The Big Necessity

by Rose George

  A million honey buckets Lu, Beyond the Neon Lights, pp. 191–93.

  The night-soil man’s wooden cart Emily Prager, “Settling Down in a City in Motion,” New York Times, July 19, 2007.

  If current rates of exploitation continue Ingrid Steen, “Phosphorus Availability in the 21st Century: Management of a Non-Renewable Resource,” Phosphorus & Potassium 217 (September–October 1998): 12.

  The problem of sanitation was solved U.S. Joint Publications Research Service, “Health and Sanitation in Communist China,” Report 96, December 17, 1957, p. 5.

  Cost is the biggest obstacle Marion W. Jenkins, “Who Buys Latrines, Where and Why?” Water and Sanitation Program Field Note (Nairobi, Kenya: Water and Sanitation Program—African Region, 2004), p. 9.

  Fossilized Peruvian dung Raúl Patrucco, Raúl Tello, and Duccio Bonavia, “Parasitological Studies of Coprolites of Pre-Hispanic Peruvian Populations,” Current Anthropology 24/3 (June 1983): 393–94.

  No such thing as a total removal Matthias Gustavsson, “Biogas—Solution in Search of Its Problem,” Göteborg University Human Ecology Reports Series 1, March 2000. Doctoral dissertation, Göteborg University, Sweden, p. 16.

  Over two-thirds of Chinese By 2030, a billion Chinese will live in cities. Jonathan Woetzel, Janamitra Devan, Luke Jordan, Stefano Negri, and Diana Farrell, “Preparing for China’s Urban Billion” (Shanghai: McKinsey Global Institute, 2008), p. 14.

  Sufficient dung Jungfen (Jim) Zhang and Kirk R. Smith, “Household Air Pollution from Coal and Biomass Fuels in China: Measurements, Impacts and Interventions,” Environmental Health Perspectives 115 (2007): 854.

  6. A PUBLIC NECESSITY

  Aural privacy Government standards recommend that background noise be increased to a level of 55db—a decibel level at which loud speech can be understood—to aid embarrassed students. The same report also suggests that urinals be avoided, because their use by boys at puberty is “problematic.” Trough-type urinals can contribute to shy bladder syndrome. Department for Education and Skills, “Standard Specifications, Layouts and Dimensions 3: Toilets in Schools” (London: Department for Education and Skills, 2007), p. 9.

  Civil inattention Alexander Kira, The Bathroom (New York: Viking Press, 1966, 1976), p. 204.

  Pearls and rubies Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process (Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell Publishing, 2000), p. 123.

  Leaping stags Paola Chini, “Latrina Romana in Via Garibaldi,” Comune di Roma Assesorato alle Politiche Culturali Sovraintendenza ai Beni Culturali, available at http://www2.comune.roma.it/monumentiantichi.

  It costs two sous to do it “Chacun sait ce qu’il a à faire et il faut payer deux sous.” J. F. C. Blanvillain, Le Pariseum, 1807, quoted in Martin Monestier, Histoire et Bizarreries Sociales des Excréments: Des Origines à Nos Jours (Paris: Le Cherche-Midi, 1997), p. 147.

  Mr. Tinkler Tinkler won his case, as the judges decided that Wands-worth Board of Works had exceeded its statutory requirement by forcibly installing water closets. John Walter de Longueville Gifford, Reports of Cases Adjudged in the High Court of Chancery by the Vice-Chancellor Sir John Stuart (London: Wildy & Sons, 1860), pp. 412–20.

  George Jennings’s public facilities Lawrence Wright, Clean and Decent: The Fascinating History of the Bathroom and the Water Closet, and of Sundry Habits, Fashions and Accessories of the Toilet, Principally in Great Britain, France and America (London: Routledge & Kegal Paul, 1960), p. 200.

  Paris Métro’s new Line 1 These magnificent Art Deco facilities also had a steel staircase decorated with mosaics, mahogany doors and fittings, and copper pipes. Monestier, Histoire et Bizarreries, p. 154.

  47 percent of London’s bathrooms “Sassy Britannia Will Spend a Giant Penny to Honor Pioneering Public Toilet,” Royal Society of Chemistry news release, August 13, 2002.

  Decreased in number by 40 percent Clara Greed, “The Role of the Public Toilet: Pathogen Transmitter or Health Facilitator?” Building Service Engineering Research and Technology 27 (May 2006): 127–39.

  Run the gamut Council of the City of New York, “Toilet Trauma: A Survey of Public Restrooms in New York City” (New York: Council of the City of New York, 2001), p. 4.

  Public toilets! Has it come to this? Roger Kimball, Armavirumque, New Criterion blog, May 30, 2005; http://www.newcriterion.com/weblog/2005/05/where-is-hercules-when-you-need-him.html.

