June 7, 2011 • 36 mins
Although the subject makes some people very uncomfortable, sanitation is enormously important. But what kind of technology will we find in the toilets of the future? Join Robert and Julie as they investigate the future of sanitation.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. And
it's actually a funny story. We were originally going to
come in here and do a podcast having to do
with knee eating and vegetarianism, and I actually done a
(00:25):
fair amount of research about it. And then last night
I went to a restaurant named Abatoire which specializes in meats,
and uh, it's is French for slaughter house. Yeah, and
so now I find myself at work actually podcasting about toilets.
So I think there's a natural progression. Yeah, absolutely, Um, yeah,
(00:48):
we're gonna talk about toilets, and why not because everybody
uses something right there, there are a couple of things
you cannot escape in life. Right You've got to eat,
you've got to sleep, and you have got to go
to the bathroom. Right yeah, pooping, peeing, these these basic actions. Uh,
it's it's a part of life. And it's it's so
weird that it is an area of technology. Um, that
(01:10):
physics and physics and health that often is just overlooked
because we just don't want to think about it, or
a lot of us do. Some of us may think
about it too much. But but but it's it's there,
it's important, and we'll end up, like say, you know,
spending a whole decade or more, not innovating the toilet,
not making changes to it, and certainly not rethinking it
(01:30):
in any drastic way. Um. You know, in the same
way that a person will choose to ignore, um some
you know, dire health concerns relating their toiletry encounters. Yeah,
and here's what I'm thinking though, I mean, technology has
has touched us on every level of our existence, and
certainly it is happening in the toilet sphere. We were
(01:52):
just maybe not as aware of it because you and
I are here. We we don't live in Japan, right,
And that's that's like where the toilet plosion is going on.
If I can coin a new term. Um, but you
know we've talked to is a new term. I think
it may have been used before, but not what we're
talking about. Explosions of ideas and yeah, right right, rather
(02:12):
than that the more chatological explosions, yes, which are important too,
but um, but you know, we've talked about what life
might look like in fifty years, particularly if we end
up living in vertical cities. And we've talked about the
scarcity of land um, and we now know that um,
something like two thirds of the popular population in will
(02:34):
live in cities. Right. We know that we use a
land mass the size of South America right now to
fill our our food needs so UM, and we don't
have that available to us in the future, right, especially
when we have nine point five billion people living in
so we started to think, like, how does that affect
(02:54):
us waste wise? Yeah? Also water right now, especially in
the United States, we and enjoy clean water pretty much
as much as we want, whether we're drinking it or
washing the dog with it. And I found an estimate
that the average American uses somewhere in the neighborhood of
seven thousand, six hundred sixty five gallons of water each
(03:16):
year just to flush the toilet. Well, and that doesn't
even count agriculture, right, UM. I mean that there's an
immense amount of water used in agriculture UM, whether or
not you're talking about livestock or crops UM. And again,
you know you've you've got this um, this massive demand
for food, particularly now for for meat and livestock. Um.
(03:37):
But we just don't have the area. So we talked
about this in life on the five hundred floor a
little bit. We talked about vertical cities. Is possibility that
you have vertical farming and and the sort of runoff
that would happen there and you end up living in
Pooh Town right down wind of you know, these stacks,
these five floors of of livestock roaming around and all
the sort of excrement that they produce, which is quite
(03:59):
a lot, really much much more than humans. Yeah, you
cant used to the zoo? I did? I I worked
for a zoo and um, wow, elephants, that's all I'm
gonna say. Amazing creatures. Um. So right now we know
what happens to to our sewer waste. Right there's something
called sewer sludge UM and this is actually at its best,
(04:22):
it's actually the end product of our sewer treatment systems
UM and it would be like a nutrient rich fertilizer
that we could use on crops. And again, and it's
actually used in the U. S. And Canada as such,
but it's actually been banned in some countries because at
its worst, which is the more likely scenario. It's a
highly toxic waste composed of humans and industrialized waste. Um,
(04:44):
So we have this problem right now, like what happens
to our pooh pooh? Um? How was it used? I mean,
this is a good idea to try to use on crops,
but knowing all this sorts of nasty stuff that goes
into it, now it's not necessarily the type of stuff
that I want growing my tomatoes. We should probably talk
about the technology that we have right now. Yes, Uh,
(05:06):
like you mentioned the idea of your tomatoes and your
toilet instead of having a huge sewage infrastructure between your
toilet and your tomatoes. Uh, that we have this technology
for composting toilets, which is pretty basic technology and it's
more simpler form. So there are different models you can
(05:26):
get these really remarkable looking like it basically looks like
a toilet, like a big square toilet that you just unpack,
stick in your bathroom and it and there's I think
you add like peat mix and a microbe mix and
uh it basically evaporation takes place because solid waste is
(05:46):
only like it's only like ten percent solid and the
rest is all water water, So tons of bacteria by
the way, right in tons of bacteria, so the water
evaporates and uh, and then you have that peat mix
and the micro mix and they are there's like a
little crank on the side of the toilet um you know,
kind of like how they would start and start the
old airplanes, and so you'd crank the toilet to to
(06:08):
rotate the drum. You know, you'll see people with a
composting been in their backyard that hasn't a rotation system.
It's the same concept in your toilet right right. And
then eventually you're going to have a drawer at the bottom,
a finishing drawer that you open up in there is
compost in there. It's like basically dirt and you take
that out and you can dump that on your garden.
(06:28):
And then there there are models that are a little
more complicated that are electric or involve an external tank,
uh collection tank for this to take place in an
automated um drum that rolls. But but the the the
technology of it is pretty pretty cool. And yeah, it's
very cool. I actually um used one in a yurt once. Yeah,
(06:50):
and I shared this other editorial meeting, and there are
lots of titters by the way. Oh yeah, when was this,
um that I shared it? Yeah, it was this like
a year ago or yes, yes, that they weren't ready.
They weren't ready. But I'm telling you this is pretty
cool technology. But like you said, on an individual basis,
it makes a lot of sense, right, if you're trying
to institute it system wide, it might be a little
bit more difficult as a as a solution for all
(07:13):
of us, right, And those guys that laugh, they're gonna
think they're gonna look back on their their laughter and
they're gonna feel really stupid. Once we get all the
toilets in this building change to composting, that's right, and
we all get your housing. Yeah. Yes, I'm pretty sure
I've used them as well, because you see them popping
up like at state parks. Yeah, yeah, they're they're really
Because the other cool thing is it is more or
(07:34):
less self contained. You don't have to be hooked into
a grid or a system to operate. You don't necessarily
have to have the electricity coming in, you don't have
to have the sewage system going out. Yeah, right, and
it makes total sense. It's uh, it's definitely sustainable. It's
a solution. Um One of the things that you wrote
about recently in a blog post was what I like
to call them, that Satan's toilet perhaps the oh yes,
(07:57):
the incinerating toilet and incineration toilets or fired toilets that
I like to think of them, Oh yes, these This
was something I did not know existed until until just, yeah,
just a couple of weeks ago, when I forget what
made me think of this, but I was suddenly an
into my mind, Hey, I wonder if there are any
toilets that burn everything up, because that you were thinking, like,
(08:17):
what's my worst nightmare? Sitting on a toilet with flame,
isn't it? Well, no, that's not my worst nightmare, but
but it just I kind of figured, we'll, surely someone
has thought of this, and lo and behold they have.
