The Big Necessity

by Rose George

  You don’t ever see or smell a thing Megan Levy, “Grandma Saved by Daughter’s Poo,” Daily Telegraph, November 29, 2007.

  Once people got talking about bathrooms “Examining the Unmentionables,” Time, May 20, 1966.

  A dozen categories of euphemism Steven Pinker, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature (London: Allen Lane, 2007), p. 351.

  Without talking frankly about shit WSSCC, Listening (Geneva: WSSCC, 2004), p. 44.

  [Humanity’s] wiser course Freud quotes from the last scene of Faust, where the “more perfected angels” lament “Uns bleibt ein Erdenrest/zu tragen peinlich/und wär’ er von Asbest/er ist nicht reinlich” (We still have a trace of the Earth, which is distressing to bear; and though it were of asbestos, it is not cleanly). Men, Freud writes, “have chosen to evade the predicament by so far as possible denying the very existence of this inconvenient ‘trace of the Earth,’ by concealing it from one another, and by withholding from it the attention and care which it might claim as an integrating component of their essential being.” Freud, “Preface,” pp. 335–36.

  1. IN THE SEWERS

  Sewer workers Joe Harlow and Dave Yasis Associated Press, “Body of Missing Minnesota Sewer Worker Found,” July 28, 2007.

  Stalwart good-looking specimens Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor (1851; London: Cass, 1861–1862) 2: 428.

  300 flushers Personal communication with Douglas Greeley, New York City Department of Environmental Protection, September 2007.

  284 égoutiers Section de l’Assainissement de Paris, http://www.paris.fr.

  At the time of my visit, it was 39 Thames Water press office says there are now 49 full-time sewer inspectors, of whom 43 are flushers.

  Its third owner in nineteen years “RWE Sells Thames Water Holdings PLC to Kemble Water Limited for GBP 4.8 Billion (€7.2 billion),” Thames Water news release, October 17, 2006.

  915 million liters of clean water “Mayor Sets Out Case Against a Desalination Plant for London,” Greater London Authority news release, July 26, 2006.

  850,000 handsets inadvertently flushed “Brits Flush Away Mobiles Worth £342 Million,” Simplyswitch news release, June 4, 2007.

  A lingerie set BBC News, “Flushed Bra Causes Sewer Collapse,” June 19, 2007.

  That’s Canal No. 5, that is Sukhdev Sandhu, Night Haunts (London: Verso, 2007), p. 65.

  The contents of his neighbor’s privy “Going down to my cellar . . . I put my feet into a great heap of turds, by which I find that Mr. Turner’s house of office is full and comes into my cellar, which doth trouble me; but I will have it helped.” Diary of Samuel Pepys, 20 October 1660, ed. Robert Latham and William Matthews (London: G. Bell & Sons Ltd., 1970), p. 269.

  The most unfashionable muck The enterprising sewer workers of Paris also skimmed corks from the flow and sold them to perfume makers to use as stoppers. Donald Reid, Paris Sewers and Sewermen: Realities and Representations (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991), p. 53.

  Courtyards filled with fecal matter (“Le réceptacle de toutes les horreurs de l’humanité . . . les passages de communication, les cours, les corridors sont remplis d’urine et de matières fécales.”) Turneau de la Morandière, quoted in Martin Monestier, Histoire et Bizarreries Sociales des Excréments (Paris: Le Cherche-Midi, 1997), p. 98 (my translation).

  Excreta would corrode the gold Aleksandr Lipkov, lecture at the World Toilet Summit, Moscow, September 2006.

  London grew 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. 45.

  The cesspool emptying fee Steven Johnson, The Ghost Map: A Street, an Epidemic and the Two Men Who Battled to Save Victorian London (London: Allen Lane, 2006), p. 10.

  Tudor environmental health inspectors The sewer commissioners were commanded, among other things, “to reform, repair, and amend the said walls, ditches, banks, gutters, sewers, gotes, calcies, bridges, streams and other the premises, in all places needful.” From “The Bill of Sewers with a new proviso, etc,” 1531, in Danby Pickering, The Statutes at Large from the First year of Richard III to the 31st Year of K. Henry VIII, inclusive (Cambridge: Joseph Bentham, 1763), p. 223.

  Sewer derives from seaward Mary Gayman, “A Glimpse into London’s Early Sewers,” Cleaner, March 2006.

  The 3,700-year-old palace of King Minos International Water Association (IWA), “Sanitation 21: Simple Solutions for Complex Sanitation” (London: IWA, 2006), p. 12.

  The everyday sanitary conveniences of Minoan Crete Virginia Smith, Clean: A History of Personal Hygiene and Purity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 6.

