[HN Gopher] Impacts of lid closure during toilet flushing
___________________________________________________________________
Impacts of lid closure during toilet flushing
Author : bikenaga
Score : 158 points
Date : 2024-01-25 17:07 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ajicjournal.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ajicjournal.org)
| delichon wrote:
| > These results demonstrate that closing the toilet lid prior to
| flushing does not mitigate the risk of contaminating bathroom
| surfaces and that disinfection of all restroom surfaces (ie,
| toilet rim, floors) may be necessary after flushing or after
| toilet brush used for the reduction of virus cross-contamination.
|
| I fear the collision of safety culture and robot technology that
| will make it cheap and easy to actually keep bathroom surfaces
| sterile. We'll adapt to our increasingly sterile bubbles and
| become increasingly vulnerable to Earth's microbiome.
|
| The same kind of objections apply to things like clothes, shelter
| and agriculture. I'm not advocating that we do away with these,
| or the idea of cleanliness. But our dependence on them comes with
| a cost that isn't always worth paying. Particularly where the
| cost is a compromised immune system.
| moredingo3 wrote:
| This has real world implications to prevent the spread of
| disease today. For example, the norovirus is a very contagious
| and nasty bug that quickly spreads to patients and staff. It is
| not something you want to encounter. This study implies that
| that PPE on staff in those environments is critical and could
| help inform their standard disinfecting procedures.
| lukev wrote:
| I presume you're referring to the "Hygiene hypothesis" which
| links early childhood exposure to microorganisms with fewer
| allergies and autoimmune disorders.
|
| It's important to note that this has not been demonstrated
| conclusively, and when medical professionals talk about it they
| stress that it's not worth exposing yourself to fecal matter
| intentionally to "build resistance." Personal cleanliness is
| still one of the more important things you can do for health.
|
| A reasonable compromise seems to be: let your kids play in the
| dirt, but also teach them to wash their hands after using the
| bathroom.
| zdragnar wrote:
| We've absolutely seen that people not exposed to certain
| types of bacteria don't develop resistances to it. There's a
| reason tourists have to drink bottled or sterilized water,
| after all.
|
| That said, your compromise seems right, but it missed the
| point of the parent post. Living in a hyper-sterilized world
| is going to have consequences.
| solarpunk wrote:
| Yeah, folks gotta understand the hygiene hypothesis kinda
| relies on assumptions about baseline environments, it falls
| flat on its face if you consider environments with
| industrialized biological contaminants such as hospitals,
| factory farms, or open sewage.
| pmarreck wrote:
| FYI I have psoriasis and I was _consciously_ avoiding any
| dirt as a kid, I was just always repulsed by dirt and mud and
| whatnot (was not a huge fan of sand either)... Years later I
| find out that non-exposure to certain environmental bacteria
| (that usually exist in dirt) within a certain developmental
| window results in a much higher chance of getting stuck with
| lifelong psoriasis... F___ me
| Chico75 wrote:
| In case anyone is curious about research related to this
| area, you can read the short history from Karelia study to
| biodiversity and public health interventions (https://www.ncb
| i.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10043497/#:~:te....) research
| paper that looks at the health condition disparities between
| the Russian and Finnish border kids.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| I had the same reaction to that paragraph. There is simply no
| convincing me to that such paranoia is rational. Bathrooms are
| a bit gross when it comes to germs and that's fine. Focus on
| the important stuff, and let bygones be bygones.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > cheap and easy to actually keep bathroom surfaces sterile
|
| I think that flatteringly overstates modern human abilities:
| Almost every surface on Earth either has life on it or is about
| to be get recolonized in short order. (Often after we did some
| temporarily-effective thing involving brute force radiation or
| unusual heat or volatile chemicals.)
|
| At best we'll end up with almost-sterile bathrooms that we're
| OK with because life that is both process-resistant and
| dangerous hasn't popped up yet.
|
| > We'll adapt to our increasingly sterile bubbles and become
| increasingly vulnerable to Earth's microbiome.
|
| There are two flavors to this that I think really need to be
| distinguished, because they lead to very different experiments
| and recommendations:
|
| 1. "Hygeine Hypothesis" - "Our immune systems need to be
| toughed up by winning battles against actual pathogens."
|
| 2. "Old Friends" - "Our immune systems need additional
| calibration by harmlessly interacting with the suite of benign
| things we co-evolved with."
|
| The former suggests that a certain level of (literal) inner
| turmoil and danger is required, whereas the latter suggests
| that it's a much more general issue of micro-ecological
| diversity and no pathogens are needed.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| How often in nature do humans encounter their own aerosolized
| fecal matter?
| adolph wrote:
| With small kids not unoften.