They've been around for decades. Uh And in fact, I
think there were some early designs that you know, showed
up like sort of the when the you know, in
the steam age, when everyone is getting excited about, uh,
(08:38):
you know, the technology changing our lives. And sure enough
there are some people that are like, we can we
can take these, uh our toilets and basically turn them
into a little furnaces that we pooped into, and and
that's kind of the idea of incineration toilet. Um. I
would if you do a Google search for poop into
the fire, uh, sort of a play on the horus
(09:00):
to the Duran Duran song. Yes, I thought that was
what you were doing for best blog title ever. By
the way, Yeah, if you do that search, you'll find
this blog post, and in it there's a video that
actually does a great job of showing how these things work,
even though it's the weirdest video you've ever seen promong
a commercially available product, because it's like, there's for one thing,
the the incineration toilet in the promo video is padlock shut. Yeah,
(09:24):
because I mean basically, whatever you put in there, you
pull a trigger and it is incinerated, So you don't
you wouldn't want a child to play with this, and
if you were leaving one of these in a remote,
remote location, you wouldn't want just anybody coming in and
burning stuff in your toilet. Well, it's it starts very ominously,
right because you see this woman and she's got like
this key chain of like a thousand janitors, just like
(09:45):
a thousand keys on there and you know it's to
a different incineration toilet and this strange underground Commox's an
eastern block underground bunker. And she starts talking about the
toilet and um, as you point out, and actually UM
editor Alison Laddermilt pointed out to at some point her
(10:05):
shoes go missing during this video. I don't know how
that happened. Yeah, she starts, you see her on the toilet,
she's got shoes on, and then you know they cut
to like later on. It's a very graphic video, by
the way, not with her, but actually the contents of
the Yeah, I mean, yeah, there is flaming poo in
the video because it's i mean, the product itself flames pooh.
And there's no there's no there's there's no, there's no
(10:27):
faking that. I guess they couldn't just put in something
some facts similar of poo. It might have been effects
some way of poon and just a really good one.
I don't know, but at any rate, Um, Yeah, she
unlocks the toilet, uses it. Then they do this cool
animation where they show exactly how it works and all
and uh, and it incinerates at all, I mean all
the water evaporates all all everything. It just turned to ash.
(10:48):
And then you'll have an ashtray at the bottom that
you remove and then dump. Right. And if you are
in the military and you've ever been in a military
campath these you're familiar with them or they they were
found on trains as well. Um, and they are solution.
But the problem is is that you can't you still
have it's a waste product that you have to get
rid of. Now the volume has been greatly decreased, but
you still have this ash and you cannot. Um, Well,
(11:10):
they don't advise you to use in crops and you
have to throw it away. Yeah, and then there are
there are a few. I mean, obviously the advantages are
you don't again, you don't have to be hooked into
well you need to be hooked into slightly into the
grid on this one, because you need you need to
either need to be electronically powered or gas powered, so
you'll need that, but you don't need water. Um, you
don't have to worry about freezing temperatures. There's nothing in
(11:32):
here that's gonna freeze up. But incineration destroys nutrients in
the waste, making the ash inadequate. For replenishing soil. Um.
You know, there's the energy usage, but then there are
disadvantages as well. Um, the incineration destroys waste nutrients um
in in the waste, making the ash inadequate for soil replenishment.
(11:54):
And and again generally it's just gonna require energy. You
gotta be hooked into gas or you have to be
poked into you know, some sort of electrical grid or
battery operated in order to power the flame. Yeah, and
some models can't be used while insideration cycle is in process.
So this is probably not going to work for a
household with like ten people in it in one bathroom, right,
and the sites I was looking also really advise the
(12:15):
child should never use one of these things. Yeah, fire
children poo really bad combo. We should probably really talk
very quickly about vacuum toilets. Oh, yes, these are the
Everyone who's ever flown on an airplane and has been
brave enough to use the restroom has encountered these because
basically basically how it works. Again, as you use the
restroom and then you awkwardly get up out of your
(12:35):
seat and struggle to position yourself around so you can
look down in the toilet, because we'll get to that
in a second. Because you if you're a male, no, well, yeah,
that's right. If you're if you're sitting well oh never mind, yeah, yes,
so you're trying to get yourself on the toilet. Yes,
you have to get on the toilet, use the toilet,
then get up, turn around, look down in the toilet,
(12:56):
and then you have to flush it. And then when
you flush it, you feel like all the air around
your head it's like sucked out. And there's this moment
where you can imagine yourself like pitching forward and just
being taken down through the tubes and ejected from the
outside of the air plant. Well, I was want to say,
and it really plays into the rational fear you've got
clowns and you've got the toilet that's going to suck
you out into the other. Yeah, we'll see. With me,
(13:18):
I was more, always, more afraid of things coming up
from the toilet. I guess it was because I remember
being a kid, not renting horror movies, but walking down
the aisle and seeing um like like VHS covers for
I think it was like Googley's was the was the series,
and the cover always had like some really cheap looking
like monster puppet coming out of a toilet, and uh
(13:38):
and and I think I've subsequently seen like a cliff
and then it's just horrible, poorly made films. But but
at the time it's like, yeah, I don't want something
to come up out of the toilet at me. And
then a few years ago it happened something came up
with the out of the toilet when I was not
in there using it. It was suage, it was sewage
backing up, but it was horrifying. I thought you're gonna
say it was a rat or an alligator. No, but
I have heard of rats, and that's as an entirely
(14:00):
different podcast, I think, Um, because rats, I mean, they're
they're gonna outlive us, right, Um, But I want to
talk really quickly about that. Why you would want to
use vacuum toilet outside of the airplane if you could, right,
you'd have to have the right conditions, you'd have to
have the section. But they use very little water, which
is very important, right, especially if we're talking about the
year and there's perhaps not a lot of water to
(14:22):
go around. Um, they can flush in any direction, including upward.
And because they don't have a lot of pipes that
they have to you know, draw down the waist. You
don't have to worry about the infrastructure um of placing
a toilet somewhere. I mean, you can't just place one anywhere.
You still have to have the right technology, but it's
a lot more mobile. Yeah, So all you would need
(14:42):
is some sort of vacuum device, air air pumps, etcetera
to make this right right. Um, so those are that's
what we have right now. But we've got some really
cool things that are in the works right now that
we could possibly have in the near future. Yes, and
we will get to be right after this breat This
(15:05):
presentation is brought to you by Intel, Sponsors of Tomorrow,
and we're back all right to the future. To the
future here we are. Okay, So the future holds some
really cool stuff. And one of the one of the
things I wanted to talk about is NASA, Right, Okay, NASA,
(15:26):
we we are benefits, whether or not beneficiaries of their technology.
It always trickles down to us. So I just want
to start with that point. I mean, invisible braces, memory, foam,
ear thermometers, cordless tools. These are all things that started
with NASA Research and Development, and Velko yes, eventually came
to the marketplace. So it stands to reason that some
(15:49):
of their solutions for getting rid of waste may come
to us very soon, and in fact, some of them
actually in use in various ways right now, right. And
they will spend a lot of money on the space
toilets because because again, everyone has to use the restroom,
especially astronauts. Yeah, International Space Station. That toilet nineteen million
dollars and oddly enough that is only the second uh
(16:14):
most expensive toilet in the world. Oh, because there's probably
one made out of gold somewhere. Yeah, you're exactly right. Yeah, yeah, jeopardy,
you just run um. So what they're really good though about,
is trying to figure out how to do uh do
more with less, right, and how to actually reuse materials
(16:34):
and recycle. So they have been converting waste into water,
and they've been doing this by desalinating urine biosmotic pressure
and then running it through a charcoal filter and then
sort of like voila, you've got your tab water. And
this is really magic for anyone like myself who grew
up reading the Dune books because in the of course,
in the Dune books. They are the the freemen have
(16:56):
these still suits that converts their their waste water back
into drinkable water, which they slip through a straw in
their in their suit. And so they're you know, lots
of sci fi geeks like myself have been just craving
to drink urine out of our own still suit for ages,
and and this is now we're just a little closer. Well, yeah,
it's very possible right now. And in fact, in Orange County, California,
(17:18):
they are using this process, but they're doing it underground,
and they're having the water hang out a little bit
longer underground so that people don't psychologically they can sort
of cotton to the idea better that they're drinking they're
clean urine. Well, I think we should all get used
to the idea that water we're drinking may have at
some point in urine, you know. Yeah, I mean it's
(17:39):
just a sort of a modern effective life. Yes, you know,
whether or not you know it, right, Um, so, right now,
that's this is a technology that they're using, and it's
very possible that this is going to be used in
toilets in the future, right, I mean, this is something
that could be easily retrofitted into toilet technology. The technology
(18:00):
is out there, it's it's it's it's gonna streamline in
the future, and we're going to need it as our
water demands increase, exactly. Yeah. So I mean in a way,
it's kind of like you have your water cooler in
your bathroom. I mean, this is this. You know, we
could even have very low tech versions of this, and
I'm sure that there's some d I wire out there
who has already done this, So email us because we
(18:20):
want to hear from you. Um, but there are so
many different toilets on the mark here right now. Is
we had talked about in the beginning of the podcast.