  A large city sewer cleaned by prisoners of war Caroline Schönning, “Urine Diversion—Hygienic Risks and Microbial Guidelines for Re-use,” background paper for WHO Guidelines for the Safe Use of Wastewater, Graywater, and Excreta (Geneva: World Health Organization, 2006), p. 30.

  The Thames is now made a great cesspool House of Commons, “Report from the Select Committee on Improvement of the Health of Towns, Together with the Minutes of Evidence, Appendix, and Index. Effect of Interment of Bodies in Towns.” Ordered to Be Printed, 14 June 1842 (Shannon, Ireland: Irish University Press, 1970), q. 3452, pp. 209–10.

  14,000 died in London alone Halliday, The Great Stink of London, p. 124.

  What health is Henry Mayhew, letter to the Morning Chronicle, September 24, 1849.

  In modern money The economists Lawrence H. Officer and Samuel H. Williamson, who run the website http://www.measuringworth.com, from which these calculations are taken, set out various criteria for translating expenditure from one period to another. The lower figure of £3 billion comes from a calculation made using the retail price index; the higher figure from GDP. The modern worth dates to 2006.

  £6 million to remove fat Personal communication with Rob Smith, September 2006.

  Many sewers will be 250 years old Kirsty Scott, “The Dirty Bomb Beneath Our Feet,” Guardian, September 23, 2003.

  6,000 homeowners House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts, “Out of Sight—Not Out of Mind: Ofwat and the Public Sewer Network in England and Wales,” Thirtieth Report of Session 2003–2004 (London: The Stationery Office Ltd., 2004), p. 3.

  Unintended sewage pond feature Sonia Young was awarded £6,000 in damages from South West Water to compensate her for seven years of cleaning up “the toxic, smelly and very sad stream.” “Compensation Award for Seven Years ‘Sewage Hell,’” Cornishman, February 7, 2008.

  Sewage which reached her knees Laura Matless, “Mother and Baby Flee from Foul Flood Waters,” Bath Chronicle, October 14, 2005.

  Sewage backed up once a year Opinions of the Lords of Appeal for Judgement in the cause Marcic (Respondent) v. Thames Water Utilities (Appellants), [2003] UKHL 66, http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200304/ldjudgmt/jd031204/marcic-1.htm.

  Sewerage undertakers House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts, Out of Sight—Not Out of Mind, Ev. 2.

  Bonuses totaling £1.26 million Martin Horwood MP, Parliamentary Debates, Westminster Hall, June 27, 2006.

  One of the most unpleasant events House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts, “Out of Sight—Not Out of Mind,” Ev. 2.

  D minus American Society for Civil Engineers, “Report Card for America’s Infrastructure 2005,” http://www.asce.org/reportcard.

  Crumbling, dangerous sewer pipes NRDC, “Swimming in Sewage,” p. 23.

  2,175 Olympic-sized swimming pools David Hsu, “Sustainable New York City” (New York: Design Trust for Public Space and New York City Office for Environmental Coordination, 2006), p. 21.

  1.46 trillion gallons U.S. EPA, “Implementation and Enforcement of the Combined Sewer Overflow Control Policy, Report to Congress,” U.S. EPA 833-R-01-003, December 2001, pp. 7–15.

  1.75 inches of rain per hour Personal communication with Douglas Greeley, September 2007.

  3.5 inches of rain Ibid.


  A design issue Associated Press, “Intense rain storm cripples NYC mass transit system, leaving thousands without a way to work,” August 9, 2007.

  Buried beneath our feet NRDC, “Swimming in Sewage,” p. v.

  The depressing attitude House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, “Corporate Environmental Crime, Second Report of Session 2004–5” (London: Stationery Office Ltd., 2005), p. 3.

  A £2 billion interceptor stormwater tunnel “New Tunnel to Give London a 21st-Century River Thames,” Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs news release, March 22, 2007.

  Frighten a lady into asterisks Henry Mayhew, 1851, London Labour and the London Poor, p. 431.

  A Haitian immigrant Marie Brenner, “Incident in the 70th Precinct,” Vanity Fair, December 1997.

  The contribution of sewer workers Recently, scientists have been using “sewage epidemiology” to estimate levels of drug use. At Italy’s Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri, researchers tested sewage samples from Milan, London, and Lugano, Switzerland, for cocaine, opiates, cannabis, and amphetamines. Findings included the fact that 40,000 doses of cocaine are taken daily in Milan, far above the previous estimate of 15,000. Though sewage epidemiology can be tricky—it requires assuming the size of an average dose to how many people pee to how far the sewage has traveled—the technique is thought to be more reliable than surveys, the usual tools for calculating drug abuse. People lie; their sewage doesn’t. Ettore Zuccato et al., “Estimating Community Drug Abuse by Wastewater Analysis,” Environmental Health Perspectives EHP-in-press, May 1, 2008, posted online at http://www.ehponline.org/docs/2008/11022/abstract.html.

