Plumbing for Posterity

Americans, Dave Praeger says, fall easily into one of two categories — the shameful and the shameless — at least when it comes to pooping.

Dave Praeger, hanging out at Brooklyn’s Commonwealth bar, has parlayed the popularity of his website, PoopReport.com, into “Poop Culture,” a book due in April. Photo by Neftali Velez

The shameless feel emboldened to go whenever and wherever the urge strikes while the shameful will travel miles or hours out of the way for a little privacy. Annoying, yes, but the shameful group’s disdain for bodily functions actually paved the way for the toilet’s eventual creation. “Most people think the toilet was created for sanitary reasons,” says Praeger, creator of PoopReport.com and author of “Poop Culture: How America is Shaped by its Grossest National Product,” an anthropological look at poop in American culture, due in April. “They’re wrong. It was actually created to soothe the ideological complex that poop does not exist.”

Praeger notes that the first civilizations grew along rivers, which provided a convenient place for relief. That system worked well until populations increased and those living downriver began objecting to their upstream neighbors’ habits.

A toilet timeline
for the ages.

3000 B.C.:
Archaeologists say the earliest evidence of plumbing dates to this period in the Indus Valley, now part of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Northwestern India.

1596:
Sir John Harington, godson of Queen Elizabeth I, gets credit by many for inventing the first flush toilet with working parts.

Early 1700s:
French furniture makers invent the bidet — French for “pony” — a low-mounted plumbing fixture intended for washing one’s private areas.

1739:
Separate male and female bathrooms debut at an upscale party in Paris.

1857:
Joseph C. Gayetty manufactures the first packaged premoistened sheets of bathroom tissue — called “therapeutic paper” — in packs of 500.

1875:
William Campbell and James T. Henry receive the first American patent for a toilet they call the “plunger closet.”

1879:
The Scott Paper Company of Philadelphia is the first to introduce toilet paper on a roll.

1977:
On Aug. 16, Elvis Presley reportedly dies on the toilet after suffering a heart attack while reading “The Scientific Search for the Face of Jesus” by Frank Adams.

1986:
The North River wastewater plant opens in New York City, finally stopping the flow of raw sewage into the Hudson River.

1991:
Congress makes it illegal to dump sludge — the solids that remain after sewage is run through a wastewater treatment plant — at sea.

1992:
The U.S. Department of Energy announces that all toilets built for home use must use 1.6 gallons per flush (formerly 3.5 gpf) or less by 1994.

2015:
As part of its Millenium Project, the United Nations pledges to cut the number of people without access to sanitary toilets in half — currently, 42 percent of the world’s population.

The earliest evidence of plumbing that archaeologists have found dates to 3000 B.C. and the Indus Valley, which today comprises parts of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Northwestern India. According to Jim Olsztynski, plumbing historian and editorial director of Plumbing & Mechanical magazine, the Indus Valley people had rooms with stone seats set over running streams to carry away their waste. Dr. Stephen Jay, public health chair at the Indiana University School of Medicine, says hygiene generally grew worse with the rise of cities. “The increase in population between the years 500 to 1500 created immense problems in urban areas,” he says. “People were defecating in fields and roadways and dumping waste from their windows.”

The Roman Empire laid claim to being the best plumbers until modern times — even common citizens had access to running water and designated places to relieve themselves, Olsztynski says. “They made a commitment to share their technological developments with the masses, not just limit them to the well-to-do.”

The “Ajax,” the earliest known flush toilet to use moving parts to clear waste and refill water, dates to the 16th century and Sir John Harington, godson of Queen Elizabeth I. “Legend has it that it was a [Rube] Goldberg device that made a lot of noise, and the queen was afraid of it,” Olsztynski says.

Although England’s neighbor France is famous for the bidet, thought to be invented by furniture makers in the early 1700s, the low-riding structure that literally means “pony” never translated well to American culture. The word “toilet,” however, did. It actually comes from the French “toilette” — a room dedicated to primping. Americans later applied the word to the fixture instead of the room.

The toilet underwent several modifications. In 1775, English watchmaker Alexander Cummings improved Harington’s failed design by adding a sliding valve that emptied the bowl into a cistern and then refilled it with water. Joseph Bramah simplified it further a few years later by converting the sliding valve to a hinge flap.

By the mid-19th century, the wealthy in Victorian England had made the toilet a status symbol as capitalism spread to the masses. “Cleanliness was next to godliness and because finer clothing, perfumes and makeup were already making inroads to the lower class, the rich figured hygiene was the best way to maintain the divide between wealthy and poor,” Praeger says.

In those days, the working class used cesspools — a pit in the ground — and a privy (the structure built over it). When the cesspool got full, they’d either dig it out or cover it and move on. “Human beings go an average of a half-pound per day, and in highly dense populations, that can become a problem really quick,” Praeger says.

At the same time, the rich were dedicating private indoor rooms to relieving themselves and filling chamber pots with water to diminish the smell. Up to that point, however, their servants came in after them to dispose of the waste. In order to achieve complete discretion, the middleman had to go. By the late 1800s, more than 6,000 toilets — or “water closets” — had been installed in homes of the English elite.

The British inventions spurred activity in America, where toilets had debuted around 1850. “The plumbing in the middle of the 19th century is really interesting because it says a lot about what Americans were thinking at the time,” says Maureen Ogle, historian and author of “All the Modern Conveniences: American Household Plumbing 1840 – 1890.”