Japan is really running with this, right they They have
a number of models that are just amazing and then
also just kind of weird odd to us culturally, right
well yeah, but then also but they also sort of
(18:42):
tie into our general weirdness about toilets. You know that
there's certainly this idea that let's not think about toilets,
and by not thinking about it, we don't innovate it.
But then there's also this this reality where it's like
I want to think less about toilets. So let's make
toilets more amazing till eventually we just have robots that
we poop into in the future. It's very possible. And yeah,
(19:04):
Japanese are pretty uh at what we would think is
is hypersensitive about hygiene, So it makes sense that they
put a lot of thought into this so that they
can have, so to speak, a better outcome on the
other end. Um. And one of these really cool innovations though,
is what I like to call a doctor in your toilet.
Oh yes, which, um, but before we we talk about
the advanced version of this, I'm reminded of uh my
(19:28):
wife was telling me about like once when she was
doing a study of broad Thing and Prague, she encountered
these her whole group and accounting these toilets that had
like this little shelf. Like there's this little shelf that
you do your business onto and then when you flush,
the water washes everything off the shelf in a way,
and so it's almost like a callander for your for
the solids. No, well, no, it's like a like a
(19:50):
little shelf like imagine that you it's like a little
platform it's sorting out I guess it's it's it's like
the center stage, like you know at the met and
uh and and the waist goes on to that stage
and then you know, everybody watches it. But then when
the curtain closes, the water flushes everything away. And so
I looked into it, and they're they're called washout toilets,
and informally they're called German toilets because you still find
(20:14):
them sometimes in Germany and Austria. And uh, it's a
little sketchy on the reasoning for this, but it seems
it seems like the idea is that as humans, well,
we have this need to look at what we've done
in the toilet. But we think, well, this is a
whole Fortian idea, that we've created this thing right, and
(20:35):
we're really proud of it. Well, but on a very
basic level, I mean, your stool tells you a lot
about what's happening inside your body. I mean, you know,
we've all I don't know if we all have, but
a lot of people who have have had different health
diagnognostics done where you've had to supply a stool sample.
And that's why they're not just you know, they're not
just weird. They need to analyze it. And on a
very on a very basic level, we can look at
(20:56):
our stool and say like, well, I'm not doing too hot,
because that is that is embarrassing, you know. Yeah. Well,
anybody who's familiar with Dr Oz knows that he is
a big proponent of examining your excrement and has even
talked about not just examining it, but why you're doing it,
assessing it. And in his his idea of the best
(21:19):
exprement that you could how do I say you could
give your toilet is one that would dive into the water,
like Greg lan lucanis that's him, not me. See this
makes me think of the Road to Welville, Yes, with
the Anthony Hopkins awesome portrayal of of of Yeah, where
(21:39):
he's talking about his diet is such that his stool
comes out like a like a hard biscuit with its
odorless and and and perfect. Yes, I mean this is
the there it turns out that there is an ideal poop. Yeah,
and it would go into the water, like Greg lucanis
very little splash. So everybody wants to know, I'm sure,
but Dr Oz is really big about that, and he
says like you can look your your experment and you
(22:01):
can assess your health just like you're talking about, right,
So it makes sense then to design a robot that
you poop into the analyzes the poop for you so
you don't have to look at it, which is essentially
we're talking about in the intelligent toilet. This is made
by a Japanese company called dioa House and actually Toto,
which is big in the toilet industry, helped with the technology.
(22:23):
But it provides urine analysis. It takes the user's blood
pressure and body temperature and measures their weight with an
in built floor skill. Yeah, so this is really cool because, um,
this is a great way to get or read out
of what's going on in your body at that time. Um.
Toto's engineers actually developed a receptacle inside the basin and
(22:44):
that's what collects the urine for sugar content and temperature
checks and um there's also an arm band that monsitors
your blood pressure. So obviously that's how you're you're getting
your blood pressure, not from your waste. But you know,
just the little ad on there, I could very well
see this technology, uh uh you know spreading through you know, uh,
(23:05):
medical clinics around the States, you know, instead of going
in and having this awkward thing where it's all right,
here are a few different cups, fill these up with
your UM, your your leavings, and then stick them in
a bag for us. You could just have this smart
toilet that'll do you know, They'll just say, hey, come prepared,
use our toilet and we're good. Well, the current model,
actually your data is sent automatically to your personal computer
and then you can email it to your doctor. But
(23:26):
the next generation model, and this is according to phiz
org dot com article Japan high toilet high tech toilet
makers flush with success, nice pun, the next generation model
will UM actually automatically send your results to family members
and two doctors via the Internet. And it's actually capable
of storing the data of up to five people. Wow.
(23:48):
And you could probably get some sort of Twitter at
put on that as well. Well. There's there's actually a
website that was just tracks the number of tweets that
relate to UM Toiletry activity. Really, and I'm thinking of
like a hashtag right now, like lucanis yeah UM success
or something like that. This podcast really is a mine
field of potential jokes. They keep passing me by, and
(24:10):
I just know that we don't have time. I know
we don't. It's not fair. We can't give them um
their due. But this toilet, in case you're interested in it,
retails for about four to five thousand dollars. Yeah. Now
a Toto is also involved in a few other really
um classy toilets that I mean, these are really should
be the toilets of the stars. If you're using something
(24:31):
that out of gold, you're just wasting your time. They
are the toilet stars. Who is it Ryan Seacrest who
got one for his birthday And it's a six thousand
dollar toilet that has all sorts of bells and whistles. Okay,
it's this the the wash washlet S four hundred by Toto.
I don't know which model it is, but it's pretty fancy,
all right. Well, yeah, this is the one that has
it has built in massage or seed heater. But day yeah,
(24:55):
well yeah, like I guess it's like if you need
your butt massage while you're on the toilet, warm air
drawing settings, air purifier, um self cleaning. The there's a
sensor that that sees that you're coming and it will
go ahead and open and close the lid. Yeah, I
know a lot of the the the the wives and
significant others out there. Really, I was about to say,
(25:15):
if it returns it to the horizontal position, that really
I think would improve a lot of relationships out there.
There's there's also Kohler's new me toilet is. It is
really impressive. It also has self opening, closing lid, self
cleaning bidat which biday. Of course, anyone that doesn't know
this is like a water hose that cleans you after,
(25:37):
not really one of those you're himing, yeah, um, And
actually if you go to Thailand, um you'll find that
and probably other places as well. The most toilets have
a vegetable sprayer like from your kitchen. That's sort of
part of the set up there. So it's kind of
form of a biday more of a manual bay um
showery sort of, which makes sense. It really makes the
you know, not having one seem kind of crude. But
(25:59):
now this model also has uh uh adjustable biday with
controls for temperature and water pressure, heating elements, illuminated panel
for nighttime visits, a built in speaker system that connects
to a remote docking station. So I guess so you
can bring your your your iPhone or your iPod in
with you and just plug it in so you can
you can have your own music. Um, you never have
to leave your bathroom essentially, Yeah, deodorizing element that sucks
(26:23):
air from the bowl through a charcoal filter, and of
course everything's tied into a touch screen. So yeah. And
there's actually it's something called a function called otahimi, which
literally means princess of sound, and it produces a flushing
sound to cover bodiling noises. So again there's this preoccupation,
preoccupation with our our body and what it does in
(26:43):
the Japanese culture. And how best to obstute ate that
I went to high school with this uh grown name
Sarah who who may or may not be listening, uh
but uh Sarah went did some sort of a like
teach teach English as a second language deal in Japan,
and she encountered one of these fancy toys. And this
was like, I guess seven years ago more I don't know,
(27:05):
but but you know, she didn't know what all the
buttons were. Like a few were like clearly low flush
versus high flush, which is another nice innovation that we've
seen become more and more dominant even here in the States,
choosing how much how much water you need per um
you know, what needs to flush down. But then there
were other buttons. One of them produced the artificial flushing sound.
