Great piece Stephen. Pulling together historical and comparing to contemporary practice is both sobering and elucidating. Our toilet habits have a certain inertia that is difficult to disrupt. The 9.5bn market for TP is eye opening on one level, but not surprising on another given the number of consumers. I think the sanitation industrial complex will not be sponsors of this post 😜

I’M also reminded of the excellent documentary on Netflix which details Bill Gates’ quest to redesign the common toilet for fast deployment in the developing world without the requirement of costly sewer infrastructure. We take our daily flushing routine for granted and the massive public health benefit of a public sewage system