  The acceptability of eliminating these substances Steven Pinker, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature (London: Allen Lane, 2007), p. 344.

  Simon Norris, The Disabled Toilet Maev Kennedy, “Seaside Squat Is a Room with a Loo,” Guardian, April 9, 2007.

  Overnight accommodation by Polish migrant workers The desirable residential toilets in Stamford Hill were later fitted with new locks to deter squatters. Matthew Hickley and Laura Roberts, “The Superloo Where Polish Migrants Are Fighting to Spend the Night for 20p,” Daily Mail, May 3, 2007.

  95 percent of Britons “Should We Splash Out to Spend a Penny?” ENCAMS (Environmental Campaigns) news release, July 19, 2006.

  Forced to go on strike Monestier, Histoire et Bizarreries, p. 26.

  The writing on the shithouse walls William Rivers Pitt, “The Writing on the Latrine Walls,” TruthOut.org, August 9, 2004, accessed at http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/50/5656.

  Frighten the horses “I am a liberal and I believe in freedom and responsibility. In a free country, consenting adults should be able to do as they please in private, so long as they do not frighten horses. However, I should put sex in public toilets into the category of frightening the horses—or at any rate, the children.” Hansard HL (House of Lords) Vol. 648, Col. 584, May 19, 2003.

  Anti-pipi wall The wall is gently angled so that the jet of urine sprays back onto the urinator. “It is a case of the hoser being hosed,” according to Emile Vanderpooten, the municipal architect who devised it. Henry Samuel, “Paris Mayor Moves to Stop Public Urinating,” Daily Telegraph, October 29, 2007.

  The volumes of animal excreta The Mairie de Paris estimates that the city’s 20,000 dogs produce 16 tons of “canine pollution” daily, which cost 11 million euros a year to clean up, and which cause 650 accidents a year. Mairie de Paris, “Bien vivre avec les animaux à Paris,” via www.paris.fr.

  Three million visitors “Beijing Airport to Launch Emergency Alert Mechanism for Olympics,” Xinhua, June 25, 2005.

  Five minutes’ walking distance Ibid.

  Chiang Kai-Shek’s 96 specific rules Andrew Morris, “‘Fight for Fertiliser!’ Excrement, Public Health and Mobilization in New China,” Journal of Unconventional History 6/3 (Spring 1995): 53.

  Show mercy to the slender grass “Beijing Getting Rid of Badly Translate [sic] Signs,” China Daily, February 27, 2007.

  Guo Zhangqi the fly-catcher “Two Farmers’ Desire to Wipe Out Flies in Beijing,” Xinhua, June 6, 2003.

  The bladder leash Help the Aged, “Nowhere to Go: Public Toilet Provision in the UK” (London: Help the Aged, 2007), p. 5.

  A national toilet map The website of Australia’s National Public Toilet map allows visitors to check location and opening times of toilets. New South Wales has the most toilets with 4,446; Northern Territory only 198. See http://www.toiletmap.gov.au.

  Satlav Westminster Council’s Satlav service covers 8.5 square miles of central London. Users send a text message to 80097—at 25p per request—and receive in return a list of the nearest facilities and opening hours. James Meikle, “Satlav to End Problem of Users Being Caught Short,” Guardian, November 30, 2007.

  Potty parity During a television interview on CNN’s Crosstalk in 2002, John Banzhaf mentioned the use of funnels for women to urinate through (easily bought these days in Swedish pharmacies). Co-anchor Robert Novak responded to this information by saying, “This show is becoming X-rated.” CNN Crossfire, August 9, 2002; see http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0208/09/cf.00.html.

  90 seconds to urinate Alexander Kira calculates the mean occupancy of men at a
urinal to be 45 seconds. The Malaysian Standard prefers 35 seconds. Malaysian Standard Public Toilets MS 2015, Part 1, 2006, p. 31. See also Clara Greed, Inclusive Urban Design: Public Toilets (Oxford: Architectural Press, 2003), p. 8.

  Four urinals, gilt mirrors Sarah A. Moore, “Facility Hostility? Sex Discrimination and Women’s Restrooms in the Workplace,” Georgia Law Review 36 (2002): 599.

  A keypad code for access Margaret Talev, “‘Potty Parity’ Surfaces in House of Representatives,” The Columbian, December 24, 2006.

  More sharing than many people feel comfortable with Kira, The Bathroom, pp. 201–2.

  Stickers in the bowl See http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2006/09/bowl _light_lets.html.

  Stand-peeing Kate Connolly, “German Men Told They Can No Longer Stand and Deliver,” Daily Telegraph, August 17, 2004.

  Standing Urinators Klaus Schwerma, Stehnpinkeln: Die letze Bastion der Männlichkeit? (Bielefeld: Kleine Verlag, 2000).