(27:27):
And the idea here is so instead of wasting the
water to create a flush sound to hide the sound
of your your excretion, then you know, you just push
this button and it will play the sound. But then
there was also a button that she pushed and the
police showed up while she was in the restaurant. I
think it was like, you know, an emergency button in
case there's some something wrong. Okay, so that that would
(27:48):
be the for me, okay, clowns um the second irrational
fear getting sucked out of the airplane through the toilet,
and third being arrested on the toilet. That's a problem there. Um.
So I mean, there you go. I mean, these are
some very interesting innovations. Yeah, I should add that I
don't think she was caught on the toy I think
she was leaving the toilet when the police came in. Okay,
(28:09):
that makes me feel so much better. Yeah, and this
is hardly much of an innovation. Um, I think it's
an innovation, But it isn't really it's not game changing,
even though it is a game. Sega has been installing
this toilet that's t o y l et game in
Japanese journals, which is basically, um, I guess the idea
is like little boys especially will just pee everywhere unless
(28:31):
you make them focus, and one way to make them
focus is via a video game where the you know,
the way that you're you sort of pee into a
little video game controller and it I'm just thinking for
all the gamers out there, including yourself, it's got to
be probably actually a good solution for when you don't
want to get up and uh and pause the game,
(28:55):
like if you're in a moment, right, well, I think
that's called just winning a diaper Again. NASA, thank you
the the adult super absorbent typer. But this has been
around for a while because I think they've had like there.
Their readers will have to know, I mean listeners will
have to write in. But but I believe there have
been a number of cruder versions of urinal games where
(29:15):
you you pe on something and it makes a ball
go up in the urinals. Yeah, and of course our advertisements,
so that's that's the impetus there really for having that
technology is you can get whatever you're selling out there
in front of um a captive audience, so to speak. Now,
we've been talking about innovations, um modern approaches to the toilet.
But but what's really interesting is that some of the
(29:36):
best ideas we might be able to employ regarding our
toilets are old ideas well. I mean, not actually thinking
about this. Okay, you've got these great things, especially with
the medical toilet that can tell you you know, what's
happening in your body, so on and so forth. You've
got all the different innovations, but it turns out that
we've been doing it all wrong regardless. And what I'm
(29:59):
talking about here is popping a squad, which is the
most natural thing in the world because we did not
evolve to set on little chairs with holes in them.
It's very victorian if you think about it, right, I'm
conscious sit here and pretend like I'm not going to
the bathroom. Um, but yeah, you're right. The popping a
squad is really what we are supposed to be and
(30:20):
what we're engineered to do. And there's a great article
on sleep dot com by Daniel Lamenti called don't just
sit there, and he actually goes into this the reasons
why it points out that the modern chair based flushing
toill and it really dates that dates back to the
late fifteen hundreds and and back before that. You just
(30:42):
have generations upon generations of people, as you say, popping
a squat. Uh and to this day, I mean most
you definitely have that. If anyone has ever traveled to
the into the East, if you've if you've got to
you know, Thailand, um, and throughout Europe. Throughout Europe, you'll
encounter these the squad toilets, which are well describe out
(31:02):
and describe one for us the hole in the ground, Yeah,
what's some porcelain added? Well, there's a tile work usually,
but yeah, I mean it's pretty amazing. I mean it
makes you realize that there are eight year olds that
are using all their muscles in their thighs to to
do this act and who are probably a lot more
stronger than than some of us, um, some of us
(31:24):
thirtysome things in America here and there are a number
of arguments too that this is the again, we evolved
a squat and used the rest him. We didn't evolve
to set on a chair and do it. So so
there are all these arguments for for different different ways
that squatting is is a healthier option, right, Like hemorrhoids
is a really good example. This is a very modern thing, hemorrhoids,
(31:45):
because if you're squatting, you're not straining as much. Straining
is one of the key uh causes of hemorrhoids. You'll see. Also,
people will get into whole arguments about the removal of impurities,
about you know, even tying it in with cancer, and
some of those claims are are are less explored. But
but there's and and then there's also the idea that
that when our thighs press against our our gut, that's
(32:09):
also aiding an excretion. And I believe they did some
some timing and this one uh one bit of research
that Lametti sites here, which which found that it's like
if you're if you're squatting, you can go in about
like fifty seconds, yeah and uh seconds something like that.
But if you're using a traditional Western toilet, then it's
going to be like twice that, right, And it makes
(32:32):
sense too. I mean, I was actually thinking about the
yoga pose Happy Baby, which stimulates your digestion and it's
the same thing, right, and you're just doing it on
your back. I always fall over on my side when
I do happy Baby, Yeah, and it makes my spine
feel weird. I don't know. It's an odd post. You're
happy babies, crazy baby, I think, but it points back
to this whole fact that the matter is is that
(32:53):
we do have against certain engineering that helps us with us.
Um So, I don't know, what do you do? Do
you retrofit your toilet? It's very possible. You can actually
put a platform on your toilet, but this is called
the East West toilet. Um. Well, no, this is the
There are a number of different devices out there. There's
one that basically looks like a little ladder that you
(33:15):
you kind of clamp on and it gives you like
kind of a squat plate on top of the traditional toilet.
But then there are are also more expensive models that
are kind of an s east meets West toilet, which
can be sat upon but can also be squatted upon.
So you're really you're yeah, but you're asking the person
who's squatting on it to like squat on an elevation.
So it looks kind of it still is kind of tricky.
(33:35):
I'd feel a little um, you know, put out if
I was having to squat up there on top of
so I was going to say, it's not something i'd
won after three beers. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's um and
it's it's also worth noting when we're looking back the
history of toilets uh. People often look at the Roman toilets,
which we still see remains of, and they look like
thrown style toilets uh. And it's apparently unclear whether or
(33:58):
not they sat on these. That's one of the traditional idea.
It's possible they squatted on them, but but they were
basically elevated, they think, because you have like a latrine
of raw suwage down there, and they just that makes
sense yea, and be elevated above that the chamber pot two. Right,
we said that that would evolve into something that became
something you sat on, the squatted over. So there you go.
(34:23):
That's that's the scoop on the Pooh and the toilets
and innovations. It's a lot to think about. Yeah, there's um,
if nothing else. Yeah, hopefully we've we've just stirred up
some conversation about this, about this this idea and U
and what is the toilet, how we've we've gotten to
the point that we've we've arrived at with it, and
(34:43):
where do we go within the future, How can we
improve on it? How can we fix the errors that
we've made, order the possible errors that we've made, and
come out on the other side with something that's sustainable, healthy, etcetera.
That's right, Well, let's bring up mail on. Yeah, I
have one quickiemel since we went a little long on
this um mostly because it was funny, I think, um.
(35:07):
But reader by the name of Richard writes in. Richard says, hey, guys,
just sending a message to say I love the podcast
and keep them coming. I also have one small correction
for you. I can't remember exactly which podcasts. I think
it may have been lying robots in the lives they tell. Anyway,
I believe Robert said that to Devon was a town
in the UK. Uh. It's not a town, it's a
(35:27):
It's a county, which is similar to your states, except
not as big. I'm not sure if this has been
corrected or not, as I'm a bit behind in your
podcast and I'm trying to get up to speed to
keep up the good work. Richard P. S. I'm from
Surrey in the UK, which is which is another county. Um, yes,
I believe I wrongfully um identified the spot. But basically
(35:48):
I think what I've meant to say was it was Marlow,
because I look this up it's the town of Marlow.
I don't know how I got Devin and Marlow confusedly. Yeah,
Marlow is a little town on the Thames that's really
gorgeous and has this one or old church in the
cemetery right down there by the water. So so yes, Marlow,
not Devon. Cool there we go. So hey, if you
(36:08):
want to discuss anything with us, if you want to
share links to cool toilet innovations that you've discovered, come
to our Facebook page and do just that. We are
Blow the Mind on Facebook and you also find us
on Twitter as Blow the Mind, and we update both
those feet pretty regularly and uh, you know, populate them
with all sorts of cool links and comments. And you
(36:31):
can also email us any sort of toilet shenanigans you've
run into with your own toilet innovations at Below the
Mind at how stuff works dot com. Be sure to
check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future
join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most
promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. And
it's actually a funny story. We were originally going to
come in here and do a podcast having to do
with knee eating and vegetarianism, and I actually done a
(00:25):
fair amount of research about it. And then last night
I went to a restaurant named Abatoire which specializes in meats,
and uh, it's is French for slaughter house. Yeah, and
so now I find myself at work actually podcasting about toilets.