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| Whenever they have beans for dinner
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| There's a big difference between a fart and a toilet plume,
| I presume, in terms of viral/bacterial load.
|
| It might be like the difference between being in an airport
| for 5 minutes with a Covid stranger vs. sharing a bed with
| a Covid family member.
| freedude wrote:
| My Grandpa used to say if a child didn't eat a pound of dirt a
| year it just wasn't healthy. This was usually in response to my
| Aunt's frenetic diatribe about a cousin getting dirty while on
| the farm.
|
| He was right. We got dirty on the farm. We ate dirt in the form
| of working and playing in the dust and mud. We would get
| "cleaned up" on the hot summer days by swimming in the river.
| Not only did we survive, we thrived. It was some of the
| greatest years of my life, eating a pound of dirt a year...
| hermitcrab wrote:
| I worked on developing compartmental modelling software for
| consultants to use, so they could estimate how radionucleides
| moved around the environment. One of the parameters the
| consultants had to work out for their model was - how much
| dirt does a child eat in a year. I don't know what figure
| they ended up with.
| adr1an wrote:
| I love research articles that include TL;DR bulletpoints/
| Highlights * Viral aerosols from toilet
| flushing pose a possible route of pathogen transmission.
| * Toilet lid closure prior to flushing is believed to
| mitigate cross-contamination. * We show toilet
| lid closure prior to flushing does not mitigate cross-
| contamination. * Brushing toilet bowl without
| disinfectant results in contamination of surfaces. *
| The use of a disinfectant during bowl cleaning reduces cross-
| contamination of surfaces.
| croisillon wrote:
| i came to say that! the first 5 lines are all i needed to read,
| really great job
| whstl wrote:
| Love it. I used to really suck at some school subjects that had
| heavy text, until I started "converting" the prose of textbooks
| to bullet points, tables and whatnot. Then it would magically
| become interesting to me. Some people would also photocopy my
| stuff.
|
| Funny enough my sister was the opposite, she could read a book
| and write a thesis in a weekend. I guess different people have
| different preferences.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Wow, those people who keep their toothbrushes capped and out of
| the bathroom win another one. Never me, though. I'm a Hygiene
| Hypothesis Hoplite. Might well be a Semmelweis Simpleton though.
| Who can tell? Only time.
| gambiting wrote:
| I assume that all of them put a plug up their ass so they
| definitely never fart in their bed at night putting those exact
| same fecal bacteria where they sleep.
|
| Like, I get it - it's gross. But humans can be exposed to a
| certain level of gross and not die, it's fine.
| modeless wrote:
| It's more than fine, in many cases. We need the right
| bacteria in our guts to digest our food properly and they
| have to get in there somehow. Also our immune systems need
| exposure to a diversity of natural bacteria and other
| organisms in order to develop and function properly. Lack of
| exposure to natural biota is strongly suspected to be a major
| cause of the rapidly growing epidemic of allergies in modern
| life. (This is the Hygiene Hypothesis referenced upthread.)
|
| Not saying you should stick your toothbrush in the toilet,
| but unusually strict hygiene measures are unlikely to be net
| beneficial for you. My reading of the research is that
| greater exposure to bacteria is very healthy and desirable as
| much as possible without actually getting sick.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > But humans can be exposed to a certain level of gross and
| not die, it's fine.
|
| I'm reminded of this every time someone posts a link to FDA
| regulations of what is acceptable as "food", what level of
| contaminants are allowed in "food", and other things that
| really make you not want to eat "food".
| doubled112 wrote:
| I thought kink shaming was wrong.
| bregma wrote:
| I didn't detect any shaming. Maybe a little bit of relish
| or personal lived experience.
| pardoned_turkey wrote:
| The thing is, within normal, stable households, most of good
| hygiene practices - including hand-washing after using the
| restroom - are unnecessary. You already share all the
| microflora, and if one person brings in something contagious,
| you're gonna get exposed no matter what, and it's up to your
| immune system to save the day.
|
| That said, these practices do matter in other settings shared
| with strangers, so reflexive habits are worth having for that
| reason alone.
| thewakalix wrote:
| Exposure isn't a binary, though. It's easier for your immune
| system to deal with smaller quantities.