  $5.3 million settlement The full settlement of $8.7 million was reduced to $5.3 million after legal fees. “Victim, Civil Rights Leader Look Back on Infamous NYPD Torture Case,” International Herald Tribune, August 9, 2007.

  Natural percolation of water Two years of monitoring Seattle’s SEA streets concluded that the volume of storm water leaving the street had been reduced by 99 percent. More information is available from http://www.seattle.gov. See also Naomi Lubick, “Using Nature’s Design to Stem Urban Storm-Water Problems,” Environmental Science and Technology 40/19 (October 1, 2006): 5832–33.

  Twenty-two Hyde Parks Gravel, porous bricks, or paving are exempt from the new requirement. Rebecca Smithers, “New Rules for Front Gardens to Fight Floods,” Guardian, February 8, 2008.

  Roosevelt said Not only did Roosevelt dare to bring up the topic of sewage and water conservation before the businessmen of Buffalo, some of whom had interests in Niagara water power, but he did it at a 6 A.M. breakfast appointment. “Roosevelt Stirs Middle West Again; Crowds from Buffalo to Chicago Cheer Attacks on Corporate and Private Dishonesty,” New York Times, August 26, 1910.

  The Art of Drainage Joseph Bazalgette may be relatively obscure, but at least he has a Wikipedia entry; George. E. Waring, an equally innovative, daring, and determined engineer, does not. George E. Waring, Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health (orig. pub. New York: E. Judd & Co., 1867; Ebook 19465, Project Gutenberg, October 4, 2006), p. 230.

  2. JAPAN’S TOILET REVOLUTION

  The best lavatories Adam Hart-Davis, Thunder, Flush and Thomas Crapper: An Encycloopedia (London: Michael O’Mara Books, 1997), 26.

  Two dozen or so a year Ibid., p. 48.

  Fire and the wheel The top five inventions of all time were, in order, the toilet, the computer, the printing press, fire, and the wheel. Focus, May 1997, pp. 68–76.

  A presence in sixteen countries All TOTO figures are from TOTO annual report 2006, available at http://www.toto.co.jp/en/.

  A tiny proportion was sewered Even in 1961, only 6 percent of the population was sewered. Making Great Breakthroughs: All about the Sewage Works in Japan (Tokyo: Japan Sewage Works Association, 2002), p. 7.

  More Japanese were sitting than squatting Takushi Ohno, “Bowled Over by Toilet’s Evolution into High-Tech Gizmo,” Asahi Shimbun, December 8, 2005.

  Toilet Ho! Heisei Kawaya Kenkyukai and Minoru Sato, Toilet de HO (Tokyo: TOTO Publishing, 1995).

  A vicious libel Alexander Kira, The Bathroom (New York: Viking Press, 1966, 1976), p. 25.

  She had never seen the Prophet Abdul Fattah Al-Husseini Al-Sheikh, “Water and Sanitation in Islam,” WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, 1996.

  Their fecally stained pants Dr. Cameron surveyed 940 men in Oxfordshire, of whom 43.8 percent showed fecal contamination of their underpants; 8.6 percent were not accustomed to wearing underpants at all. Dr. Cameron was diligent in reporting his findings to the participants, writing, “I decided there was no point in this survey unless I mentioned to those involved that they showed a lack of hygiene in this particular regard. It was naturally a delicate matter to handle, and the answers varied between a truculent ‘mind your own business’ attitude and a host of excuses such as sweating, long journeys, bicycle riding, ‘nervous diarrhea’ and hemorrhoids.” Under “Possible Remedial Measures,” he suggested that laundries adopt a less tolerant attitude; hygiene education; a preparedness to tackle an unsavory matter with the offenders whenever this is brought to light; and more bidets. J. A. Cameron, “A Particular Problem Regarding Personal Cleanliness,” Public Health 76 (1972): 173–77.

  Grazing the wings of butterflies Jun’ichiro Tanizaki, “One Thing and Another on the Privy,” Postcolonial Studies 5/2 (2002): 147–51.

  Kin no Unko (Golden Poo) Alice Gordenker, “So What the Heck Is That?” Japan Times, March 20, 2007.

  23 percent of Japanese houses Kazuo Mikami, “Promising an ‘Evolution’ in Toilet Culture,” Japan Times, May 14, 2007.

  Complex and ridiculous thrones Alan Watts, In My Own Way: An Autobiography, 1915–1965 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1973), 33–35.

