by Rose George
If toilets were like mobile phones Marion W. Jenkins and Steven Sugden, “Rethinking Sanitation—Lessons and Innovation for Sustainability and Success in the New Millennium,” Human Development Report Sanitation Thematic Paper 2006, p. 10.
A toilet shop was a great idea Steadman and Associates, “Social Marketing for Urban Sanitation Pilot Survey in Keko Mwanga B,” (Dar-es-Salaam: Steadman & Associates (T) Ltd., 2003).
Punishing running costs Personal communication with Steven Sugden, April 2008.
10. THE END
$23.4 million toilet “An Astronomical Potty,” Time, January 25, 1993.
Its precious fabrics Tom McNichol, “The Big Gulp,” Wired, August 2005.
$40,000 to transport each gallon Ibid.
A secondhand Russian toilet “NASA Buys $19 Million Russian Toilet System for International Space Station,” International Herald Tribune, July 5, 2007.
Chronically short of water All water facts in this paragraph are taken from Robin Clarke and Jannet King, The Atlas of Water: Mapping the World’s Most Critical Resource (London: Earthscan, 2004), p. 19.
One cubic meter of wastewater Ibid., p. 11.
Bolted onto every sewage plant Australian Broadcasting Corporation, “From the Toilet to the Tap,” November 9, 2006, transcript available at http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1785041.htm.
Upper Occoquan Sewage Authority Personal communication with Robert Bastian, EPA Office of Wastewater Management, April 2007.
French minister of the environment “Eau: Une pub source de polémique,” TF1, January 17, 2007, transcript available at http://tf1.lci.fr/infos/sciences/environnement/0,,3381854,00-eau-pub-source-polemique-.html.
$2.17 billion of only one brand Johnny Davis, “Would Madam Care to Taste the Cloud Juice?” Guardian, December 2, 2007.
Out of an ordinary tap “Pepsi says Aquafina is tap water,” CNN, July 27, 2007; http://money.cnn.com/2007/07/27/news/companies/pepsi_coke/. A four-year study by the Natural Resources Defense Council into America’s bottled water industry found that a quarter of bottled “mineral” waters are in fact municipal tap water. Erik D. Olson, “Bottled Water: Pure Drink or Pure Hype?” Natural Resources Defense Council, February 1999, available at http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/bw/bwinx.asp.
The consumer just doesn’t seem to care Davis, “Would Madam Care to Taste.”
Leapfrog over dinosaur technologies Stephen Dale, “Regenerative Solutions for Managing Community-Generated Organic Waste,” Reports (magazine of the International Development Research Center), February 4, 2000, available at http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-5574-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html.
11.5 watts Graham Lawton, “Pee-Cycling,” New Scientist, December 20, 2006.
A carbon impact “Future Water: The Government’s Water Strategy for England” (HM Government, 2008), p. 6.
Can’t be good Jeff Donn, Martha Mendoza, and Justin Pritchard, “AP Probe Finds Drugs in Drinking Water,” Associated Press, March 9, 2008.
David Stuckey “Submerged Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactor Awarded,” Water and Wastewater Newsletter 10/329 (March 17, 2008).
One toilet per second Personal communication with Arno Rosemarin, Swedish Environment Institute, November 2006.
Anything but stable WHO, “World Health Report 2007: A Safer Future: Global Public Health Security in the 21st Century” (Geneva: WHO Press, 2007), p. vi.
11 percent of those died WHO, “World Health Report 2007,” p. 39.
A disease of prosperous urban centers Ibid., p. 40.
Planners and Searchers William Easterly, The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
The excuse of ignorance Harold Farnsworth Gray, “Sewerage in Ancient and Modern Times,” Sewage Works Journal 12/5 (September 1940): 946.
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FURTHER READING
____________
Barnes, David S. The Great Stink of Paris and the Nineteenth-Century Struggle Against Filth and Germs. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006.
Black, Maggie, and Ben Fawcett. The Last Taboo: Opening the Door on the Global Sanitation Crisis. London: Earthscan, 2008.
Chadwick, Edwin. Commentaries on the Report of the Royal Commission on Metropolitan Sewage Discharge and on the Combined and Separate Systems of Town Drainage. London: Longmans & Co., 1885.
Cockayne, Emily. Hubbub: Filth, Noise, & Stench in England, 1600–1770. New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2007.
Dundes, Alan. Life Is Like a Chicken Coop Ladder: A Study of German National Character Through Folklore. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989.
Dyke, George Vaughan. John Lawes of Rothamsted, Pioneer of Science, Farming and Industry. Harpenden, U.K.: Hoos Press, 1993.
Eveleigh, David. Bogs, Baths and Basins: The Story of Domestic Sanitation. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton, 2006.
Gavin, Hector. Sanitary Ramblings: Being Sketches and Illustrations of Bethnal Green; a Type of the Condition of the Metropolis and Other Large Towns. London: John Churchill, 1848.
Glassford, Charles F. O. Town Excreta: Its Utilization. London Sewage, Shall It Be Wasted? Or Economised? London, 1858.
