The big necessity: adventures in the world of human waste

Riassunto di The big necessity

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   The Invisible Crisis We Flush Away

   

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   What if I told you that the most important public health challenge of our time is something you do every day without thinking? For billions of people, though, it's not thoughtless-it's impossible. While we in wealthy nations enjoy clean bathrooms with running water, 2.6 billion people have no toilet whatsoever. This isn't just uncomfortable; it's deadly. Poor sanitation kills more people annually than all forms of violence combined, including war. Rose George's investigation reveals a shocking truth: we've sent humans to space, decoded the genome, and connected the world through the internet, yet we've failed at managing the most universal human function. Even more startling, 90% of the world's sewage flows untreated into rivers and oceans. This isn't a problem "over there"-it's everywhere, hidden beneath our feet, affecting our water, our health, and our future.

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   When London's River Became an Open Sewer

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   Picture the Thames in 1858-a fetid, brown sludge carrying millions of people's waste. Parliament reeked so badly that members soaked curtains in chloride of lime just to breathe. This "Great Stink" finally forced action after decades of denial. London's population had exploded from under a million in 1801 to 2.3 million by 1851, overwhelming the cesspool system. Emptying a cesspool cost a shilling-twice a laborer's daily wage-so people illegally dumped waste into rivers and rain sewers never designed for human excrement. Then came cholera, killing over 6,500 Londoners in 1831, then 14,000 more in 1848-49. Believing diseases came from bad smells, sanitary reformers ironically flushed waste into the Thames-contaminating the very water Londoners drank. Enter Joseph Bazalgette. In ten days, Parliament empowered him to redesign London's entire waste system. Over twenty years, using 318 million bricks and costing today's equivalent of $6 billion, he built massive sewers running parallel to the Thames. He built them 25% larger than calculations suggested-a decision that saved countless lives as London grew. His system still functions today, serving 13 million people instead of the intended 3 million.

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   America's Hidden Infrastructure Catastrophe

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   While London built unified sewers "for the ages," New York's chaotic development left boroughs handling construction independently with minimal investment. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave U.S. wastewater infrastructure a D-minus in 2005, with half the nation's sewer pipes projected to be in poor or very poor condition by 2020. New York's fatal flaw is its combined sewer system - mixing sewage with storm water. Just one-tenth inch of rain triggers overflows, discharging raw sewage into waterways. This happens weekly on average, releasing about 500 million gallons each time. Nationwide, 1.46 trillion gallons of wastewater are discharged annually. Workers maintaining this crumbling system battle massive cockroaches, aggressive rats, and constant failures. They lack the prestigious nicknames given to firefighters or police, joking about being "New York's stinkiest." Since 9/11, sewers are recognized as potential terrorist targets, with sensors linked to police stations. These workers understand a truth most ignore: our daily lives depend on infrastructure we never see. As one noted, "The best we can hope for is indifference." But indifference may prove our undoing as climate change brings more intense storms to already overwhelmed systems.

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   Japan's Obsession with the Perfect Toilet

   High-tech toilets outnumber computers in Japanese homes. These devices check blood pressure, play music, wash and dry you, and automatically adjust settings. Within a century, Japan transformed from 97% squat toilet usage to a nation where heated seats and bidet functions are standard. TOTO controls two-thirds of Japan's bathroom market with $4.2 billion in annual sales. Founded in 1917, the company revolutionized bathrooms by manufacturing ceramic toilet bowls when wooden squatting toilets were the norm. Progress accelerated after WWII when American occupation forces demanded flush toilets. TOTO's engineering is extraordinary. Their $1,700 Neorest toilet learns user habits. Determining the perfect 43-degree angle for the Washlet nozzle required surveying 300 employees who marked their anatomy's position on specially rigged seats - meticulous attention reflecting Japanese values around cleanliness. TOTO dominated rival Inax through brilliant marketing - placing Washlets in hotels and public spaces for trial. Their masterstroke was a 1982 campaign featuring actress Jun Togawa declaring "even though it's a bottom, it wants to be washed, too." Yet Americans remain resistant. Despite celebrity fans like Madonna and Will Smith, TOTO struggles with mainstream acceptance. Our bathroom habits are more cultural than rational.

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   China's 4,000-Year Fertilizer Economy

   For four millennia, Chinese farmers used human "night soil" as fertilizer, maintaining soil productivity while other civilizations' fields failed. Today, China leads in biogas production-15.4 million rural households connect toilets to biogas digesters that function like stomachs: oxygen-free chambers where microorganisms break down waste into methane-rich gas for cooking and electricity. The remaining slurry makes safer fertilizer than raw excrement. In Da Li village, biogas transformed daily life. Digesters increased village income by $43,000 annually through savings on fertilizer, fuel, and medical expenses. Women gained free time for income-generating activities. Each digester saves three trees annually and reduces flies by 64%. The technology shows promise beyond rural China. The French city of Lille converted buses to run on sewage-derived biomethane, demonstrating human waste can power transportation with fewer emissions than fossil fuels. For rural Chinese like Mrs. Zhou, biogas brought dignity and time-inspiring her to compose poetry honoring technology that transformed her life.

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   The Sanitation Revolutionaries

   Before the 2008 Olympics, Beijing planned to build or renovate 5,000 public bathrooms, ensuring no one would be more than five minutes from decent facilities-echoing Chiang Kai-shek's 1920s New Life Movement, which prescribed 96 rules for Chinese behavior, including no public urination. In India, Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak founded Sulabh International in 1970, now India's largest sanitation charity with 50,000 staff. A Brahmin who scandalized his family by working with untouchables, Pathak developed the twin-pit pour-flush "Easy Latrine" requiring minimal water and no sewers. He pioneered the pay-per-use model, charging one rupee for toilet use while keeping urinals free. His organization has built millions of latrines used by ten million Indians daily. In 1999, agricultural scientist Kamal Kar revolutionized sanitation in Bangladesh by leading villagers through contaminated areas to map their open defecation practices. When villagers calculated they produced "120,000 tons of shit" annually and consumed about 10 grams of each other's fecal matter daily, people vomited from shock. Children began digging latrine pits without subsidies. Kar named this Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS), deliberately triggering disgust to harness shame and pride. Rural village posters now read "I will give my daughter in marriage only to a village with a toilet and a bathroom"-not propaganda but reality.

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   Our Waste, Our Future

   NASA recycles urine into drinking water on the space station because transporting water costs $40,000 per gallon-a preview of Earth's future as scarcity intensifies. The planet holds 332 million cubic miles of water, but only 2% is fresh and two-thirds is frozen. By 2050, half of 8.9 billion people will face water scarcity. We're wasting water by contaminating it-one cubic meter of wastewater pollutes ten cubic meters of water. Despite advanced filtration, proposals like San Diego's "Toilet to Tap" face public rejection, though recycled wastewater is already widely consumed. Londoners drink water that's passed through multiple people. The economics are compelling: every dollar in sanitation returns $7 in health costs averted and productivity gained. Peru's 1991 cholera outbreak cost $1 billion-ten times the prevention cost. Ground troops like Trevor Mulaudzi, a South African geologist who calls himself "Dr. Shit," left comfortable mining jobs to clean school toilets after discovering conditions keeping children from attending. The invisible systems beneath our feet separate us from disease-ridden cities of the past. The most promising solutions require not sophisticated technology but willingness to confront our most basic bodily function with honesty.

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