Toilet design is still stuck in Elizabethan times — we can flush with success using just one or two litres

Despite the importance of sanitary toilets, nearly half of the global population lacks access to hygienic sanitation facilities and around 700 children under the age of five die daily from diarrhoea linked to unsafe water, sanitation and poor hygiene. The UN’s World Toilet Day on 19 November serves as a reminder to the global community to prioritise sanitation and to break the stigma associated with using the toilet.

The world uses two types of toilets; a flush toilet which uses water, and a dry toilet which uses no water. Toilets can come with a toilet seat or one that requires squatting, which is more common in Asia. The flush toilet tends to be the “gold standard” to which most users aspire. Users like the convenience of “flushing-and-forgetting” and the ability to wash the toilet bowl.

In urban city centres, these flush toilets need to be connected to sewers and a type of system that cannot be provided throughout South Africa. Laying sewers is a time-consuming, expensive and challenging task in unplanned housing settlements. Crucially, water availability and energy supply are key requirements for the functionality of the system. Developing countries often struggle with implementing this approach due to the cost for both the government and citizens.

While recognising that most people aspire to water-flushing toilets, do we really need to use nine to 12 litres of clean, drinkable water to flush our faeces and urine away? South Africa is a water‑stressed country with our water demand expected to exceed supply in around 10 years. Periodic droughts throughout the country have shown us the importance of water availability and limiting our water usage to prevent Day Zero scenarios. How would people flush their toilets when there are severe droughts and water becomes scarce?

This is why innovation is important; it brings about efficiencies.

The basic design of the flush toilet has not changed significantly over 200 years and is in desperate need of innovation to match our current realities. The modern-day flush toilet evolved from the UK and Europe with engineering principles then spreading to other continents.

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-10-04-why-flushing-scarce-water-into-the-sea-the-worlds-biggest-toilet-bowl-makes-no-sense/

Near the end of the 1500s, Sir John Harrington designed a flush toilet for his godmother, Queen Elizabeth I, that used a tank to flush a toilet bowl in what is considered to be the forerunner of the modern flush toilet. In the late 1700s, Alexander Cumming developed the S-shaped pipe which uses standing water to create a water seal — the water you view in the bowl when you pick up the lid — that prevents odours coming into the home from pipes. This design is still in use in modern flush toilets.

Cholera outbreaks and river pollution in the UK and Europe in the 1800s catalysed governments to sewer their cities and remove human faecal waste away from highly urbanised areas for subsequent treatment. Developing countries have followed these engineering principles but have yet to have the same success due to differences in population size and rates of urbanisation and differing climatic conditions and economic profiles.