Horan, Julie L. Sitting Pretty, An Uninhibited History of the Toilet. London: Robson Books, 1998.
Hoy, Suellen. Chasing Dirt: The American Pursuit of Cleanliness. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Inglis, David. A Sociological History of Excretory Experience: Defecatory Manners and Toiletry Techniques. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2001.
Jenkins, Joseph. The Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure. White River Junction, Vt.: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2005.
Kilroy, Roger. The Compleat Loo: A Lavatorial Miscellany. London: Gollancz, 1984.
Lewin, Ralph A. Merde: Excursions in Scientific, Cultural and Socio-Historical Coprology. New York: Random House, 1999.
Markham, Len. Yorkshire Privies: A Nostalgic Trip Down the Garden Path. Newbury, Berkshire, U.K.: Countryside Books, 1996.
McLaughlin, Terence. Coprophilia, or a Speck of Dirt. London: Cassell, 1971.
Miller, William Ian. The Anatomy of Disgust. Cambridge, Mass./London: Harvard University Press, 1997.
Ogle, Maureen. All the Modern Conveniences: American Household Plumbing, 1840–1890. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.
Palmer, Roy. The Water Closet, a New History. Newton Abbot, U.K.: David & Charles, 1973.
Pathak, Bindeshwar. Road to Freedom: A Sociological Study on the Abolition of Scavenging in India. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 1998.
Pomfret, John. Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China. New York: Henry Holt, 2006.
Praeger, Dave. The Poop Report: How America Is Shaped by Its Grossest National Product. Los Angeles: Feral House, 2007.
Pudney, John. The Smallest Room. London: Michael Joseph, 1954.
Sabbath, Dan, and Mandell Hall. End Product: The First Taboo. New York: Urizen Books, 1977.
Sale, Charles. The Specialist. London: Charles Putnam and Company, 1956.
Smith, Stephen. Underground London: Travels Beneath the City Streets. London: Little, Brown, 2004.
Stanbridge, H. H. History of Sewage Treatment in Britain. Maidstone, U.K.: Institute of Water Pollution Control, 1976–1977.
Thekaekara, Mari Marcel. Endless Filth: The Saga of the Bhangis. London: Zed Books, 2003.
Toscani, Oliviero. Cacas. Köln: Taschen, 1988.
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FILMOGRAPHY
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Boys from the Brown Stuff, dir. David Clews (Blast Films for BBC Two, 2007).
Faecal Attraction, dir. Pradip Saha (Centre for Science and the Environment, 2006).
Kenny: A Knight in Shining Overalls, dir. Clayton Jacobson (Thunderbox Films, 2006).
Q2P, dir. Paromita Vohra (Devi Pictures, 2006).
Sludge Diet, dir. Mario Desmarais (Productions Thalie, 2006).
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The Casteless, dir. Jens Pedersen (Danish Broadcasting Corporation, 2006).
The Snowball Effect, dir. Klee Benally (Indigenous Action Media, 2005).
Waste Not Waste, dir. Joshka Wessels (Television for the Environment, 2008).
____________
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
____________
Thank you, first, to everyone who shared their stories and showed me their latrines with no embarrassment and impressive pride. Thank you to my interpreters and translators Red Chan, Richard Kishere, Hassan Zeini, Sayuka Tsujita, and Motoko Brimmicombe-Wood, for their serene professionalism, no matter how unpalatable the subject. For their hospitality and help, sometimes in the most inhospitable surroundings (sewers, slums), I am grateful to Kevin Buckley, Toshio Iwama and Chizuko, Joe Madiath, David Miller, Trevor, Audrey, Anza, Masana and Wanga Mulaudzi, Rob Smith, Rajesh Vora, and Simon Winchester. For everyone who pointed me in the direction of research material, sent comedy cards, and shared their sanitation history, thank you. Jack Sim, Steven Sugden, Clara Greed, Douglas Greeley, Carolyn Snyder, and Pete Kolsky answered endless follow-up questions with haste and good grace. Pradip Saha, Jens Pedersen, and TVE generously gave me copies of their documentaries. Claire and Julie, emergency nurses at Homerton A&E, provided care, cheer, and typing-friendly bandages at a critical time. Thank you.
For their insight and corrective care while reading some or all of the book in draft form, I am grateful to Scott Chapman, Clara Greed, Les Jones, Pete Kolsky, Molly Mackey, Duncan Mara, Trevor Mulaudzi, Steven Sugden, and Tom Ridgway. Thomas Jones at the London Review of Books and June Thomas at Slate kindly published sewer stories along the way. My agents Erin Malone and Peter Straus were indefatigable in their faith and support, and thank you, Erin, for the Playmobil toilet cubicle, which became a surprisingly powerful procrastination deterrent. I am indebted to Riva Hocherman, Steve Hubbell, and Philip Gwyn Jones for their patient and careful editing, and for their wholehearted and comforting championing of a book about a difficult topic. Thanks to all in Rivel, especially the inhabitants of Ancien Café Rives, for providing a quiet writing refuge; and to Molly and Maggy for the walks. Thank you, finally, to my family, Sheila, John, Allison and Nicholas Wainwright, and Simon George, for being who they are.