The first toilets were metal, not porcelain, and consisted of a bunch of flaps and handles. “Early flush toilets were really pretty hilarious — they looked like some concoction a kid built with an Erector set,” Ogle says. “When you flush a toilet today, you turn a handle and water does all the work.”

In the mid-1800s, plumbing began to move indoors, although it wasn’t easy convincing Americans to move their outhouses inside, too. “People kept them outside because they’re gross and they stink,” Praeger says. “Imagine someone all of a sudden says, ‘Let’s put it inside, right off your bedroom.’ There was a lot of resistance to that idea.”

Although sanitation wasn’t an original concern, several cholera outbreaks beginning in the 1830s — which killed tens of thousands of people in the United States and Europe — became a major impetus for getting efficient flush toilets in every household, rich or poor. Scientists and health professionals in England and the United States discovered occurrences of the disease were concentrated around public water pumps, and the race to install private flush toilets and plumbing that supplied uncontaminated water was on.

Americans were ready for such innovations. “By 1920, more than 80 percent of homes in the U.S. contained sleek, sanitary plumbing fixtures that functioned efficiently and were built to last a lifetime,” Ogle says. “A toilet is a beautifully simple device; they’re kind of cool when you think about it,” she adds. “In 120 years, no one has come up with a better idea, which is pretty remarkable.”

Bathrooms have since evolved even further, becoming lavish retreats in many of today’s homes. Manufacturers are taking advantage, introducing toilets that offer everything from heated seats and self-cleaning to accessories like an iPod-ready toilet paper roll. “You’re going to see the marriage of technology with traditional plumbing more often,” says Ed Del Grande, a master plumber of 30 years and Kohler’s how-to spokesperson.

TOTO’s Washlet Personal Cleansing System, which retails for $1,200, provides a front- and back-aerated warm water spray, a massage setting, heated seat, an automatic air deodorizer and a warm-air dryer, all from a battery-powered wireless remote control or wall-mounted keypad. The Washlet records usage frequency and goes into energy-saving mode during downtime — like overnight.

Kohler’s most impressive model, the Hat Box toilet ($2,900), has no tank and flushes via a silent electric pump. “It looks like space-age furniture, not a toilet,” Del Grande says. “We call it the fashion toilet.”

Toilets that monitor one’s health indicators such as pulse and glucose levels are also a trend in the making, says Barb Higgens, executive director of the Plumbing Manufacturers Institute, a plumbing manufacturers’ trade group. “With innovation comes a price tag, and consumers will make or break them,” she says. “It’s amazing what they’ve done, but the question is: Will it be adopted by the mainstream? We just don’t know.”

Technology is changing the plumbing industry, but the biggest industry buzz is water conservation. Americans flush 32 billion gallons of drinking water down their toilets every day. Water isn’t a limitless resource — 1 percent of Earth’s water is potable, and 6 billion people are competing for it. “In the future, conflicts will be about water, not oil,” Jay says. “We already have major conflicts over water, and they are escalating as the population grows, aquifers dwindle and the demand for public and industrial water increases.”

Anticipating this, Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 1992, which required all new toilets produced for home use to use 1.6 gallons per flush or less, down from 3.5 gpf, within two years. To meet the deadline, some manufacturers simply reduced bowl size, resulting in ineffective, multiple flushes. Others turned to engineering — wider flush valves and larger, computer-designed trapways. “Since 1992, there have been dramatic improvements in low-flow toilets, and they work incredibly [well],” Higgens says.

In expectation of a tougher, 1.4 gpf mandate, manufacturers have challenged their engineers to design toilets that use even less water. Dualflush toilets that allow users to toggle between bulk (1.6 gpf) and liquid (.8 gpf) waste are already available. “Urine is 98 percent water, and you don’t need a lot of water to remove water,” says Danny Gleiberman, vice president of government affairs for plumbing manufacturer Falcon WaterFree Technologies. “Water has never gone down in price, and it never will go down in price. As the cost continues to go up, there will be more desire to conserve.”

Terry Love, owner of Love Plumbing & Remodel in Bothell, Wash., owns a dual-flush toilet and says cost savings were a big factor in his purchase decision. “[The flush] seems to take everything down, and you hardly notice the tank refilling,” he says. “The water bill is nice to look at, too.”

Unfortunately, 45 percent of American households still use highvolume toilets, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. “Switching from a high-volume to a low-flow toilet will save 3,000 to 6,000 gallons of water per year per toilet,” says Del Grande. “That’s only one house. Picture if you get 60 houses in a neighborhood or an entire city — it’s staggering.”

Jay acknowledges the difficulty of getting people to change their daily habits and says it’s going to take inconvenient and financially burdensome water shortages to convince them. “It’s also going to take education about the scarcity of water resources and leadership, which is absolutely critical,” he says.

Even more problematic than lack of water is lack of access to sanitary facilities in developing countries. According to the United Nations, 42 percent of the world’s population — especially in Africa and Asia — live without hygienic toilets. Jack Sim founded the World Toilet Organization in Singapore in 2001 to bring a global voice to the problem. “We need to break the taboo and give legitimacy to toilets and sanitation as a mainstream discussion subject,” says Sim, whose organization will host the World Toilet Expo Nov. 16 to 18 in Bangkok, Thailand. “We need to build capacity for people to help themselves to own and use toilets.”

Praeger says the situation in developing countries demonstrates that any society is better off with flush toilets and sewage treatment, flawed as they may be, than with no modern sanitary management at all. “There’s absolutely no doubt that the flush toilet and sewage structure have saved millions of lives,” he says. “Now we need to find a way to make them better without sacrificing the benefits.”