So I think there's a natural progression. Yeah, absolutely, Um, yeah,
(00:48):
we're gonna talk about toilets, and why not because everybody
uses something right there, there are a couple of things
you cannot escape in life. Right You've got to eat,
you've got to sleep, and you have got to go
to the bathroom. Right yeah, pooping, peeing, these these basic actions. Uh,
it's it's a part of life. And it's it's so
weird that it is an area of technology. Um, that
(01:10):
physics and physics and health that often is just overlooked
because we just don't want to think about it, or
a lot of us do. Some of us may think
about it too much. But but but it's it's there,
it's important, and we'll end up, like say, you know,
spending a whole decade or more, not innovating the toilet,
not making changes to it, and certainly not rethinking it
(01:30):
in any drastic way. Um. You know, in the same
way that a person will choose to ignore, um some
you know, dire health concerns relating their toiletry encounters. Yeah,
and here's what I'm thinking though, I mean, technology has
has touched us on every level of our existence, and
certainly it is happening in the toilet sphere. We were
(01:52):
just maybe not as aware of it because you and
I are here. We we don't live in Japan, right,
And that's that's like where the toilet plosion is going on.
If I can coin a new term. Um, but you
know we've talked to is a new term. I think
it may have been used before, but not what we're
talking about. Explosions of ideas and yeah, right right, rather
(02:12):
than that the more chatological explosions, yes, which are important too,
but um, but you know, we've talked about what life
might look like in fifty years, particularly if we end
up living in vertical cities. And we've talked about the
scarcity of land um, and we now know that um,
something like two thirds of the popular population in will
(02:34):
live in cities. Right. We know that we use a
land mass the size of South America right now to
fill our our food needs so UM, and we don't
have that available to us in the future, right, especially
when we have nine point five billion people living in
so we started to think, like, how does that affect
(02:54):
us waste wise? Yeah? Also water right now, especially in
the United States, we and enjoy clean water pretty much
as much as we want, whether we're drinking it or
washing the dog with it. And I found an estimate
that the average American uses somewhere in the neighborhood of
seven thousand, six hundred sixty five gallons of water each
(03:16):
year just to flush the toilet. Well, and that doesn't
even count agriculture, right, UM. I mean that there's an
immense amount of water used in agriculture UM, whether or
not you're talking about livestock or crops UM. And again,
you know you've you've got this um, this massive demand
for food, particularly now for for meat and livestock. Um.
(03:37):
But we just don't have the area. So we talked
about this in life on the five hundred floor a
little bit. We talked about vertical cities. Is possibility that
you have vertical farming and and the sort of runoff
that would happen there and you end up living in
Pooh Town right down wind of you know, these stacks,
these five floors of of livestock roaming around and all
the sort of excrement that they produce, which is quite
(03:59):
a lot, really much much more than humans. Yeah, you
cant used to the zoo? I did? I I worked
for a zoo and um, wow, elephants, that's all I'm
gonna say. Amazing creatures. Um. So right now we know
what happens to to our sewer waste. Right there's something
called sewer sludge UM and this is actually at its best,
(04:22):
it's actually the end product of our sewer treatment systems
UM and it would be like a nutrient rich fertilizer
that we could use on crops. And again, and it's
actually used in the U. S. And Canada as such,
but it's actually been banned in some countries because at
its worst, which is the more likely scenario. It's a
highly toxic waste composed of humans and industrialized waste. Um,
(04:44):
So we have this problem right now, like what happens
to our pooh pooh? Um? How was it used? I mean,
this is a good idea to try to use on crops,
but knowing all this sorts of nasty stuff that goes
into it, now it's not necessarily the type of stuff
that I want growing my tomatoes. We should probably talk
about the technology that we have right now. Yes, Uh,
(05:06):
like you mentioned the idea of your tomatoes and your
toilet instead of having a huge sewage infrastructure between your
toilet and your tomatoes. Uh, that we have this technology
for composting toilets, which is pretty basic technology and it's
more simpler form. So there are different models you can
(05:26):
get these really remarkable looking like it basically looks like
a toilet, like a big square toilet that you just unpack,
stick in your bathroom and it and there's I think
you add like peat mix and a microbe mix and
uh it basically evaporation takes place because solid waste is
(05:46):
only like it's only like ten percent solid and the
rest is all water water, So tons of bacteria by
the way, right in tons of bacteria, so the water
evaporates and uh, and then you have that peat mix
and the micro mix and they are there's like a
little crank on the side of the toilet um you know,
kind of like how they would start and start the
old airplanes, and so you'd crank the toilet to to
(06:08):
rotate the drum. You know, you'll see people with a
composting been in their backyard that hasn't a rotation system.
It's the same concept in your toilet right right. And
then eventually you're going to have a drawer at the bottom,
a finishing drawer that you open up in there is
compost in there. It's like basically dirt and you take
that out and you can dump that on your garden.
(06:28):
And then there there are models that are a little
more complicated that are electric or involve an external tank,
uh collection tank for this to take place in an
automated um drum that rolls. But but the the the
technology of it is pretty pretty cool. And yeah, it's
very cool. I actually um used one in a yurt once. Yeah,
(06:50):
and I shared this other editorial meeting, and there are
lots of titters by the way. Oh yeah, when was this,
um that I shared it? Yeah, it was this like
a year ago or yes, yes, that they weren't ready.
They weren't ready. But I'm telling you this is pretty
cool technology. But like you said, on an individual basis,
it makes a lot of sense, right, if you're trying
to institute it system wide, it might be a little
bit more difficult as a as a solution for all
(07:13):
of us, right, And those guys that laugh, they're gonna
think they're gonna look back on their their laughter and
they're gonna feel really stupid. Once we get all the
toilets in this building change to composting, that's right, and
we all get your housing. Yeah. Yes, I'm pretty sure
I've used them as well, because you see them popping
up like at state parks. Yeah, yeah, they're they're really
Because the other cool thing is it is more or
(07:34):
less self contained. You don't have to be hooked into
a grid or a system to operate. You don't necessarily
have to have the electricity coming in, you don't have
to have the sewage system going out. Yeah, right, and
it makes total sense. It's uh, it's definitely sustainable. It's
a solution. Um One of the things that you wrote
about recently in a blog post was what I like
to call them, that Satan's toilet perhaps the oh yes,
(07:57):
the incinerating toilet and incineration toilets or fired toilets that
I like to think of them, Oh yes, these This
was something I did not know existed until until just, yeah,
just a couple of weeks ago, when I forget what
made me think of this, but I was suddenly an
into my mind, Hey, I wonder if there are any
toilets that burn everything up, because that you were thinking, like,
(08:17):
what's my worst nightmare? Sitting on a toilet with flame,
isn't it? Well, no, that's not my worst nightmare, but
but it just I kind of figured, we'll, surely someone
has thought of this, and lo and behold they have.