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INDEX
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The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.
Akbar
Alaimo, Anthony
Aldrin, Buzz
Alexandria Sanitation Authority
American Standard
Amoy Gardens
Aquafina
Auden, W. H.
Australia
Bangkok
Bangladesh
Banzhaf, John
Barui, Sandhya
Bazalgette, Joseph
Behun, Tony
Beijing
Berger, John
bhangi. See Dalits
Bhumibol, King
bidets, popularity of
biogas digesters
advantages of
in China, history of
human error and
in India
in urban areas
BIOMA
biomethane
biosolids
chemicals and pathogens in
disposal of
effect on health
EPA standards on
future of
lawsuits on
odors from
production process of
volume reduction of
bladder leash
Bloomberg, Michael
Blue Plains wastewater plant
bowel movements. See defecation; excrement
Bramah, Joseph
Brazil
British Toilet Association
Brussels
bucket latrines
Buckley, Kevin
Cameron, J. A.
Campos, Lenora
Carbary, Paul
caste system. See Hindu caste system
Chadwick, Edwin
Chan, Fruit
Chan, Margaret
Chapman, Scott
Charles, Prince
Chekhov, Anton
Chen Qiaozhu
China
Beijing
biogas digesters in (see biogas digesters)
concept of voluntary activity
Gan Quan Fang
open-style toilets in
use of excrement in
cholera
Clean Water Act
Cloaca Maxima
CLTS. See Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS)
Cohen, Arnold (“Mr. Bidet”)
combined sewer overflows (CSOs)
combined sewer system (CSS)
Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS)
Conner, Shayne
Cottonelle Fresh Rollwipes
Craig, Larry
Crapper, Thomas
Cristaline
cryptosporidium
CSOs. See combined sewer overflows (CSOs)
CSS. See combined sewer system (CSS)
Cubitt, Thomas
Cumming, Alexander
Curtis, Val
Cuyahoga River
Dalits. See also manual scavengers
DALY (Disability Added Life Year)
Damon, Matt
Dar es Salaam
cholera outbreak in
description of
Gulper project in
pit latrines in
sanitation in
slums in
Darde, Sumitra Ramchendra
Davis, Mike
Dead Sea Scrolls
defecation
cleansing habits after
open (see open defecation)
as a private act
progression of practice of
religious texts on
Delanoë, Bertrand
Dharamsala
diarrhea
disgust
Dogra, Chander Suta
Douglas, Mary
Drayton, Bill
dry latrines
Easterly, William
ECLSS
ecological sanitation
Elias, Norbert
Energy Policy Act (EPAct)
excrement
amount produced per year
average weight of
euphemisms for
infections transmitted by
use of, in China
war and
fecal stink bombs
fecal transfusions
feces. See excrement
Fen Huang Hou (“Shit Queen”)
fenfa
flushers
France
Freud, Sigmund
Friedman, Albert B.
Galway
Gan Quan Fang
Gandhi, Mohandas K.
Gauley, Bill
Germany
Ghosh, Gourisankar
Gilman, Paul
Goswami, Shibani
Gram Vikas
Gray, Harold Farnsworth
Greed, Clara
Greeley, Douglas
Gregory, Joel
Gulper
Gustavsson, Mathias
Halliday, Stephen
Hanje, Mkuu
Harington, John
Harrison, Ellen
Hayashi, Ryosuke (Rick)
Hayes, Tyrone
health messages
Henri III
Henry VIII
Herodotus
Hideoshi, Lord
high-function toilets. See Washlets
Hindu caste system. See also manual scavengers
Holt, Nancy
on environmental chemicals
on EPA standards
health problems of
reco
rds on health problems
Honeymooners, The
Hong, J. X.
hygiene, religion and
Inax
incontinence
India
biogas digesters in
cleansing habits in
Dharamsala
Hindu caste system in
Kolkata
latrines in
manual scavengers in (see manual scavengers)
Nehru Nagar
open defecation in (see open defecation)
public toilets in
Shanti Nagar
simplified sewerage in
Total Sanitation Campaign in
wastewater treatment in
Institute of Biogas
Intelligent Toilet
International Space Station
Ireland
Israel
Italy
James I
Japan
cleansing habits in
toilet revolution in
toilets in (see also TOTO; Washlets)
Japan Toilet Association
Jay-Z
Jenkins, Marion
Jenssen, Petter
Kapoor, Mansingh
Kar, Kamal
Kasrils, Ronnie
Kenyon, Peter
Khutsong
Kimberly-Clark
King, Jean Ledwith
Kipling, Rudyard
Kira, Alexander
Knollenberg, Joe
Kolkata
Kolsky, Pete
Kshatriya
latrines
bucket
definition of
dry
economic benefits of
in India
pit
of the Romans
leptospirosis
Lewis, David
Liebig, Justus von
London
cholera epidemics in
public bathrooms in
London sewers
congealed fat in
description of
history of
overflow in 2004
rats in
security of
Louima, Abner
Luo Guo Ri
Luther, Martin
Madiath, Joe
on Gram Vikas’s difficulties
on impact of sanitation