  Herodotus reported “Women urinate standing up, while men do so squatting. They relieve themselves indoors, while they eat outside on the streets. The reason for this, they say, is that things that are embarrassing but unavoidable should be done in private, while things which are not embarrassing should be done in the open.” Herodotus, The Histories, trans. Robin Waterfield (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 109. (In my 1996 Wordsworth Classics edition, though supposedly unabridged, all references to urination in this section had been removed.) 145 She-Pee female urinals Glastonbury Bog Blog, WaterAid, June 27–29, 2007; http://www.wateraid.org/uk/get_involved/events/festival_events/glastonbury/5591.asp.

  Twenty carloads of people Patrick Barkham, “Bog Standards,” Guardian, September 24, 2001.

  Foot tapping Associated Press, “Craig Resigns Over Airport Sex Sting,” September 2, 2007; and Christopher Hitchens, “So Many Men’s Rooms, So Little Time,” Slate, September 3, 2007.

  It would be a good idea Mohandas K. Gandhi (attributed), Chambers Dictionary of Quotations (Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers, 2005), p. 345.

  7. THE BATTLE OF BIOSOLIDS

  Bottles of cleaned sewer effluent Kevin R. Cowan, who runs the North Davis sewer district, hands out the sewer water bottles to visitors. They have also been handed out at meetings, where the response was “tepid.” The bottles actually contain drinking water. Lynn Arave, “Sewer Water in a Bottle—Yum!” Deseret Morning News, October 14, 2007.

  A great rough sort of business Throughout the late nineteenth century, plenty of sewage farming systems were proposed to the Metropolitan Board of London. In fact, wrote the anonymous author of one report, “Had the application of sewage to agricultural purposes been as easy and as profitable as some loud-talking and fluently-writing people pretend, it would long since have formed the foundation of more than one joint-stock company.” The Agricultural Value of the Sewage of London Examined in Reference to the Principle Systems Admitted to the Metropolitan Board of Works (London: Edward Stanford & Co., 1865), pp. 17–18, 38.

  Stench On July 11, 2007, a Mogden resident called Fullalove sent the following complaint to Thames Water: “FOUL YUK STINK STENCH I CANNOT BREATHE IT IS YOUR FAULT.” Two weeks later, his neighbor Jonathan Oatway wrote despairingly that Mogden was “absolutely reeking again after the rain. It was stomach turning. We had to close all the windows but the smell lingered right throughout the house. I was moved to apologize to a guest we had visiting at the time. All very embarrassing considering the raw sewage nature of the odor. It’s a joke living here, why should we live in fear of the stench?” Mogden Residents Action Group, http://www.mogden.org.uk. Whitley treatment works, meanwhile, inspired the Whitley Whiff. They have now been replaced by the entirely covered—and odor-free—Reading Wastewater Treatment works, which cost £80 million to build.

  Synagro Biosolids are lucrative enough for Synagro to have been bought in 2007 by the powerful private equity group Carlyle for $772 million. Justin Baer, “Carlyle Raises Dollars 1bn for Public Works,” Financial Times, November 7, 2007.

  Bubbling with sub-surface gases The fires burned with such intensity, two railway bridges spanning the river were nearly destroyed. The mayor of Cleveland, which the Cuyahoga runs through, said it was “a terrible reflection on our city.” “The Cities: The Price of Optimism,” Time, August 1, 1969.

  7 million dry tons of sludge John Heilprin and Kevin S. Vineys, Associated Press, “Sewage-Based Fertilizer Safety Doubted,” March 6, 2008.

  The worth of this lost wealth Stephen Halliday, The Great Stink of London: Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the Cleansing of the Victorian Capital (Stroud, U.K.: Sutton Publishing, 1999, 2007), p. 117.

  No better use for the excretion Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, vol. 3 (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Company, 1909), p. 120.

  Each farmer will turn on the tap John Joseph Mechi, How to Farm Profitably: The Sayings and Doings of Mr. Alderman Mechi (London: Routledge, 1860), p. 352.

  Vegetables highly sought-after Gennevilliers sewage farm received 800 liters of Parisian sewage per second. Once irrigated, its previously barren soil became capable of producing 40,000 heads of cabbage, 60,000 artichokes, or 200,000 pounds of sugar beets per hectare. One Parisian perfumer raised peppermint. Donald Reid, Paris Sewers and Sewermen: Realities and Representations (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991), pp. 62–63.

  The sewage farm at Pasadena “By the end of the century sewage farms were operating in 20 locations including Salt Lake City and Los Angeles. Pasadena’s sewage farm was renowned. The three hundred acre farm supported a hundred pigs, an extensive tract of English walnuts, and an alfalfa crop largely dedicated to the municipality’s working horses.” Jamie Benidickson, The Culture of Flushing, A Social and Legal History of Sewage (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007), p. 126.