They've been around for decades. Uh And in fact, I
think there were some early designs that you know, showed
up like sort of the when the you know, in
the steam age, when everyone is getting excited about, uh,
(08:38):
you know, the technology changing our lives. And sure enough
there are some people that are like, we can we
can take these, uh our toilets and basically turn them
into a little furnaces that we pooped into, and and
that's kind of the idea of incineration toilet. Um. I
would if you do a Google search for poop into
the fire, uh, sort of a play on the horus
(09:00):
to the Duran Duran song. Yes, I thought that was
what you were doing for best blog title ever. By
the way, Yeah, if you do that search, you'll find
this blog post, and in it there's a video that
actually does a great job of showing how these things work,
even though it's the weirdest video you've ever seen promong
a commercially available product, because it's like, there's for one thing,
the the incineration toilet in the promo video is padlock shut. Yeah,
(09:24):
because I mean basically, whatever you put in there, you
pull a trigger and it is incinerated, So you don't
you wouldn't want a child to play with this, and
if you were leaving one of these in a remote,
remote location, you wouldn't want just anybody coming in and
burning stuff in your toilet. Well, it's it starts very ominously,
right because you see this woman and she's got like
this key chain of like a thousand janitors, just like
(09:45):
a thousand keys on there and you know it's to
a different incineration toilet and this strange underground Commox's an
eastern block underground bunker. And she starts talking about the
toilet and um, as you point out, and actually UM
editor Alison Laddermilt pointed out to at some point her
(10:05):
shoes go missing during this video. I don't know how
that happened. Yeah, she starts, you see her on the toilet,
she's got shoes on, and then you know they cut
to like later on. It's a very graphic video, by
the way, not with her, but actually the contents of
the Yeah, I mean, yeah, there is flaming poo in
the video because it's i mean, the product itself flames pooh.
And there's no there's no there's there's no, there's no
(10:27):
faking that. I guess they couldn't just put in something
some facts similar of poo. It might have been effects
some way of poon and just a really good one.
I don't know, but at any rate, Um, Yeah, she
unlocks the toilet, uses it. Then they do this cool
animation where they show exactly how it works and all
and uh, and it incinerates at all, I mean all
the water evaporates all all everything. It just turned to ash.
(10:48):
And then you'll have an ashtray at the bottom that
you remove and then dump. Right. And if you are
in the military and you've ever been in a military
campath these you're familiar with them or they they were
found on trains as well. Um, and they are solution.
But the problem is is that you can't you still
have it's a waste product that you have to get
rid of. Now the volume has been greatly decreased, but
you still have this ash and you cannot. Um, Well,
(11:10):
they don't advise you to use in crops and you
have to throw it away. Yeah, and then there are
there are a few. I mean, obviously the advantages are
you don't again, you don't have to be hooked into
well you need to be hooked into slightly into the
grid on this one, because you need you need to
either need to be electronically powered or gas powered, so
you'll need that, but you don't need water. Um, you
don't have to worry about freezing temperatures. There's nothing in
(11:32):
here that's gonna freeze up. But incineration destroys nutrients in
the waste, making the ash inadequate. For replenishing soil. Um.
You know, there's the energy usage, but then there are
disadvantages as well. Um, the incineration destroys waste nutrients um
in in the waste, making the ash inadequate for soil replenishment.
(11:54):
And and again generally it's just gonna require energy. You
gotta be hooked into gas or you have to be
poked into you know, some sort of electrical grid or
battery operated in order to power the flame. Yeah, and
some models can't be used while insideration cycle is in process.
So this is probably not going to work for a
household with like ten people in it in one bathroom, right,
and the sites I was looking also really advise the
(12:15):
child should never use one of these things. Yeah, fire
children poo really bad combo. We should probably really talk
very quickly about vacuum toilets. Oh, yes, these are the
Everyone who's ever flown on an airplane and has been
brave enough to use the restroom has encountered these because
basically basically how it works. Again, as you use the
restroom and then you awkwardly get up out of your
(12:35):
seat and struggle to position yourself around so you can
look down in the toilet, because we'll get to that
in a second. Because you if you're a male, no, well, yeah,
that's right. If you're if you're sitting well oh never mind, yeah, yes,
so you're trying to get yourself on the toilet. Yes,
you have to get on the toilet, use the toilet,
then get up, turn around, look down in the toilet,
(12:56):
and then you have to flush it. And then when
you flush it, you feel like all the air around
your head it's like sucked out. And there's this moment
where you can imagine yourself like pitching forward and just
being taken down through the tubes and ejected from the
outside of the air plant. Well, I was want to say,
and it really plays into the rational fear you've got
clowns and you've got the toilet that's going to suck
you out into the other. Yeah, we'll see. With me,
(13:18):
I was more, always, more afraid of things coming up
from the toilet. I guess it was because I remember
being a kid, not renting horror movies, but walking down
the aisle and seeing um like like VHS covers for
I think it was like Googley's was the was the series,
and the cover always had like some really cheap looking
like monster puppet coming out of a toilet, and uh
(13:38):
and and I think I've subsequently seen like a cliff
and then it's just horrible, poorly made films. But but
at the time it's like, yeah, I don't want something
to come up out of the toilet at me. And
then a few years ago it happened something came up
with the out of the toilet when I was not
in there using it. It was suage, it was sewage
backing up, but it was horrifying. I thought you're gonna
say it was a rat or an alligator. No, but
I have heard of rats, and that's as an entirely
(14:00):
different podcast, I think, Um, because rats, I mean, they're
they're gonna outlive us, right, Um, But I want to
talk really quickly about that. Why you would want to
use vacuum toilet outside of the airplane if you could, right,
you'd have to have the right conditions, you'd have to
have the section. But they use very little water, which
is very important, right, especially if we're talking about the
year and there's perhaps not a lot of water to
(14:22):
go around. Um, they can flush in any direction, including upward.
And because they don't have a lot of pipes that
they have to you know, draw down the waist. You
don't have to worry about the infrastructure um of placing
a toilet somewhere. I mean, you can't just place one anywhere.
You still have to have the right technology, but it's
a lot more mobile. Yeah, So all you would need
(14:42):
is some sort of vacuum device, air air pumps, etcetera
to make this right right. Um, so those are that's
what we have right now. But we've got some really
cool things that are in the works right now that
we could possibly have in the near future. Yes, and
we will get to be right after this breat This
(15:05):
presentation is brought to you by Intel, Sponsors of Tomorrow,
and we're back all right to the future. To the
future here we are. Okay, So the future holds some
really cool stuff. And one of the one of the
things I wanted to talk about is NASA, Right, Okay, NASA,
(15:26):
we we are benefits, whether or not beneficiaries of their technology.
It always trickles down to us. So I just want
to start with that point. I mean, invisible braces, memory, foam,
ear thermometers, cordless tools. These are all things that started
with NASA Research and Development, and Velko yes, eventually came
to the marketplace. So it stands to reason that some
(15:49):
of their solutions for getting rid of waste may come
to us very soon, and in fact, some of them
actually in use in various ways right now, right. And
they will spend a lot of money on the space
toilets because because again, everyone has to use the restroom,
especially astronauts. Yeah, International Space Station. That toilet nineteen million
dollars and oddly enough that is only the second uh
(16:14):
most expensive toilet in the world. Oh, because there's probably
one made out of gold somewhere. Yeah, you're exactly right. Yeah, yeah, jeopardy,
you just run um. So what they're really good though about,
is trying to figure out how to do uh do
more with less, right, and how to actually reuse materials
(16:34):
and recycle. So they have been converting waste into water,
and they've been doing this by desalinating urine biosmotic pressure
and then running it through a charcoal filter and then
sort of like voila, you've got your tab water. And
this is really magic for anyone like myself who grew
up reading the Dune books because in the of course,
in the Dune books. They are the the freemen have
(16:56):
these still suits that converts their their waste water back
into drinkable water, which they slip through a straw in
their in their suit. And so they're you know, lots
of sci fi geeks like myself have been just craving
to drink urine out of our own still suit for ages,
and and this is now we're just a little closer. Well, yeah,
it's very possible right now. And in fact, in Orange County, California,
(17:18):
they are using this process, but they're doing it underground,
and they're having the water hang out a little bit
longer underground so that people don't psychologically they can sort
of cotton to the idea better that they're drinking they're
clean urine. Well, I think we should all get used
to the idea that water we're drinking may have at
some point in urine, you know. Yeah, I mean it's
(17:39):
just a sort of a modern effective life. Yes, you know,
whether or not you know it, right, Um, so, right now,
that's this is a technology that they're using, and it's
very possible that this is going to be used in
toilets in the future, right, I mean, this is something
that could be easily retrofitted into toilet technology. The technology
(18:00):
is out there, it's it's it's it's gonna streamline in
the future, and we're going to need it as our
water demands increase, exactly. Yeah. So I mean in a way,
it's kind of like you have your water cooler in
your bathroom. I mean, this is this. You know, we
could even have very low tech versions of this, and
I'm sure that there's some d I wire out there
who has already done this, So email us because we
(18:20):
want to hear from you. Um, but there are so
many different toilets on the mark here right now. Is
we had talked about in the beginning of the podcast.