| forgotusername6 wrote:
| Worms. Maybe bacteria and viruses can get everywhere
| regardless, but larger things like worm eggs are not going to
| travel so easily. Washing your hands can definitely help with
| the reduction in transmission of worm eggs.
| SamBam wrote:
| This is definitely interesting. However, their diagram at the
| bottom makes me wish they had done another test site to model a
| sink near a toilet. While the lid-closed position still allows
| plenty of aerosolized water to emerge from the sides of the
| closed lid, it's not clear whether the aerosolized particles are
| then light enough to head upward towards a sink, or if they fall
| semi-ballistically like their diagram implies.
| thfuran wrote:
| Isn't an aerosol pretty much by definition able to be carried
| all around by air currents rather than being just a briefly
| suspended droplet? I do agree though that the bathroom sink
| area seems like an important thing to test. I'd have thought
| it's of much more interest than the floor beside the toilet.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| But are aerosols like the proverbial spherical cows? I mean,
| is there a distribution of droplet size, and how much does
| that affect things?
| stcredzero wrote:
| _But are aerosols like the proverbial spherical cows?_
|
| This makes me want to see some physics simulations of cow
| shaped particles.
| zonkerdonker wrote:
| Ask and ye shall receive:
| https://www.avclub.com/consider-if-you-will-the-
| aerodynamics...
| thfuran wrote:
| There definitely will be a distribution of droplet sizes
| (plausibly not unimodal) depending on the mechanics of
| what's producing and dispersing the droplets. Broadly
| speaking, the smaller the droplet, the longer it stays in
| the air. I'm not sure precisely where the line is, but in
| the context of virology, 'droplet' and 'aerosol' are
| distinct. Droplets are large enough that they still fall
| mostly ballistically, albeit potentially a bit slowly for
| very small droplets. But once it's small enough that it
| doesn't really fall anymore, it's an aerosol. And they can
| remain suspended in the air for hours.
| atum47 wrote:
| back in college I was living an a room that I rent from a nice
| old lady trying to make some extra money. Due to it being a small
| space and other factors like noise and sun light, my bed end up
| next to the door to the bathroom. I got pink eye at least three
| times that year, before I was able to get a better place.
|
| Ever since myth busters my toothbrush almost always have a cap on
| it and I always close the lid before flushing the toilet.
| pmarreck wrote:
| ... and now you know that closing the lid doesn't matter, but
| using disinfectants does.
| okdood64 wrote:
| > now you know that closing the lid doesn't matter
|
| For something so low effort, this one new study isn't going
| to change my habit of closing it "just in case."
| bryan0 wrote:
| I remember that mythbusters episode and I thought the
| conclusion was that the toothbrush bacteria cultures were no
| different than the control, which was a toothbrush right out of
| the package?
| falserum wrote:
| My vague recollection of that show matches yours.
| altairTF wrote:
| I knew I had this info from some place, and it was the
| MythBusters episode! Thanks for the reminder. I always put the
| lid down because of that episode but was unable to remember it.
| It just became natural
| aksss wrote:
| store toothbrush in medicine cabinet by sink, and douse with
| Listerine (or something) before and after brushing.
| polishdude20 wrote:
| How many cases have there been of people getting sick from things
| on their bathroom counter though? Like sure, you're measuring the
| physical phenomena and then concluding it leads to sickness but
| how significantly does it lead to sickness?
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| It's very hard to measure and attribute. But that doesn't mean
| it's not common.
|
| Similar to how many (?) cases of patients getting sick from a
| doctor's neck tie or a nurse having used a touchscreen. It's
| almost certainly not zero. Is it a lot though?
| Sakos wrote:
| I think it's not really relevant for your home toilet, but
| once you start thinking about public toilets in high traffic
| areas and/or high points of contact between different
| population groups like airports, doctor's offices, hospitals,
| malls, etc., I don't know why it wouldn't be worth
| investigating this and the potential risks.
| q1w2 wrote:
| It's definitely relevant in family homes where
| parents/siblings/guests share bathroom use.
|
| When one child gets sick in our house, we take some efforts
| to keep them somewhat isolated, and these measures have
| been usually successful.
|
| The bathroom is the weak link in their routine as they
| continue to share it with siblings. This report reinforces
| us asking them to spray disinfectant.
|
| Before we enacted some of these policies in our home, one
| kid getting a bug from school meant the entire family would
| get it. Now that's much less common.
