Every day, you handle the deadliest substance on earth. It is a weapon of mass destruction festering beneath your fingernails. In the past 10 years, it has killed more people than all the wars since Adolf Hitler rolled into one; in the next four hours, it will kill the equivalent of two jumbo jets full of kids. It is not anthrax or plutonium or uranium. Its name is shit—and we are in the middle of a shit storm. In the West, our ways of discreetly whisking this weapon away are in danger of breaking down, and one-quarter of humanity hasn't ever used a functioning toilet yet.
-Slate Review of "The Big Necessity" by Rose George.
Quite possibly the most important environmental (and human health) book I've read in the last year is Rose George's book reviewed above, and although the topic may seem amusing, the statistics are real and are, in fact, nothing to giggle about.
I am not going to do any more than suggest reference to this fine and important book in this diary but am instead going to discuss a paper in the recent issue of Environmental Science and Technology that discusses a related point, the fate of toilet paper on earth. Hopefully this topic won't induce any insipid guffawing, although I am no longer ever startled to hear critical issues lazily trivialized.
The paper from the primary scientific literature I will discuss is Environ. Sci. Technol. 2012, 46, 2870−2876 written by B. Eren and F. Karadagli of the Faculty of Engineering Sakara University in Sakara, Turkey. The title of the paper is "Physical Disintegration of Toilet Papers in Wastewater Systems: Experimental Analysis and Mathematical Modeling."
Your toilet paper, in case you've ever wondered about it, comes from the Canadian Boreal Forests. I'm not big on the environmental reporting of the New York Times which is generally just shy of insipid, but even so, even I must confess this bit of reporting on the subject from that paper touches on the subject in an attention getting way:
Mr. Whipple Left It Out: Soft Is Rough on Forests
Americans like their toilet tissue soft: exotic confections that are silken, thick and hot-air-fluffed.
The national obsession with soft paper has driven the growth of brands like Cottonelle Ultra, Quilted Northern Ultra and Charmin Ultra — which in 2008 alone increased its sales by 40 percent in some markets, according to Information Resources, Inc., a marketing research firm.
But fluffiness comes at a price: millions of trees harvested in North America and in Latin American countries, including some percentage of trees from rare old-growth forests in Canada. Although toilet tissue can be made at similar cost from recycled material, it is the fiber taken from standing trees that help give it that plush feel, and most large manufacturers rely on them.
Customers “demand soft and comfortable,” said James Malone, a spokesman for Georgia Pacific, the maker of Quilted Northern. “Recycled fiber cannot do it
As if to make a point about toilet papers, the article predictably - it is the
New York Times afterall - lapses into quotations from the assholes at Greenpeace, not one of whom as best I can tell, give a rat's ass or any a shit about engineering issues that have direct effects on human health, since having taken a science course almost immediately disqualifies one for membership in that august organization. In this case Greenpeace happens to be right, just like a broken clock is right twice a day.
No matter. Toilets are an important issue, sewage is an important issue, and other detritus including toilet paper is an important issue, very much involved in other human issues like access to clean water and clean and safe food.
Actually, as pointed out in Ms. George's book, a toilet has been invented and is in full production (and wide use) in Japan that is "Hand's Free." These are made by companies like Toto Regrettably these toilets can cost as much as four grand, and there's no telling how many poops you need to take toilet paper free before you recover your money. (Somebody call Amory Lovins.) Presumably these toilets might inspire some spasms of environmentalism from that Tortilla Curtain types who mutter "I want one..." when looking at a picture of a $100,000 Tesla sports car thinking that they could "really do something about the environment" if they could afford one of those babies.
