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Airports Had to Deal With Over 2B Litres of Airplane Toilet Waste in 2019

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Re: Airports Had to Deal With Over 2B Litres of Airplane Toilet Waste in 2019

#21

Solution: Pay toilets in the coach cabin.

Problem: cleaning up water bottles full of pee after deboarding. Worse problem: cleaning up un-capped, tipped-over bottles that are no longer full of pee after deboarding.

"Come on, give me that booze, you little pumpkin pie, hair-cutted freak, come on!"

"Tic-tac, sir?"

Re: Airports Had to Deal With Over 2B Litres of Airplane Toilet Waste in 2019

#22

Solution: Pay toilets in the coach cabin.

That has the downside that a penny-pinching passenger might attempt to "hold it in" and then, shocked by a turbulence, involuntarily ejecting what was "held back"... leading to the plane needing an extra cleaning or being taken out of service. There's a reason why even Ryanair, otherwise the leader in borderline unethical airline behavior, quietly buried their 2010 attempt to introduce a loo charge [1]. [1]: https://…

Another reason could be due to smokers. There's a reason toilets on airplanes still legally need to have an ashtray - there's still people who are willing to break the rules to have a fix so it's safer to at least provide somewhere safe to put a cigarette out.

Charging for the toilet could just encourage those same people to light-up in the main cabin.

Re: Airports Had to Deal With Over 2B Litres of Airplane Toilet Waste in 2019

#23
post #6
post #3

The total capacity is 1135 litres, how much safety margin does the tank have build in and how would an almost full tank affect flight behavior?

First of all, all that pee is on the plane when it lifts off, in one form or another. The only thing that changes is distribution of mass (depending on where the tank is and where they keep bottles with drinks). A tonne of pee gathered from all over the plane is most likely less effect than 3-4 people moving from one end to another end of the plane. So a stewardess with help and a cart. Second, pilots can trim the pl…

> The only thing that changes is distribution of mass (depending on where the tank is and where they keep bottles with drinks). A tonne of pee gathered from all over the plane is most likely less effect than 3-4 people moving from one end to another end of the plane. So a stewardess with help and a cart.

My informal search [1, 2] seems to indicate that every galley seems to have WC close by, though not vice-versa. Would never have thought to attribute that to an engineering decision before this discussion!

[1] https://theflight.info/seat-map-boeing-737-800-united-airlin... [2] https://theflight.info/seat-map-airbus-a320-200-united-airli...

PS: Also amazing that thanks to COVID, I actually had to look up images of airplane layouts!

Re: Airports Had to Deal With Over 2B Litres of Airplane Toilet Waste in 2019

#24
post #4

I wonder if it has enough liquid to cause a tank overflow. Let's say just dump drinking water into the tank...

It seems very likely to me that they carry more than 1L of fluid per passenger, plus there's also the crew. So yes, they could :) Of course, if they dump all their drinking water, it'll be hard to reach the maximum pee capacity per passenger. But you could always resort to dumping food.

Each one of us carries about 5L of fluid... it's just kind of mission-critical.

Re: Airports Had to Deal With Over 2B Litres of Airplane Toilet Waste in 2019

#25
I haven't had to take a dump on an airplane in years.

My rule is to eat and drink as little as possible before a flight, ideally not eating at all. If I do eat, hopefully it's high protein and low in fiber. As a result I usually don't need to use the lavatory, which is nice because it has made me much less apprehensive about getting a window seat.

I wish more people had this mindset. On so many flights I've had, seemingly half the plane is ready to take a shit. My only explanation is that they're overnourished on the Standard American Diet. Imagine how much less waste would have to be pumped out of airplanes.

Re: Airports Had to Deal With Over 2B Litres of Airplane Toilet Waste in 2019

#26

I haven't had to take a dump on an airplane in years. My rule is to eat and drink as little as possible before a flight, ideally not eating at all. If I do eat, hopefully it's high protein and low in fiber. As a result I usually don't need to use the lavatory, which is nice because it has made me much less apprehensive about getting a window seat. I wish more people had this mindset. On so many flights I've had, seem…

Never took a dump on a plane, but I hate airports, and usually find myself at the bar before boarding which more than often has led to a painful urge to pee at the worst times.

Re: Airports Had to Deal With Over 2B Litres of Airplane Toilet Waste in 2019

#27

That is just 2B. A simple STP plant can handle this. Not every billion is a big number. Edit : Writer of the article also thinks that.

Yup. liters makes it sound like a big number, but using the author's example:

>> The world’s busiest airport by passenger volume, Guangzhou, could have handled 5.14 million litres of pee in April 2021.

That converts to about 43k 55-gallon barrels per year, or about 118 barrels per day. An insustry standard oil tanker truck is about 210 barrels, range 50-300 [0]. So, all in all, pretty manageable.

[0] https://www.reference.com/business-finance/capacity-tanker-t...

Re: Airports Had to Deal With Over 2B Litres of Airplane Toilet Waste in 2019

#28

I haven't had to take a dump on an airplane in years. My rule is to eat and drink as little as possible before a flight, ideally not eating at all. If I do eat, hopefully it's high protein and low in fiber. As a result I usually don't need to use the lavatory, which is nice because it has made me much less apprehensive about getting a window seat. I wish more people had this mindset. On so many flights I've had, seem…

OK that first sentence was the line I have least expected to start a Hacker News comment ever. Also you are correct on all counts. I developed these same techniques to avoid peeing during the opera but they ported well to air travel.

Re: Airports Had to Deal With Over 2B Litres of Airplane Toilet Waste in 2019

#29
post #24
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems very likely to me that they carry more than 1L of fluid per passenger, plus there's also the crew. So yes, they could :) Of course, if they dump all their drinking water, it'll be hard to reach the maximum pee capacity per passenger. But you could always resort to dumping food.

Each one of us carries about 5L of fluid... it's just kind of mission-critical.

Well, if we go down that route, you could just as well dump a few passengers down there. But I guess that wasn't the spirit of the above question :)

Allthough the motivation for overfilling a plane waste tank seems dubious overall, so who am I to judge.

Re: Airports Had to Deal With Over 2B Litres of Airplane Toilet Waste in 2019

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has the downside that a penny-pinching passenger might attempt to "hold it in" and then, shocked by a turbulence, involuntarily ejecting what was "held back"... leading to the plane needing an extra cleaning or being taken out of service. There's a reason why even Ryanair, otherwise the leader in borderline unethical airline behavior, quietly buried their 2010 attempt to introduce a loo charge [1]. [1]: https://…

Another reason could be due to smokers. There's a reason toilets on airplanes still legally need to have an ashtray - there's still people who are willing to break the rules to have a fix so it's safer to at least provide somewhere safe to put a cigarette out. Charging for the toilet could just encourage those same people to light-up in the main cabin.

Surely the premise for "smoking in the toilet" is the possibility of not getting caught (hence dedicated detectors in most airplane toilets).

Smoking in the main cabin would make them much more easier to identify, stop, and convict, no?

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