| digging wrote:
| > measuring the physical phenomena and then concluding it leads
| to sickness
|
| No such conclusion is made, though.
| chasil wrote:
| Aerosolized measles can remain suspended in the air for a
| significant time. There would be nothing that you could do
| avoid it in this scenario.
|
| I've read elsewhere today that anything under 95% vaccination
| will result in outbreaks; the r-naught is 12-18 if google is
| correct.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Or even if it does, is that a short term pain but a longer term
| strengthening of the immune system? We keep sanitizing our
| environment - which is an outlier's outlier relative to the
| history of the species - and we keep getting more ill, more
| autoimmune diseases, more allergies, etc.
|
| TBH when my friend's dog links my face, I sometimes lick my
| lips. The odds of that making me stronger are 1000x the odds of
| it killing me. Mind you, I'm not going to lick a toilet bowl.
| But perhaps some minor exposure to such things isn't so bad in
| the broader sense?
| jt2190 wrote:
| Things that use your body to reproduce are difficult to
| "limit" such that you guarantee "minor exposure". Instead,
| you're gambling that your immune system can mount a response
| quickly enough to "limit" the illness. Perhaps the benefit of
| making your immune system mount a response is that it's now
| "trained". (This is of course the basic concept behind a
| vaccine: "train" the immune system and "limit" the risk of
| serious illness.)
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Gambling? That what...my lifelong way of living is going to
| suddenly kill me? I don't think so.
|
| Again, the species developed in a less than sterile
| environment, and suddenly we're going to clean that up and
| there are no unintended consequences?
|
| People are chugging soda and eating over-processed food
| are...worried about flushing the toilet? Let's weigh the
| risks here.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > Again, the species developed in a less than sterile
| environment
|
| Yes, and early death from disease was incredibly common.
|
| The discovery of penicillin is estimated to have saved
| over 200 million lives.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Early death from what? When?
|
| fwiw, if we keep doling out antibiotics as we are, we'll
| be happy with only losing 200 million.
|
| So again, are we making gains or grabbing a balloon?
| cruano wrote:
| > which is an outlier's outlier relative to the history of
| the species
|
| So is living in houses
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Homes? That's part of the sanitizing. We're not sleeping on
| dirt. We're showering daily, sometimes more. Etc.
| davidthewatson wrote:
| This resonates given my love of dogs and the huge chain of
| complex events that likely connects the sewage plant effluent
| that fertilized the lawn where I lived as a child and my
| emergent disease states that followed.
|
| Ignoring the fact that exposure may be a problem from E. coli
| to sewage, I read Robynne Chutkan's microbiome book at the
| suggestion of my doctor several years ago and nothing has
| come closer to the truth on our lack of exposure also being
| part of the problem.
|
| You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. Try finding
| the median there and there's a Nobel waiting for you.
|
| https://robynnechutkan.com/
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| My "come to Jesus moment" on the importance of microbiome
| was a feature article in the NY Times' Sunday Magazine five
| or so years ago.
|
| We always hear "People with pets live longer" and "couples
| live longer", right? While I can imagine the emotional
| value of those relationship and how it enables better
| health, _my theory_ is that the constant presence of other
| microbiomes - human and /or pet - is also a major
| contributor to better health. Live alone? Without a pet?
| You aren't exposed as much.
|
| p.s. Thanks for the book suggestion. I'll add them to my
| Wish List on ThriftBooks.com
| watwut wrote:
| > We keep sanitizing our environment - which is an outlier's
| outlier relative to the history of the species - and we keep
| getting more ill, more autoimmune diseases, more allergies,
| etc
|
| There are many sickness that basically don't exist anymore or
| are very rare, but used to be normal in the past.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Fair enough. But at what cost? Have sickness been
| mitigated, or have we simply traded some for others? Is
| over-sanitization a balloon grab?
| low_tech_punk wrote:
| The true power of lid closure is that it makes you feel gross and
| REALLY want to wash your hands, and by washing your hands, you
| get rid of 99% of the risks.
| pi-e-sigma wrote:
| Not if you close the lid using your foot :)
| WeAddValue wrote:
| Or your, oh, nevermind.
| low_tech_punk wrote:
| lol, exactly to the point though, knowing others using their
| foot makes you want to wash hands even more ;)
| sixstringtheory wrote:
| I know other people use their feet, which is partly why I
| use my foot
| cooperadymas wrote:
| Ah, game theory at its finest.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Unless the lid is powered as part of a washlet... (which I can
| whole-heartedly recommend as one of the best ways I've spent
| $1K on my house).
