Fie on the Flush Toilet

ACCORDING to ancient lore of the American Indian, the penalty for anyone who deliberately polluted a spring was swift and sure - death. When I look into the clear water of a toilet bowl, I sometimes think it would be a criminal act to befoul it with human body wastes. At considerable expense, we purify water until it is clean enough to drink and then deliver it to millions of bathrooms, where we quickly pollute it. Then at additional expense, cities that feel some responsibility for their downstream neighbors direct their sewage into treatment plants in an effort to remove a portion of the filth that you and I have placed in the public water supply.

For a Whitewater canoeist whose paddle has dipped into streams from the White Mountains to the Great Smokies, these issues are not academic. To a canoe cruiser, clean water is paramount - not just for the pleasure of watching it sparkle in the rapids but because of intimate contact with the water itself (and its bacteria and viruses), whether from splashing up on one's face or from total immersion.

In 1950, my interest in clean water led me to accept the chairmanship of the Recreation and Wildlife Committee of the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin. The most telling remark that I heard in a decade of attending panel discussions on pollution control came from Dr. Daniel L. Seckinger, then director of Public Health for the District of Columbia. A questioner from the floor asked him if it was possible to swim in the Potomac near Washington. "Yes," he replied, "if you don't mind swimming in sewage from the bathrooms of the sick."

After a quarter of a century of effort by the Interstate Commission to persuade cities and Industries to clean up the Potomac, it was discouraging a few years ago to read that authorities were advising people who had been splashed by the Potomac to wash with city water as soon as possible.

One day several years ago, I read a disturbing statement in the first annual report of the Council on Environmental Quality: "The waste loads from municipal systems are expected to nearly quadruple over the next 50 years." Later on, the report recommended: "We need to examine alternative approaches to pollution control."

This stimulus led to action in the form of a guest editorial in the January 1971 issue of Environmental Science and Technology in which, as an interested layman, I threw out a challenge to professionals in the field of water quality:

CAN MODERN TECHNOLOGY DEVISE ABETTER METHOD OF SEWAGE DISPOSALTHAN USING SCARCE AND EXPENSIVEDRINKING WATER TO TRANSPORT HUMANWASTE FROM THE BATHROOM TO THE RIVEROR THE TREATMENT PLANT?

To goad the professionals further, the article presented a rather crude alternative - the dry method of waste disposal that Joe Pollard '23 used in the privies of D.O.C. cabins when I worked with him on the trail crew in the summer of 1926. As an indoor adaptation of Joe's system, I suggested that flush toilets be replaced by seats over removable canisters that would be collected periodically and buried in farming areas. To eliminate odors and risk of disease, each user would sprinkle enough powder into the canister to cover the waste material.

The Associated Press wire service picked up the article, which served as a lightning rod to attract correspondents who agreed or disagreed with my thesis. Letters came from coast to coast and from Canada, the British West Indies, and West Germany. The dry method found a few takers. Letters from four semi-rural communities inquired whether the method would solve their problems: lack of sewerage systems, overflowing septic tanks, polluted wells, and a polluted lake. A couple of people asked what powder to use, and I suggested they experiment with dry, pulverized soil (as we had done in the D.O.C. privies), or wood ashes, ground limestone, dry sawdust, or various mixtures of these materials.

But the professionals blasted the idea, painting a dismal picture of New York City during a collectors' strike and telling what small boys would do to a sidewalk of uncollected canisters. Reluctantly, I was forced to agree, but I still think the method would be an improvement over open privies in impoverished communities and in state parks.

The response was more encouraging to my basic thesis - that some better method is needed for human waste disposal. A number of professionally qualified persons registered their agreement, as in these excerpts:

"I have been thinking along the same lines for years and am glad to see someone come out and say it."

- Professor of biology

"It would seem to be only a matter of time before the cost of water and public awareness of environmental resources will necessitate the development of a waterless toilet."

- Professor of civil engineering

"I agree with Mr. Leich that we must find a better method of sewage disposal but I am afraid that to be acceptable to the general public it must be as simple to operate as the flush toilet."

- State water department director

On the other hand, several respected professionals disagreed with my thesis and wrote that there is no insurmountable water shortage and no substitute for the convenient and relatively inexpensive system of gravity sewers to transport body wastes.

But then came the opening paragraph of a letter from Dr. Keith H. Steinkraus, professor of microbiology at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station of Cornell University, which expressed my own views better than I could voice them myself:

I think most scientists will agree that the flush toilet through which we foul our drinking water with our own excrement and then have to purify the water through laborious, costly, frequently not completely efficient processes represents a very poor way of handling an essential human problem. If we gave the problem to scientists today and they came back with the suggestion to throw it in the water supply, we would think they had gone crazy.

