Brief History Of Public Toilets

Mohenjo-daro, developed in the 26th century BCE, stood as one of history's oldest and largest major urban settlements. People there used an advanced method for public waste disposal. During the third millennium, residents built 'Western-style' toilets from bricks and wood onto building walls. This allowed people to drop waste there.

Mohenjo-Daro vanished until 1920. A dig rediscovered it. Sir Mortimer Wheeler, the archaeology director general in India from 1944 to 1948, wrote after the find:The high quality of the sanitation systems shows up in many parts of the world today."

People know what a chamber pot is. Chamber pots existed in ancient Greece from the 6th century BC. They had several names. Essentially, they were personal clay pottery. Clay made them cheap and waterproof. You could carry them for a long trip or a quiet night. You could dispose of waste fast and easily.

People think they know how Middle Ages bathroom use worked. They used wrong words. People were always gross. If you had a bathroom near your home, perhaps in your backyard, you hada hole that emptied into a cesspit.This hole was called a "gong."

Gongs became popular. A worker class called "gongmongers" emptied these gongs. These men likely smelled terrible by day's end. Did people like these men? Or did the gongmongers die out, smelly and alone? This was not a pleasant job.

Around the 13th century, people realized squatting over a hole or ceramic pot was a nightmare for Middle Ages germaphobes. Scientists began experimenting with chair-based portable bathrooms.

Because people moved often or lacked space for a dedicated room, they invented the close stool.The close stool.The close stool was a chair or box, depending on the model. It held a chamber pot inside to collect waste. People used the close stool until flushable commodes arrived many years later.

Someone who named the Thunderbox deserves an award for on-the-nose advertising. The Thunderbox updated the close stool, a chamber pot under a stool. Instead of a chair, you carried this smaller wooden box to move it around and drop a 19th-century bowel movement.The Thunderbox originated in India.British military men brought the box to India, where locals made it a hot item.

People began flushing waste into the mysterious tube system that might infect groundwater. This happened because Sir John Harrington, Queen Elizabeth I's godson, was banished for being sassy and needed something to fill his time.

During his exile from 1584 to 1591, Harrington built a house and created the first flushing lavatory system, which he named "Ajax." Ajax featured a pan you sat on, and you emptied your bowels through the bottom opening. You then used a system of handles, levers, and weights to flush the toilet.Handles, levers, and weights.These components flushed the toilet.

The Bourdaloue has the fanciest sounding name among all disgusting lavatory systems, pots, and boxes. It is not a Thunderbox, but it sounds like an ABBA song, which is what you want for a portable toilet. Bourdaloues were oblong, rectangular, or oval portable toilets for women to use in churches without bathrooms.

People only had to slip the device under their dresses.The skirts were held out by panniers, and people let loose.The device got its name from Louis Bourdaloue, a very popular priest and speaker known for long sermons. Thus, the device was named after the droning cleric.

The 20th century saw portable toilets grow larger. They did not become more hygienic. The Elsan Chemical Closet is just a trash-can-sized box. People used it to relieve themselves, hoping the chemicals used by the Elsan company would clean up whatever was left behind.

The Elsan Chemical Closet looks unlike a closet. These items were used in World War II and later sold in Army surplus stores in the US. Users opened the lid of the ECC, squatted on top, and let loose. Then they carried it to the next campsite. It was not romantic, but it was the best option available.

The outhouse is more American than anything else. They are like apple pie and episodes of A Prairie Home Companion.A Prairie Home CompanionOne wooden outdoor toilet rolled into a single unit. For most people in rural areas, their only bathroom was a small shack at the back of their house. They likely lacked a septic tank for waste disposal, so they had to clean up after themselves. That was life.

Teresa Minard, an Iowa outhouse enthusiast, stated, "If you lived in rural Iowa or rural anywhere else,"That was the only way of life."

The world was a nightmare. For African Americans, the early 20th century became a long stress dream. They faced uncertainty about which place offered decent restroom facilities. Many African Americans driving through the South decided bringing their own toilets would be easier.People brought their own toilets.They carried them in their cars' trunks, avoiding the risk of bad things if they stopped. These were updated Thunderboxes. Some drivers chose buckets instead.

If you lived in Australia or New Zealand in the early 20th century and needed a restroom in a suburb, you likely used a dunny can. These structures looked like outhouses.They sat over a large caninstead of a cesspit.

Dunnymen collected and cleaned full cans. George Seddon said, "The typical Australian backyard had a dunny against the back fence, so the pan could be collected from the dunny lane through a trap-door."

US military men grew tired of the Elsan Chemical Closets during World War II. A new portable toilet arrived: Johnny On The Spot. These blue plastic porta potties in the image are what you know, but much, much worse. The men needing a bathroom far outnumber the toilets available during the war.

John C. McManus reported that Camp Pennsylvania, one of the largest wartime camps, had only seven portable toilets.These were for its 700 soldiers.Later, they had 20 toilets (still not good). Specialist John Beck from Johnny's on the Spot said, "The sh*tters always filled up... to overflow, and the people who cleaned them were always late. So sometimes I had to walk a mile to someone else's porta potty. That was the worst part for me."

Even now, using a portable bathroom makes people feel grossed out. Susan Perry Hinton, a pharmacy professor at Xavier University in New Orleans, made a portable toilet seat so people could use any bathroom while traveling.

She remembered the inspiration: "We were traveling and had to go to a family reunion in Chicago; all the public bathrooms were awful. The idea just struck me." Hinton, strange phrasing, but fine. The seat has settings that let it hover about an inch above a real toilet seat. If you cannot use a seat on a real toilet, you have the option toattach a plastic bag to the bottom.

Music festivals are disgusting. Ticket prices are not the only problem. Porta potties at music festivals likely cause at least two new strains of a virus that could kill everyone.

How do you give people clean, safe bathrooms without spending too much? In 2015, Coachella stopped using those awful blue closets.They built temporary buildings.These buildings hold over 300 stalls and sinks. Managing the flood of festival attendees wearing Native American headdresses is difficult.

"All this info on old portable toilets is interesting. But how will we use public bathrooms in the future?" said You.

You asked that question. That is fortunate becauseEcoSan works on that right now.This portable toilet needs no water. It does not empty into pits. This makes it perfect for places with little water or high groundwater contamination risk.Groundwater contamination is a high risk.Basically, the toilet recycles nutrients from waste. It uses this for agricultural resources. This remains gross, even if it helps the crops.