| amelius wrote:
| Sounds like an overcomplicated solution that requires lots of
| maintenance.
| _Adam wrote:
| Mine has proven equally reliable to a mechanical toilet,
| while providing considerably more comfort. This actually
| makes sense when you consider all the mechanical complexity
| in a typical toilet is getting replaced with a series of
| solenoids. Flush is now just energizing an electromagnet,
| rather than the gravity-powered dance of floats and valves
| you're used to.
|
| There's also fun to be had trolling toddlers. Sometimes
| when my 2yo closes the toilet I'll sneakily open it with
| the remote and she'll yell at it "NO!" and slam it shut
| again.
| miah_ wrote:
| If there's one feature I don't want my toilet to have,
| its an app.
| Volundr wrote:
| They said remote, not app. My toilet has a remote with
| all it's features that's mounted on the wall next to the
| toilet. The on toilet controls are limited to the
| essentials.
|
| As to why they have the remote outside of the bathroom
| apparently.... I took have questions.
| QuercusMax wrote:
| I heard about somebody at Google (where they have lots of
| Washlets) who swapped the remotes for two neighboring
| Washlets either on purpose or by accident. Much hilarity
| ensued.
| sokoloff wrote:
| In three years, it's been one pair of AA batteries so far
| and the cap on 'lots of maintenance' would be a 15-minute
| task to remove and replace with a new one.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| It's not. Once you get a toto you never go back.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| A simple alternative is the hand washer attachment, ~$50.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Simple washlet is like $300. I couldn't justify extra for
| self closing/open features.
|
| Posting from one right now lol.
| hackthememes wrote:
| I remember seeing this pitch on Dragon's Den about sealing
| toilets when they flush and the founder being laughed out of the
| room: https://www.cbc.ca/dragonsden/pitches/common-sense-toilet-
| se...
| hermitcrab wrote:
| They sure love toilets on Dragon's Den (the 'inventors'
| anyway).
| schiffern wrote:
| Can't blame the inventors really.
|
| Reality: to most audiences the toilet (and sanitation
| technology in general) is just a punchline, and the show's
| producers know that. That's why. We're getting what we pay
| for, and we vote with our eyeballs.
|
| The proposed sealed toilet seat[0] is honestly a good idea,
| and it's a sensible implementation of the concept. I wish
| them luck. The TV segment felt oddly like a modern-day
| version of when John Snow said that _maybe_ we shouldn 't
| drink cholera water, everybody. :-\
|
| [0] https://whatsonyourtoothbrush.com/
| adolph wrote:
| Maybe this whole "emitting body waste into a liquid" thing isn't
| a good idea. Maybe vacuum containers should be held to one's body
| during emissions and the silver/copper/stainless steel interfaces
| cleaned with lasers and UV afterward. The toilet was a great
| innovation in its day, but it seems ripe for disruption.
| sixstringtheory wrote:
| And think of how much more productive we could be if we could
| save trips to a dedicated room for it! Every desk could be
| fitted with a waste vacuum, right next to the soylent
| dispenser. Just don't mix them up...
| g8oz wrote:
| Vacuum toilets are a well-established technology that deserves
| more attention.
|
| https://www.introba.com/news/5-reasons-vacuum-toilets-are-fu...
| harveywi wrote:
| That is a bit overkill and lacking in energy efficiency and
| sustainability, though. A more environmentally conscious
| solution would be for western nations to bring back some French
| innovations from the centuries ago such as the bidet followed
| by the trebuchet.
| maxglute wrote:
| This post looks grey from downvote, but I agree, I am
| profoundly disatisfied with how stagnant flushing technology
| has been. I don't just want nice bidet and warm seats, I want a
| continuous flow removing poop while I'm on the seat.
| wiradikusuma wrote:
| I know this is serious science, but I can't help but wonder, how
| did these people conduct their research?
|
| I kept thinking the toilet in a gas station, but I'm sure they
| did it in an isolated, purpose-built toilet in a research
| facility.
|
| But shit is shit, and how did they "deploy" the object for
| repeatable experiments?
| dumpHero2 wrote:
| From what I remember, they put a toilet in a clean white empty
| room, and flushed some ink. Then they looked how far the ink
| spots splattered. But don't quote me on this.