Several inventors wrote in describing their sewerless systems - composting, incinerating, and aerobic toilets. Every few months new information keeps coming in - biological toilets, oil-flushed systems, vacuum systems - and several weeks ago information arrived about a closed-loop toilet that uses salt water as the purifying medium. All this effort by ingenious people in Sweden, Canada, and the United States is highly encouraging. It makes me feel that I am not just an isolated nut crying out in the wilderness, since many others recognize the problem and are working to develop practical solutions.

And just what is the problem about our present water-flushed sanitation system? After all, the indoor flush toilet has been the symbol of modern progress and gracious living for the past hundred years. The weaknesses of the system may be summarized in short order:

• Enormous cost of sewerage systems and treatment plants. A proposed plant at Dickerson, Maryland, in a semi-rural area near Washington, would have cost $250 million, and this for a supplemental rather than a major municipal plant. Estimates for the total cost of new water-flushed sanitation systems in our country range upward from $300 billion. By comparison, the entire U.S. interstate highway system cost only $90 billion.

• Preemption of hundreds of acres of flat, desirable land near each large city to locate the plant. Secretary of Agriculture Bob Bergland was recently quoted as saying: "During the fifties we lost land to the interstate highway system. In the sixties we lost land to urban sprawl. In the seventies we're losing land to the sewage treatment facilities, all of which require flat farmland. You can't build a sewage lagoon on a hillside."

• Waste of large quantities of purified drinking water to transport small quantities of body wastes. For one person for one year, the five-gallon flush contaminates about 13,000 gallons of fresh water to move 165 gallons of body wastes. This does not seem like a very efficient transport system. After the recent droughts in western Europe and the western United States, sanitary engineers and the general public are having second thoughts about the present system. We read that in California people are saving their used bath water to flush the toilet.

• Accelerated eutrophication of lakes and estuaries because of unwanted nutrients such as phosphates and nitrates in the effluent from treatment plants. Even advanced wastewater treatment does not cure this trouble.

• Leakage of raw sewage from aging sewer lines, contaminating ground water. The opposite effect can also occur when ground water leaks into sewer lines, increases the load at the treatment plant, and lowers ground water levels.

• Build-up of large amounts of sewage sludge, often contaminated by heavy metals or toxic chemicals from factories. One ironic result of spending more money for sewage treatment around New York City is the increase in sludge which is dumped just offshore.

• And most important of all, the risk of introducing disease organisms into the drinking water of other communities. Bacteria can be controlled by chlorination, but the very act of chlorination may create new carcinogenic substances in the water. There is real doubt about viruses; recent studies indicate that viruses excreted by human beings survive present treatment methods.

• Even the best sewage treatment plants are not infallible. Such large, highly centralized operations are subject to power failures, equipment breakdowns, employee strikes, and by-passing during floods, any one of which can result in the direct discharge of millions of gallons of untreated sewage into our waterways.

Surely there must be a better way to dispose of our body wastes. This is not the place to list the product of each manufacturer of a sewerless device, but they may be categorized under several broad headings. Clearly, each type has its advantages and disadvantages. I would not venture to predict the winner of the sewerless sweepstakes - possibly each system will find its own niche somewhere in our nation's future.

Aerobic Tanks - The problems of septic tanks are well known. A number of U.S. companies make systems that rely on aerobic rather than anaerobic (septic) action to digest the wastes in the tanks and tile drains. An electric pump mixes air into the tank to break up solids and speed up digestion of the wastes. In contrast to a septic tank, an aerobic tank does not generate odors and the effluent includes dissolved oxygen that helps to prevent clogging of the drain field. True enough, such systems use as much water as do traditional systems, but one company makes an aerobic system that filters the effluent to the point where it can be recycled back to the flush toilet.

Biological Toilets - A U.S. company makes a recycling toilet based on biological digestion of the wastes, which are turned into water by the continuous action of enzymes and bacteria, both aerobic and anaerobic, in the base of the commode. Flushing is done by a hand pump. The effluent is said to be clear, odorless water containing no pathogenic organisms. Once a week a package of freeze-dried bacteria and enzymes is added. Every two years the charcoal filters must be replaced.

Another company is developing a biological toilet that requires addition of a bacteria package every two weeks. It recirculates the water to the commode, which uses only a gallon a flush. An electrical connection is needed. Once every two years the unit must be pumped out because of residues.