Japan is really running with this, right they They have
a number of models that are just amazing and then
also just kind of weird odd to us culturally, right
well yeah, but then also but they also sort of
(18:42):
tie into our general weirdness about toilets. You know that
there's certainly this idea that let's not think about toilets,
and by not thinking about it, we don't innovate it.
But then there's also this this reality where it's like
I want to think less about toilets. So let's make
toilets more amazing till eventually we just have robots that
we poop into in the future. It's very possible. And yeah,
(19:04):
Japanese are pretty uh at what we would think is
is hypersensitive about hygiene, So it makes sense that they
put a lot of thought into this so that they
can have, so to speak, a better outcome on the
other end. Um. And one of these really cool innovations though,
is what I like to call a doctor in your toilet.
Oh yes, which, um, but before we we talk about
the advanced version of this, I'm reminded of uh my
(19:28):
wife was telling me about like once when she was
doing a study of broad Thing and Prague, she encountered
these her whole group and accounting these toilets that had
like this little shelf. Like there's this little shelf that
you do your business onto and then when you flush,
the water washes everything off the shelf in a way,
and so it's almost like a callander for your for
the solids. No, well, no, it's like a like a
(19:50):
little shelf like imagine that you it's like a little
platform it's sorting out I guess it's it's it's like
the center stage, like you know at the met and
uh and and the waist goes on to that stage
and then you know, everybody watches it. But then when
the curtain closes, the water flushes everything away. And so
I looked into it, and they're they're called washout toilets,
and informally they're called German toilets because you still find
(20:14):
them sometimes in Germany and Austria. And uh, it's a
little sketchy on the reasoning for this, but it seems
it seems like the idea is that as humans, well,
we have this need to look at what we've done
in the toilet. But we think, well, this is a
whole Fortian idea, that we've created this thing right, and
(20:35):
we're really proud of it. Well, but on a very
basic level, I mean, your stool tells you a lot
about what's happening inside your body. I mean, you know,
we've all I don't know if we all have, but
a lot of people who have have had different health
diagnognostics done where you've had to supply a stool sample.
And that's why they're not just you know, they're not
just weird. They need to analyze it. And on a
very on a very basic level, we can look at
(20:56):
our stool and say like, well, I'm not doing too hot,
because that is that is embarrassing, you know. Yeah. Well,
anybody who's familiar with Dr Oz knows that he is
a big proponent of examining your excrement and has even
talked about not just examining it, but why you're doing it,
assessing it. And in his his idea of the best
(21:19):
exprement that you could how do I say you could
give your toilet is one that would dive into the water,
like Greg lan lucanis that's him, not me. See this
makes me think of the Road to Welville, Yes, with
the Anthony Hopkins awesome portrayal of of of Yeah, where
(21:39):
he's talking about his diet is such that his stool
comes out like a like a hard biscuit with its
odorless and and and perfect. Yes, I mean this is
the there it turns out that there is an ideal poop. Yeah,
and it would go into the water, like Greg lucanis
very little splash. So everybody wants to know, I'm sure,
but Dr Oz is really big about that, and he
says like you can look your your experment and you
(22:01):
can assess your health just like you're talking about, right,
So it makes sense then to design a robot that
you poop into the analyzes the poop for you so
you don't have to look at it, which is essentially
we're talking about in the intelligent toilet. This is made
by a Japanese company called dioa House and actually Toto,
which is big in the toilet industry, helped with the technology.
(22:23):
But it provides urine analysis. It takes the user's blood
pressure and body temperature and measures their weight with an
in built floor skill. Yeah, so this is really cool because, um,
this is a great way to get or read out
of what's going on in your body at that time. Um.
Toto's engineers actually developed a receptacle inside the basin and
(22:44):
that's what collects the urine for sugar content and temperature
checks and um there's also an arm band that monsitors
your blood pressure. So obviously that's how you're you're getting
your blood pressure, not from your waste. But you know,
just the little ad on there, I could very well
see this technology, uh uh you know spreading through you know, uh,
(23:05):
medical clinics around the States, you know, instead of going
in and having this awkward thing where it's all right,
here are a few different cups, fill these up with
your UM, your your leavings, and then stick them in
a bag for us. You could just have this smart
toilet that'll do you know, They'll just say, hey, come prepared,
use our toilet and we're good. Well, the current model,
actually your data is sent automatically to your personal computer
and then you can email it to your doctor. But
(23:26):
the next generation model, and this is according to phiz
org dot com article Japan high toilet high tech toilet
makers flush with success, nice pun, the next generation model
will UM actually automatically send your results to family members
and two doctors via the Internet. And it's actually capable
of storing the data of up to five people. Wow.
(23:48):
And you could probably get some sort of Twitter at
put on that as well. Well. There's there's actually a
website that was just tracks the number of tweets that
relate to UM Toiletry activity. Really, and I'm thinking of
like a hashtag right now, like lucanis yeah UM success
or something like that. This podcast really is a mine
field of potential jokes. They keep passing me by, and
(24:10):
I just know that we don't have time. I know
we don't. It's not fair. We can't give them um
their due. But this toilet, in case you're interested in it,
retails for about four to five thousand dollars. Yeah. Now
a Toto is also involved in a few other really
um classy toilets that I mean, these are really should
be the toilets of the stars. If you're using something
(24:31):
that out of gold, you're just wasting your time. They
are the toilet stars. Who is it Ryan Seacrest who
got one for his birthday And it's a six thousand
dollar toilet that has all sorts of bells and whistles. Okay,
it's this the the wash washlet S four hundred by Toto.
I don't know which model it is, but it's pretty fancy,
all right. Well, yeah, this is the one that has
it has built in massage or seed heater. But day yeah,
(24:55):
well yeah, like I guess it's like if you need
your butt massage while you're on the toilet, warm air
drawing settings, air purifier, um self cleaning. The there's a
sensor that that sees that you're coming and it will
go ahead and open and close the lid. Yeah, I
know a lot of the the the the wives and
significant others out there. Really, I was about to say,
(25:15):
if it returns it to the horizontal position, that really
I think would improve a lot of relationships out there.
There's there's also Kohler's new me toilet is. It is
really impressive. It also has self opening, closing lid, self
cleaning bidat which biday. Of course, anyone that doesn't know
this is like a water hose that cleans you after,
(25:37):
not really one of those you're himing, yeah, um, And
actually if you go to Thailand, um you'll find that
and probably other places as well. The most toilets have
a vegetable sprayer like from your kitchen. That's sort of
part of the set up there. So it's kind of
form of a biday more of a manual bay um
showery sort of, which makes sense. It really makes the
you know, not having one seem kind of crude. But
(25:59):
now this model also has uh uh adjustable biday with
controls for temperature and water pressure, heating elements, illuminated panel
for nighttime visits, a built in speaker system that connects
to a remote docking station. So I guess so you
can bring your your your iPhone or your iPod in
with you and just plug it in so you can
you can have your own music. Um, you never have
to leave your bathroom essentially, Yeah, deodorizing element that sucks
(26:23):
air from the bowl through a charcoal filter, and of
course everything's tied into a touch screen. So yeah. And
there's actually it's something called a function called otahimi, which
literally means princess of sound, and it produces a flushing
sound to cover bodiling noises. So again there's this preoccupation,
preoccupation with our our body and what it does in
(26:43):
the Japanese culture. And how best to obstute ate that
I went to high school with this uh grown name
Sarah who who may or may not be listening, uh
but uh Sarah went did some sort of a like
teach teach English as a second language deal in Japan,
and she encountered one of these fancy toys. And this
was like, I guess seven years ago more I don't know,
(27:05):
but but you know, she didn't know what all the
buttons were. Like a few were like clearly low flush
versus high flush, which is another nice innovation that we've
seen become more and more dominant even here in the States,
choosing how much how much water you need per um
you know, what needs to flush down. But then there
were other buttons. One of them produced the artificial flushing sound.