| kej wrote:
| It's literally the second paragraph of the article:
|
| >A surrogate for human enteric viruses (bacteriophage MS2) was
| added to household and public toilet bowls and flushed. The
| resulting viral contamination of the toilet and other restroom
| surfaces was then determined.
| nashashmi wrote:
| > The use of a disinfectant during bowl cleaning reduces cross-
| contamination of surfaces.
|
| Why is the title of the paper about lid closure when it says that
| does not help? It should be about disinfecting as that does help.
| gainda wrote:
| the full title says toilet bowl cleaning, too
| scythe wrote:
| Not sure why they used viruses? Most of the interesting fecal
| pathogens are bacteria -- particularly _E. coli_ , _Clostridium
| dificile_ , _Vibrio spp._ , _Shigella spp._. The major exception
| is polio, which has thankfully become rare. Bacteria are a bit
| larger and probably less diffusive than viruses, raising
| questions about the generalizability.
| Aachen wrote:
| If my very rudimentary biology knowledge serves me well,
| viruses are a lot smaller than bacteria because they're just
| little bits of RNA and bacteria have a whole bunch of stuff
| around that to actually live. Wouldn't the smallest
| realistically dangerous particle be the thing to test with?
| Larger things might not be carried by the droplets, but
| shouldn't the other way around be fine? I'm just
| guessing/reasoning it out here and would be happy to learn more
| if you know this isn't correct!
| scythe wrote:
| My suggestion is that the more diffusive, small particles are
| less likely to be trapped by a lid. That could mean that
| larger, heavier bacteria follow more ballistic and less
| Brownian trajectories and their distribution would be
| affected more by putting the lid down.
| dorfsmay wrote:
| The next step will be fan intake in the floor of the bathroom
| instead of the ceiling.
|
| Now, everytime I switch the toilet fan on I think about the
| researches on airplanes during covid that showed that there was
| little contamination thanks to cabin air intake being at the
| floor level and fresh air coming from the top.
| bugglebeetle wrote:
| That research is pretty much bunk because those systems are not
| always active when the place is occupied. They're almost always
| off during boarding and taxiing. Like it's great to filter the
| air in this way, but if you let everyone bathe in each others
| breath for an hour before turning them on, the practical impact
| on transmission is drastically diminished.
| Arelius wrote:
| Yes, sure. But it gives helpful guidance. It means that if
| you wear a mask through the airport, and before takeoff and
| after landing. Taking it off for meals and the like is a much
| lower risk then not wearing a mask at all.
| bugglebeetle wrote:
| Sure, this is true. I just remember being somewhat peeved
| during the pandemic when this was being touted by airlines
| without this caveat, with the express intention of
| misleading people about actual risks.
| Arelius wrote:
| Agreed. The study was really important. The messaging
| around it was not so great.
| dekhn wrote:
| Modern industrial toilets (that is, ones installed in work
| facilities) use high pressure to, uh, mash up the flushable
| materials, which seems to greatly increase the aerosolization. I
| had some friends in grad school who put bacteria-sensitive
| substance on the walls of the toilet stall and you could easily
| see hot spots of deposited matter.
| nerpderp82 wrote:
| Aerosol Generation by Modern Flush Toilets
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4666014/
|
| https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/36734 has additional supporting
| material
|
| > Up to 145,000 droplets were produced per flush, with the
| high-energy flushometer producing over three times as many as
| the lower energy PAT and over 12 times as many as the lowest
| energy HET despite similar flush volumes. The mean numbers of
| fluorescent droplet nuclei particles aerosolized and remaining
| airborne also increased with flush energy. Fluorescent droplet
| nuclei per flush decreased with increasing particle size. These
| findings suggest two concurrent aerosolization mechanisms--
| splashing for large droplets and bubble bursting for the fine
| droplets that form droplet nuclei.
| basil-rash wrote:
| Does anyone know what to make of the error bars? Most of the time
| the plus/minus is larger than the actual datum.
|
| Lid up (1014 PFU MS2) 11.02 +- 10.77 3.64 +- 3.19 6.23 +- 6.47
|
| Lid down (1014 PFU MS2) 4.25 +- 4.48 1.77 +- 1.97 2.31 +- 2.54
| armoredkitten wrote:
| Typically, when I see that it's an indication that the
| distribution is non-normal. And for anything resembling "count"
| data (e.g., number of dollars, parts per million, whatever),
| it's pretty much guaranteed that it will be positively skewed
| -- because you have a hard lower limit (0) but no upper limit.