OK, enough sarcasm. Here's some excerpts from the paper:
Flushable consumer products (FCPs) such as toilet tissue, tampons, and wet wipes are commonly used around the world, and their consumption is increasing gradually. They are disposed of into wastewater collection systems, where they blend with other waste materials like human excreta; food waste, particularly, fat, oil, and grease (FOG); detergents; cleaning agents; pharmaceuticals; personal care products; and cosmetics.1−3 Because FCPs can absorb most of these wastematerials, they play a central role in sewer processes, and subsequently, their transport and disintegration are affected adversely. In sewer networks, FCPs are assumed to move along with wastewater to treatment plants; however, their transport depends on factors such as pipe shape and slope, wastewater flow rate and velocity, frequency and amount of product discharge, and disintegration characteristics of products.4 Under unfavorable conditions, FCP relatively large solid have the potential to accumulate and initiate pipe blockages particularly in small diameter pipes of building drains where low flow conditions are observed frequently.5,6 In main sewer pipes, accumulation of surface debris because of heavy rainfall and root penetration are among the main causes of blockages that lead to sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs).6 FCPs play a role in SSOs as large solids that move and disintegrate slowly in sewer pipes. Annual averages of 50,000 SSOs and 400,000 backups in basements occur as a result of pipe blockages in the United States of America (USA).6,7 Subsequently, SSOs lead to financial problems and significant public health concerns…
One of the interesting things about the, um, paper, besides the euphemistic generation of endless abbreviations, is the role played by toilet paper in keeping the sewer systems operating. An issue that Ms. George's book covered quite well - and which the paper also covers - is "FOG," or fat, oil and grease. Most of these are chemically fatty acids and their gyceryl esters, and they derive from oils found in foods and soaps. Free fatty acids form insoluble or sparingly soluble calcium and magnesium salts. Calcium and magnesium in turn are almost always found in sewer systems and derive from two sources, the presence of these elements in almost all household water systems (they are particularly high in waters in the American Southwest) and also because most macroscale (and many microscale) sewer or septic systems contain concrete. All of these systems are subject to corrosion, during which calcium and magnesium in concrete is released. To some extent, toilet paper particles can either ameliorate or exacerabate these effects by either absorbing fatty acids oils and grease, or by forming solid masses that cause clogging.
From the paper:
Depending on concentrations of reactants and pH, metal− fatty acid complexes form solid particles that initiate FOG deposits in sewer pipes.11,12 In this process, FCPs can accumulate fatty acids through absorption and can facilitate complexation/precipitation reactions with Ca2+ and Mg2+ in wastewater. Conversely, physical disintegration of FCPs produces small-size solids that can flow with wastewater. These solids can absorb long-chain fatty acids and can convey them to treatment plants and can minimize formation of FOG deposits. As indicated by this example, FCPs play key roles in sewer systems, and the mechanisms responsible for their transport and disintegration as well as chemical and microbial interactions must be addressed systematically.
Discussions of sanitation are considered - for some mysterious reason - to be something of a joke at best, or at worst, too embarrassing to be raised, but the issue is actually quite critical to humanity.
As Ms. George notes in her work, one can get all kinds of rock stars and celebrities to hold concerts and other fund raising events for cutesy issues like clean water or hunger but in fact sanitation - which is clearly related to these issues - is in many ways a more serious topic, believe it or not. Open sewers or non existant sewers not only carry disease, but also can serve as breeding grounds for disease vectors such as those which transmit malaria. Ms. George argues that the lack of sanitation kills more people than malaria and AIDS combined.
The World Health Organization webpage for sanitation related mortality is here:
World Health Organization Facts and Figures on Sanitation, Water and Hygiene.
About 1.8 million people die each year (according to the link) from diarrheal diseases and more than 2 billion people have no access whatsoever to sanitation.
More than 160 million people, equivalent to roughly half the population of the United States, suffer from the sanitation related disease Schistosomiasis.
To return to the paper I have cited, several interesting descriptions of toilet paper technology and grades are offered, as well as several approaches to the mathematical modeling of the behavior of toilet paper in various systems are given.
Major sewer systems around the world are in serious states of degradation. It's not overwhelmingly popular infrastructure, hardly as sexy as comparitively useless new highways and deserts strewn with silly wind farms.
Another issue related to toilet paper, by the way, concerns the deforestration of Canada's boreal forests to make the stuff, particularly the soft and fluffy kind.
Rich peope who want to feel smug about this can buy high tech toilets from companies like Toto, such as the Neorest 600 which is "hands free." Marketing this technology - which is widely used in Japan - has proved problematic because of the "giggle factor" and the fact that the subject is culturally considered "unmentionable."
Sometimes I think humanity is too stupid to survive.
However, considering the fact that more than 2 billion people have no access to sanitation systems whatsoever, a few people plopping down $4,000 for a toilet is probably the equivalent of some damn fool announcing that he or she is an "environmentalist" because he or she has purchased a Tesla electric sportscar and some dumbass solar cells.
Have a nice evening and a nice day tomorrow.