  100,000 chemicals in U.S. industry Statement of Bruce Alberts, president, National Academy of Sciences, to U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, May 14, 2002, http://www7.nationalacademies.org/ocga/testimony/Persistant_Organic_Pollutants.asp.

  1,000 new chemicals added every year Jonathan M. Harris, A Survey of Sustainable Development (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2001), p. 290.

  Selling its sludge as fertilizer Milorganite was named by McIver and Son of Charleston, South Carolina, who entered a competition to name the new fertilizer in National Fertilizer Magazine in 1925. Milorganite stands for Milwaukee Organic Nitrogen. Its history is told at http://www.milorganite.com.

  Toxic Sludge John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, Toxic Sludge Is Good for You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry (Monroe, Me.: Common Courage Press, 1995).

  Orange County Four U.S. states have county-level grand juries. California’s grand juries sit for a year and are mandated to issue investigative reports, usually into government services and institutions. In 2004, Orange County also issued reports on speaking English in Santa Ana, prisons, and whether improvements were needed in the county’s animal shelters. Orange County Grand Jury, “Does Anyone Want Orange County Sanitation District’s 230,000 Tons of Biosolids?” 2003–2004, at http://www.ocgrandjury.org/reports.asp#2004-2005.

  Musty or earthy Ibid., pp. 8–9.

  Twenty-five groups of pathogens “Researchers Link Increased Risk of Illness to Sewage Sludge Used as Fertilizer,” University of Georgia news release, July 30, 2002.

  An appropriate choice for communities U.S. EPA, “Standards for the Use or Disposal of Sewage Sludge; Final Agency Response to the National Research Council Report on Biosolids Applied to Land and the Results of EPA’s Review of Existing Sewage Sludge Regulations,” Federal Register 68/250 (December 31, 2003): 75536.

  38 months National Research Council, “Biosolids Applied to Land: Advancing Standards and Practices” (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 2002 [prepublication copy]), p. 199.

  Unmonitorable, unregulatable and irremediable Abby A. Rockefeller, “Sewers, Sewage Treatment, Sludge: Damage without End,” New Solutions 12/4 (2002): 342.


  EPA regional staff U.S. EPA Office of Inspector General, “Land Application of Biosolids,” 2002-S-000004, March 28, 2002, p. 6.

  Asthma, flu-like symptoms Ellen Z. Harrison and Summer Rayne Oakes, “Investigation of Alleged Health Incidents Associated with Land Application of Sewage Sludges,” New Solutions 12/4 (2002): 387. An updated tally of health complaints is kept by the Cornell Institute for Waste Management at http://cwmi.css.cornell.edu/Sludge/incidents.htm.

  Chemical irritants in sludge David. L. Lewis and David K. Gattie, “A High-Level Disinfection Standard for Land-Applied Sewage Sludges (Biosolids),” Environmental Health Perspectives 112 (2004): 127.

  Adverse human health effects National Research Council, “Biosolids Applied to Land,” p. 3.

  Big tomatoes Tom Gibb, “A Terrible Waste Gets Long Look,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 11, 2000.

  Shayne Conner Laura Orlando, “Sustainable Sanitation: A Global Health Challenge,” Dollars & Sense (May–June 2001).

  Sludge was behind it CBS News, “Sewage Fertilizer Under Fire,” October 29, 2003, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/29/evening news/main580816.shtml.

  The company has yet to answer In response to questions about why the case had been settled, Synagro Public Relations Director Lorrie Loder replied, “I do not have that information available to me. I am generally aware that cases are frequently settled as a matter of expediency.” Personal communication with Lorrie Loder, Synagro, April 2008.

  Pesticides well within legal limits Douglas Fischer, “Chemical: Mixtures More Toxic Than Their Parts,” Oakland Tribune, January 24, 2006.

  “I can’t answer it’s not safe” CBS News, “Sewage Fertilizer.”

  Lead is down; mercury is up A small-scale study carried out by the Oakland Bay Tribune found that an average family contained hundreds of chemicals in their bodies including “plasticizers (phthalates), combustion products (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon metabolites and dioxins/furans), chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides (DDT, hexachlorobenzene, lindane, chlordane, heptachlor epoxide), PCBs, organophosphorus insecticide metabolites, other pesticides (various herbicides, including atrazine, 2,4-D/2,4,5-T and pentachlorophenol), tobacco smoke indicators (cotinine) and phytoestrogens.” The family’s two-year-old son had 838 parts per billion of PBDEs—the flame retardants that Dr. Rob Hale is examining in sludge—in his blood, although the world average is 38. Douglas Fischer, “What’s in You?” Oakland Bay Tribune, August 3, 2005; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “Third National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals,” 2005.