspected this but just confirmed with a quick
| search) it's a bit weird referring to them as "these people"
| whose type you can tell. I don't think this habit is
| constrained to those who publicly joke about it.
| OJFord wrote:
| > Ultimately the hygiene benefits of closing the lid when
| flushing are negligible in most situations.
|
| I wasn't commenting on any supposed benefits for flushing,
| purely aesthetics and manners.
|
| > [studies fail to show they] have higher rates of disease,
| or that the pathogen exposure
|
| Nor did I claim anything of the sort.
|
| > it's a bit weird referring to them as "these people"
|
| Are they not people? They are certainly not _all_ people.
| What would you have me say?
|
| > I don't think this habit is constrained to those who
| publicly joke about it.
|
| Nor do I, I said you can _' often'_ tell. The public joking
| happens _often_ (enough for it to come to mind, evidently)
| and you can tell that about those people. I made no claim
| about the others - though if they 're laughing at the joke
| that's probably a good indicator too.
| a3w wrote:
| About your later point: Isn't pee supposed to be a mostly
| sterile liquid?
| devmor wrote:
| Its not sterile at all. Why do you think they test it for
| bacterial cultures when you've got an infection?
| surement wrote:
| it's not likely to be harmful but that it is sterile is a
| falsehood probably popularized by Fight Club
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| > popularized by Fight Club
|
| And Lawrence of Arabia in the Seven Pillars of Wisdom. In
| which the young men piss on wounds.
|
| "The other wounded men were seen to at the same time.
| Mifleh brought up the youngest lads of the party, and had
| them spray the wounds with their piss, as a rude
| antiseptic."
|
| Last paragraph of chapter 78:
| https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/seven-pillars-of-wisdom-
| ebo...
| pengaru wrote:
| No, this belief goes _way_ back, like pre-WW2.
|
| My father would tell a story explaining why one foot was
| scarred and ticklish that involved the neighborhood kids
| pissing on his bleeding foot after stepping on a broken
| bottle while playing soccer barefoot in the plaza back home
| in Italy. All the kids knew to piss on the wound to
| sterilize it. He was born in '42.
| dekhn wrote:
| The paper's methods section is nice to read. They convert a line
| laser to a sheet (illuminating a plane).
|
| I was disappointed they didn't use a poop surrogate
| (https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/56003/recipe-fake-poop)
|
| Office toilets are pretty bad- they really do churn up a lot more
| than a home toilet.
|
| A few times I've had to reach over the toilet for a flush and
| felt a mist which roughly correlates to what you see in the
| videos.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| This reminds me of Al Bundy and his love for the Ferguson, the
| king of the toilets.
|
| https://marriedwithchildren.fandom.com/wiki/Ferguson_Toilet
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Found this on YouTube:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL2YRDzpTL4
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