(27:27):
And the idea here is so instead of wasting the
water to create a flush sound to hide the sound
of your your excretion, then you know, you just push
this button and it will play the sound. But then
there was also a button that she pushed and the
police showed up while she was in the restaurant. I
think it was like, you know, an emergency button in
case there's some something wrong. Okay, so that that would
(27:48):
be the for me, okay, clowns um the second irrational
fear getting sucked out of the airplane through the toilet,
and third being arrested on the toilet. That's a problem there. Um.
So I mean, there you go. I mean, these are
some very interesting innovations. Yeah, I should add that I
don't think she was caught on the toy I think
she was leaving the toilet when the police came in. Okay,
(28:09):
that makes me feel so much better. Yeah, and this
is hardly much of an innovation. Um, I think it's
an innovation, But it isn't really it's not game changing,
even though it is a game. Sega has been installing
this toilet that's t o y l et game in
Japanese journals, which is basically, um, I guess the idea
is like little boys especially will just pee everywhere unless
(28:31):
you make them focus, and one way to make them
focus is via a video game where the you know,
the way that you're you sort of pee into a
little video game controller and it I'm just thinking for
all the gamers out there, including yourself, it's got to
be probably actually a good solution for when you don't
want to get up and uh and pause the game,
(28:55):
like if you're in a moment, right, well, I think
that's called just winning a diaper Again. NASA, thank you
the the adult super absorbent typer. But this has been
around for a while because I think they've had like there.
Their readers will have to know, I mean listeners will
have to write in. But but I believe there have
been a number of cruder versions of urinal games where
(29:15):
you you pe on something and it makes a ball
go up in the urinals. Yeah, and of course our advertisements,
so that's that's the impetus there really for having that
technology is you can get whatever you're selling out there
in front of um a captive audience, so to speak. Now,
we've been talking about innovations, um modern approaches to the toilet.
But but what's really interesting is that some of the
(29:36):
best ideas we might be able to employ regarding our
toilets are old ideas well. I mean, not actually thinking
about this. Okay, you've got these great things, especially with
the medical toilet that can tell you you know, what's
happening in your body, so on and so forth. You've
got all the different innovations, but it turns out that
we've been doing it all wrong regardless. And what I'm
(29:59):
talking about here is popping a squad, which is the
most natural thing in the world because we did not
evolve to set on little chairs with holes in them.
It's very victorian if you think about it, right, I'm
conscious sit here and pretend like I'm not going to
the bathroom. Um, but yeah, you're right. The popping a
squad is really what we are supposed to be and
(30:20):
what we're engineered to do. And there's a great article
on sleep dot com by Daniel Lamenti called don't just
sit there, and he actually goes into this the reasons
why it points out that the modern chair based flushing
toill and it really dates that dates back to the
late fifteen hundreds and and back before that. You just
(30:42):
have generations upon generations of people, as you say, popping
a squat. Uh and to this day, I mean most
you definitely have that. If anyone has ever traveled to
the into the East, if you've if you've got to
you know, Thailand, um, and throughout Europe. Throughout Europe, you'll
encounter these the squad toilets, which are well describe out
(31:02):
and describe one for us the hole in the ground, Yeah,
what's some porcelain added? Well, there's a tile work usually,
but yeah, I mean it's pretty amazing. I mean it
makes you realize that there are eight year olds that
are using all their muscles in their thighs to to
do this act and who are probably a lot more
stronger than than some of us, um, some of us
(31:24):
thirtysome things in America here and there are a number
of arguments too that this is the again, we evolved
a squat and used the rest him. We didn't evolve
to set on a chair and do it. So so
there are all these arguments for for different different ways
that squatting is is a healthier option, right, Like hemorrhoids
is a really good example. This is a very modern thing, hemorrhoids,
(31:45):
because if you're squatting, you're not straining as much. Straining
is one of the key uh causes of hemorrhoids. You'll see. Also,
people will get into whole arguments about the removal of impurities,
about you know, even tying it in with cancer, and
some of those claims are are are less explored. But
but there's and and then there's also the idea that
that when our thighs press against our our gut, that's
(32:09):
also aiding an excretion. And I believe they did some
some timing and this one uh one bit of research
that Lametti sites here, which which found that it's like
if you're if you're squatting, you can go in about
like fifty seconds, yeah and uh seconds something like that.
But if you're using a traditional Western toilet, then it's
going to be like twice that, right, And it makes
(32:32):
sense too. I mean, I was actually thinking about the
yoga pose Happy Baby, which stimulates your digestion and it's
the same thing, right, and you're just doing it on
your back. I always fall over on my side when
I do happy Baby, Yeah, and it makes my spine
feel weird. I don't know. It's an odd post. You're
happy babies, crazy baby, I think, but it points back
to this whole fact that the matter is is that
(32:53):
we do have against certain engineering that helps us with us.
Um So, I don't know, what do you do? Do
you retrofit your toilet? It's very possible. You can actually
put a platform on your toilet, but this is called
the East West toilet. Um. Well, no, this is the
There are a number of different devices out there. There's
one that basically looks like a little ladder that you
(33:15):
you kind of clamp on and it gives you like
kind of a squat plate on top of the traditional toilet.
But then there are are also more expensive models that
are kind of an s east meets West toilet, which
can be sat upon but can also be squatted upon.
So you're really you're yeah, but you're asking the person
who's squatting on it to like squat on an elevation.
So it looks kind of it still is kind of tricky.
(33:35):
I'd feel a little um, you know, put out if
I was having to squat up there on top of
so I was going to say, it's not something i'd
won after three beers. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's um and
it's it's also worth noting when we're looking back the
history of toilets uh. People often look at the Roman toilets,
which we still see remains of, and they look like
thrown style toilets uh. And it's apparently unclear whether or
(33:58):
not they sat on these. That's one of the traditional idea.
It's possible they squatted on them, but but they were
basically elevated, they think, because you have like a latrine
of raw suwage down there, and they just that makes
sense yea, and be elevated above that the chamber pot two. Right,
we said that that would evolve into something that became
something you sat on, the squatted over. So there you go.
(34:23):
That's that's the scoop on the Pooh and the toilets
and innovations. It's a lot to think about. Yeah, there's um,
if nothing else. Yeah, hopefully we've we've just stirred up
some conversation about this, about this this idea and U
and what is the toilet, how we've we've gotten to
the point that we've we've arrived at with it, and
(34:43):
where do we go within the future, How can we
improve on it? How can we fix the errors that
we've made, order the possible errors that we've made, and
come out on the other side with something that's sustainable, healthy, etcetera.
That's right, Well, let's bring up mail on. Yeah, I
have one quickiemel since we went a little long on
this um mostly because it was funny, I think, um.
(35:07):
But reader by the name of Richard writes in. Richard says, hey, guys,
just sending a message to say I love the podcast
and keep them coming. I also have one small correction
for you. I can't remember exactly which podcasts. I think
it may have been lying robots in the lives they tell. Anyway,
I believe Robert said that to Devon was a town
in the UK. Uh. It's not a town, it's a
(35:27):
It's a county, which is similar to your states, except
not as big. I'm not sure if this has been
corrected or not, as I'm a bit behind in your
podcast and I'm trying to get up to speed to
keep up the good work. Richard P. S. I'm from
Surrey in the UK, which is which is another county. Um, yes,
I believe I wrongfully um identified the spot. But basically
(35:48):
I think what I've meant to say was it was Marlow,
because I look this up it's the town of Marlow.
I don't know how I got Devin and Marlow confusedly. Yeah,
Marlow is a little town on the Thames that's really
gorgeous and has this one or old church in the
cemetery right down there by the water. So so yes, Marlow,
not Devon. Cool there we go. So hey, if you
(36:08):
want to discuss anything with us, if you want to
share links to cool toilet innovations that you've discovered, come
to our Facebook page and do just that. We are
Blow the Mind on Facebook and you also find us
on Twitter as Blow the Mind, and we update both
those feet pretty regularly and uh, you know, populate them
with all sorts of cool links and comments. And you
(36:31):
can also email us any sort of toilet shenanigans you've
run into with your own toilet innovations at Below the
Mind at how stuff works dot com. Be sure to
check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future
join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most
promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.
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