|
| That said, I have no expertise with the field of, uhh,
| toiletology, to know whether they handled this data
| appropriately or not.
|
| Edit: Sorry, just to add that typically with non-normal data
| like that, my inclination would be to report the median (which
| will be less affected by skew than the mean), and perhaps the
| interquartile distance (difference between the 25th and 75th
| percentile) rather than SD. But most statistical models are
| still designed around means and SDs, so you may still be
| inclined to report means and SDs since that's what you
| statistically tested for differences.
| CaffeinatedDev wrote:
| My life is a lie
| demondemidi wrote:
| I've eaten enough random ass after getting blackout drunk at bars
| during my 20s to not worry about this.
| stcredzero wrote:
| I think one of the fancier hotels I was staying in, in China
| during my last trip had a fancy toilet with heated seat, bidet,
| and bowl air extraction fan. (Fancy hotels in China are geared to
| the tastes of party officials, which is why they often outdo the
| fanciest hotels in the US. Often for about 1/10th the price!)
| itronitron wrote:
| Can't wait for them to evaluate the _ultra-aerosolizing_ Dyson
| Hand Dryer which is unfortunately in so many airport bathrooms.
| Pro-tip >> when traveling at least wear a mask when using a
| public bathroom.
| sixstringtheory wrote:
| I consider it a game to try using those without bumping my hand
| into any part of it or getting any water in my face
| m3kw9 wrote:
| But if you close to flush when standing next to it, it would
| definitely stop aerosols from flying into you.
|
| This study is not saying anything new because everyone knows the
| toilet seat is dirty regardless what you do, while everyone's
| concern is aerosols flying on their faces.
| forgueam wrote:
| Is there a functional reason for why toilet lids do not close in
| an air-tight fashion? If there were no openings for the particles
| to escape through, it seems like it would make closing the lid
| more effective.
| wellthisisgreat wrote:
| how would you open it without struggling to pry it from the
| suction?
| Symbiote wrote:
| It could have a seal like a fridge door.
| JJMcJ wrote:
| Wouldn't the air above the water tend to hold the water in the
| bowl, since emptying the bowl would create a partial vacuum?
| And would that effect, if it exists, be enough to prevent
| effective flushing?
| chopin wrote:
| Water in = water out. This shouldn't be much of a problem.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I wonder if this will be submitted as a candidate for the Ig
| Nobel prize?
| superkuh wrote:
| In winter I bring my tropical plants indoors and that means lots
| of lights in the bathroom where I overwinter them. 20,000 lumens
| is enough to _see_ the droplet spray. Gross. It definitely
| changed how I urinate and lid closure during flushing.
| twic wrote:
| > Two types of toilets of United States design were used. [...]
| The public toilet was tankless, using water line pressure for
| flushing, as is typical of United States public toilets. [...]
| The home toilet was a typical siphonic toilet with a tank
|
| So neither was a tanked washdown toilet, as is universal in
| Europe. I wonder if those behave any differently.
| sudden_dystopia wrote:
| In other words, out of our control and we should stop worrying
| about it as we have been flushing toilets for roughly a century
| and we haven't all dropped dead.
| d1str0 wrote:
| The best reason to close your toilet lid, in my opinion, is you
| are 99% less likely to ever drop anything into the bowl. I've
| accidentally knocked TP rolls in several times, and the phone
| once or twice, and probably other stuff. Ever since I started
| closing the lid habitually I realized I havent dropped anything
| into the bowl in a long time.
| tass wrote:
| I remember at work years ago hearing a little scream from the
| bathroom and it was because someone dropped the roll in and
| didn't know what to do.
|
| Lid's always closed at home - I have a cupboard above the
| toilet that's full of stuff likely to fall.
| smcleod wrote:
| And your cat isn't going to drink from it.
| mikrotikker wrote:
| Not to mention cats knocking jewelry and phones in for a laugh.
| londons_explore wrote:
| I want toilets to have better fans.
|
| Specifically, we need a fan that runs while the light is on in
| the toilet and for 5 mins afterwards and can do perhaps 1 full
| air change per minute (that's a lot of air moving, but toilets
| tend to be small).
|
| And that air should go outdoors (maybe via a heat exchanger and
| filter)
| higgins wrote:
| requested follow up study: Impacts of toilet seat position during
| marriage
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-01-25 23:02 UTC)