  The American toilet U.S. EPA, “How to Conserve Water and Use It Effectively,” from http://www.epa.gov/nps/chap3.html.

  One cross-border black marketeer CNN, transcript 00052100V55, May 21, 2000.

  Get the federal government out of the bathroom Joe Knollenberg, “Federal Government Has No Business in Your Bathroom,” Environment & Climate News, December 1, 1999.

  Plumber’s smudge Wallace Reyburn, Flushed with Pride: The Story of Thomas Crapper (London: Macdonald and Company, 1969), p. 17.

  Ranked first, second, and third NAHB Research Center, Water Closet Performance Testing, September 2002, www.cuwcc.org/toilet_fixtures/NAHB_ToiletReport_Sept-2002.pdf.

  An average bowel movement J. B. Wyman, K. W. Heaton, A. P. Manning, and A. C. Wicks, “Variability of Colonic Function in Healthy Subjects,” Gut 19 (1978): 146–50.

  Veritec’s MaP Maximum Performance (MaP) Testing of Popular Toilet Models (MaP) reports available from http://www.veritec.ca.

  Clean Is Happy Campaign http://www.cleanishappy.com.

  The most significant innovation for personal hygiene American Bidet Company, http://www.bidet.com.

  Now it’s 10 percent Adam Sage, “French Home Keeps Children Away,” (London) Times, March 16, 2005.

  The little bathroom for the feet Harvey A. Levenstein, We’ll Always Have Paris: American Tourists in France Since 1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), p. 31, quoting Jan Gelb’s diary, July 13, 1929.

  Highly charged emotionally Kira,The Bathroom, p. 23.

  French and therefore louche Personal communication with Harvey Molotch, August 2007. See also Harvey Molotch, Where Stuff Comes From: How Toasters, Toilets, Cars and Computers Come to Be As They Are (New York: Routledge, 2005).

  Its bidet model “Carmen” Kira, The Bathroom, p. 23.

  A freakish bathroom custom “On the Down-Low,” Harper’s Magazine, August 2005.

  Close your eyes and seek God Dareh Gregorian and Kathianne Boniello, “The Bums’ Rush,” New York Post, July 31, 2007.

  Ask for Hakle “Verlangen Sie eine Rolle Hakle®, dann brauchen Sie nicht Toilettenpapier zu sagen!” http://www.hakle.de/about_history.asp.

  Toilet paper industry worth $15–20 billi
on Conal Walsh, “Put Through the Mill by US Toilet Tissue Titans,” Observer, July 20, 2003.

  57 sheets a day Personal communication with Celeste Kuta, Charmin, February 2008.

  Love your bum D&AD (Design and Art Direction), “Velvet Case Study,” 2005, p. 1; available at www.dandad.org/inspiration/creativityworks/5/pdf/Velvet.pdf.

  Second most complained about ad Advertising Standards Authority, “Annual Report, 2003,” p. 7.

  Sales of Rollwipes were dismal Irina Barbalova, “Wet Toilet Tissue Yet to Win Over Consumers,” Euromonitor, May 29, 2003.

  American toilet market leader Kohler “Complete Your Bathroom with a High-Tech Kohler Toilet Seat,” Kohler news release, June 20, 2007.

  A field of daisies Barry Sonnenfeld, “Tucks Can Change Your Life,” Esquire, June 1, 2004.

  3. 2.6 BILLION

  The rather bigger group of the same name “In Praise of Public Loos,” Guardian, July 31, 2007.

  One in three of the world’s people Personal communication with Pete Kolsky, November 2007.

  A deficit of action United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report, 2006, “Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis” (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), p. 70.

  Twenty-three UN agencies Ibid., p. 8.

  No act of terrorism Ibid., p. 3.

  Winners’ revenue allegedly doubles Jehangir S. Pocha, “Just Flush with Pride,” Boston Globe, November 26, 2004.

  A staggering 87 percent Nellie Bristol, “Mechai Viravaidya: Thailand’s ‘Condom King,’”The Lancet 371/9607 (2008): p. 109. A 2006 report estimated that 19,500 new infections will occur in 2004, compared with 143,000 new infections in 1990. Without the prevention campaigns, 7.7 million more people would have been infected, or 14 times more than is now the case. The World Bank, “The Economics of Effective AIDS Treatment: Evaluating Policy Options for Thailand,” (2006), pp. xxii, xxiii.

  Eight World Toilet events Personal communication with Jack Sim, October 2007.

  Stabbed by a monk Martin Monestier, Histoire et Bizarreries Sociales des Excréments: Des Origines à Nos Jours (Paris: Le Cherche-Midi, 1997), p. 44.