Composting Toilets - A Swedish inventor has developed a composting toilet that uses no energy or water and depends on the mild heat of composting to drive off the water extent in the wastes. A large fiberglass container with a slanting bottom is placed in the basement and two chutes lead down from the floor above, one for the toilet and one for kitchen garbage. A layer of peat moss and soil is placed along the bottom to begin the composting process. A natural draft system ventilates the compost and keeps the system aerobic. In about two years the finished compost, only five per cent by volume of the original wastes, is ready for the garden.

A U.S. company now has the rights to make and sell the units in this country, and has obtained permission to have them installed in Maine and some other states.

Competing companies in Sweden make composting toilets that rely on electrical heating and ventilating to speed up the composting process down to about six months. The composting chamber is in the base of the commode instead of the basement.

Incinerating Toilets - Several Swedish and U.S. companies make incinerating waterless toilets, fired by oil, electricity, or piped or bottled gas. They quickly reduce body wastes to a sterile ash. Tens of thousands have been installed in vacation homes and an increasing number are being sold for year-round use in Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. They consume considerable amounts of energy but completely solve the water-pollution problem.

Oil-Flushed Toilets - A large U.S. company makes a closed-loop system that uses a white, low-viscosity oil as the flushing medium. Wastes are carried to a gravity separation tank where the oil floats to the top and the water-saturated wastes sink to the bottom. The oil is then filtered and recirculated to the commodes. Many shipboard installations have been made, and the system has been adapted for highrise buildings ashore.

Another U.S. company is making an oil-flushed system that can be used in single-family homes, where a holding tank can store wastes from four people for a year. When filled, the tank is pumped out by a truck for disposal by incineration or agricultural use.

Vacuum Systems - Several Swedish and American companies make toilet systems that use the vacuum principle to transport wastes from the commode to a collection tank for disposal. An electric pump maintains a vacuum in the line. Only a liter of water is needed per flush, since differential air pressure moves the wastes. The system can be adapted to a variety of needs from single-family homes to apartments and whole new towns. More than 20,000 such toilets are in use.

Assuming an acceptable sewerless toilet system can be devised, we are still left with a difficult technical problem - how to dispose of all the other waste water from the home. Sanitary engineers call this "gray water" - the effluent from baths, sinks, and washing machines. It does not carry as heavy a load of pathogenic organisms as the "black water" from toilets, but is still a nuisance to dispose of. The problem would be simplified if the kitchen garbage grinder were phased out. Again, ingenious people recognize the problem and are hard at work. Several promising home filtration systems cleanse the water so it can be used to sprinkle lawns and wash cars; any surplus is sent down storm drains with no ecological damage.

Progress towards a sewerless society would be more rapid if the official agencies would take a greater interest in these new methods. Surely the time has come for the Environmental Protection Agency to test all available devices - the gray water systems as well as the sewerless toilets. EPA, to its credit, is supporting some testing programs, but these are limited to devices for rural and semi-rural areas. So far as I know, EPA is not testing any systems for use in the central city, where the problem is most urgent. (In contrast, a Canadian government agency, the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, is developing a new sewerless system, CANWEL, to handle all gray and black water in central city buildings.)

If EPA finds that no existing system can be recommended, then surely it should request funds for a major research program to find a sewerless answer. A society that lands instruments on Mars can solve this earth-bound problem.

Obviously, the drastic changes I am suggesting would take decades to carry out. In the meantime, we have no choice but to continue building more sewer lines and treatment plants, even though they will be only an interim clean-up measure. When the sewerless society arrives, they can be converted to cleansing off-street storm water, in itself a heavy burden for rivers and lakes to absorb.

The developing nations today have an opportunity to learn from our mistakes and avoid the water-flushed system, but I fear they have not got the message. In March, I attended the United Nations Water Conference in Argentina and did not find a word about the new sewerless methods in the documents. I spoke to the delegates of 116 nations in the two working committees, but the impact was not dis- cernible in the recommendations of the conference. But who knows - maybe Nepal or Burundi - or even the U.S.A. - will some day lead the way. And maybe by 1999 a paddler will be able to splash through Wet Bottom Rapids near Washington without having to wash his face in city water.

Wanted: sewerless sanitation

This treatment system, designed for use in single-family homes, composts wastes in abasement tank. The compost then can be applied as garden or lawn fertilizer.

Secondary sewage effluent is sprayed on farmland in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Thistest project use's a conventional treatment system but helps preserve river and ocean.

A former career officer with the U.S. CivilService, Harold Leich has written severalarticles on the pleasures of Whitewatercanoeing and the problems of water pollution. He is secretary of the Class of 1929.