A few years ago, readers of the American magazine Focus voted for the greatest invention in history (some of the content of this article was written in 2003 by Rose George, and orginally appeared in the Guardian).  They chose not the wheel, or the steam engine, or the telephone, or penicillin, or even the electric light bulb, which lit the dark night, but rather the humble toilet. The flush toilet, according to Harvard geneticist Gary Ruvkun, has been "the single significant factor that has increased the human life span" ( in the Guardian in 2003 ie http://www.guardian.co.uk

Imagine, the "single significant factor that has increased the human life span." So why are numberless millions of people in the developing world pooping by rail tracks, in alleyways, and in fields before dawn and after dusk? The reason is simple, there is no sewer system into which they could flush a toilet. Only in industrialized societies are there sewer systems into which people flush their poop, etc. So throughout the world in 2007, numberless millions get diarrhea from the lack of sanitation in their living spaces.

The toilet in all of its historical incarnations is about 4500 years old. Unlike all other body functions, pooping and peeing are now and have always been considered the lowest, the most vile, the most degrading, the most vulgar and putrid aspects of being human. Dealing with their poop has ALWAYS been a big problem for humans. As a result there isn't a single scholarly document about the toilet habits of our predecessors. One reason speculated by some historians is that our sex organs are too near and even directly involved with our organs from which we poop and pee. Augustine, the famous Catholic theologian and scholar, wrote of his disgust with this design when he said "inter faeces et urinam nascimur" - we're all born between poop and pee.

So a vast number of neurosis surrounding the act and necessity of pooping and peeing comes down to us - and continues to plague us. Those who dared to write about man's historical toilet habits were deemed either vulgar or erotic or perverse and were despised in academic, social, and theological circles (probably still are). However, the need to relief ourselves of our body waste is irrepressible, and so were some writers over time who decided that they would leave us at least a trace (forgive the pun) in regard to our historical toilet habits.

One fact emerges that seems important to us at Ultralight Toilet and to our entire marketing campaign: "'civilization' and sanitation have risen together." The more developed the society, the more sanitation; the less developed, the less sanitation. And that holds true today. The health of a society was and is now based on how it deals with human body wastes. The refugee camp is a heath-hazard because of the difficulties of dealing with human poop and pee.

Still, the most primitive adult peoples have always pooped away from where they live and eat. But that was never the case with their children. Children just go when they need to go. So it's mostly the poop of children that causes the most difficulty for those trying to create sanitary conditions.

"Civilization" Produces Toilet Phobias

The more a person is "civilized," the more difficulty they have eliminating their body wastes where there are NO toilet facilities. India's one-billion people produce a billion liters of pee and some 140 million kilograms of poop - EACH DAY. Their sanitation problems are immense. They have no system whatsoever of dealing with such a mountain of daily human body waste. India is therefore ALWAYS engaged in or on the verge of an epidemic. Between 600 million and 900 million people in India practice open defecation. They simply squat and poop.

Sewers are available to no more than 30 percent of people in URBAN areas, with only 3 percent of rural people having access to a flush toilet. Lack of "excremental hygiene" - according to the United Nations - is a national health hazard not only in India, but in China and Indonesia and the Philippines and at least 45 other countries.

Chamber Pots and Servants

Man used what he called a "chamber pot" to poop and pee in for centuries (still does in many countries). If he was a nobleman his servant cleaned out the pot. There were many toilet "inventions" contributed throughout the last 2,000 years. One was a toilet that would simply protrude out of the top floor of the house or castle, conveniently located over a passing river below. Sometimes castles were built over a stream with the specific purpose of carrying away the human poop of the castle occupants. There were "toilet chairs" used by many rich people, while the poor simply pooped alongside the road, in the jungle, or straight into a creek or river, which is still a common practice throughout the Third World. By now it's clear that human beings lived in unsanitary conditions for thousands of years. Numberless millions died - including kings and queens and the very rich - because of their ignorance of the potential diseases carried by their own poop.

Yet we can go back some 4500 years and find sitting type toilets. These toilets were found in various archeological digs in the ancient Indus Valley. In a place called Lothal, in western India, people had water borne toilets in their homes. They had a sewer system that used drains covered with burnt clay bricks. To maintain their sewer system - they even had manhole covers for a worker to climb through and repair any damage or clogging. They even had overflow chambers. Archeologists were floored by the discovery. What happened to this kind of thinking? This kind of planning? This kind of health consciousness? We'll never know. Simply put, the whole concept of sanitary engineering originated in India and then disappeared for several thousand years.

What we find interesting from the standpoint of design is that the toilet as we know it today is very much like the sitting toilet of 4100 years ago in Egypt. We also have learned much from the public toilets in ancient Rome. There were holes in the floor and flowing water beneath, much like we see in today's "modern" European cities. The phrase "crude, but effective" is on the lips of most European politicians.

But Do Creeks and Rivers Carry Away ALL Our Poop?

People still eliminate in creeks and rivers - thinking that these water bearers will carry their poop away from their homes. This is only partially true. Much of the poop and rafts of toilet paper, tampons, etc., sinks to the bottom and accumulates. Many people in the world bath and poop and even drink from the same creeks and rivers. Disease is often rampant because of these historic ignorances.

Unsanitary Conditions Produce Exponential Problem

Populations grow exponentially. Rather than 2-4-6-8-10 etc., populations grow 2-4-8-16-32-64, etc. The problems of 2 suddenly become the problems of 32. Eventually the problems explode, just as they're now doing in wilderness/backcountry. This is happening all over the world. The UN says it's only a matter of time and there will be a disease pandemic of mega proportions in some of these countries. Hundreds of thousands could die each day as occurred during the Spanish Flu of early post World War One. Why do they predict this? Not only do populations of people grow exponentially, but so do bacteria and viruses. What few people know is that microorganisms use human poop (and other human waste) as a food source. This is why all along the coastlines where inland rivers unload into the sea, sea life is being devastated. The greater the food source the greater the growth of disease-bearing bacteria. You see, each infected person can infect a multitude - without even knowing what they're doing.

Public Toilets and People

In 1857 Joe Cayetty invented toilet paper - pretty much as we know it today. Public toilets have been provided by governments during the last three hundred years. But there was all around disgust (still is) with their poor maintenance and lack of basics - such as toilet paper. Somehow people continue to use vast amounts of toilet paper. When the so-called public toilets are unbearable, people poop outside on the ground (just like they do in the wild places). Their reasoning is that when you have to go, you have to go. In 1872, France asked several private companies to manage their public toilet system. Again, it wasn't successful. Toilets must be maintained DAILY, or you have problems. In 1970, people in some small villages in India were introduced to pay-to-use toilets. The people just laughed at them.

Yet today, some 10 million people use pay-to-use toilets in India. It's a very successful business and the toilets (for the most part) are surprisingly bearable and reasonably maintained. These kinds of toilets are being constructed in the slums, in the villages, and in the cities. So perhaps over time...

Legal Measures

Governments everywhere have resorted to legal measures in an attempt to produce better sanitation in their countries. This started in about 1539 in France. The so-called "water closet" was invented by John Harrington in 1596. Yet almost nothing happened for the next 182 years. Why? There is almost always a delay in adapting to any invention. But anything having to do with the toilet, well, it can take centuries. Alvin Toffler writes that this was true for the railway train, ball-point pens, and, yes, even the modern flushing toilet. It seems incongruous that the flushing toilet as we know it today was invented as late as 1870. In other words mankind has only had flushing toilets for about 137 years of his entire history.

Humans are stubborn and apparently willfully ignorant, and don't seem to mind dying from diseases they produce themselves. People smoke and get deathly ill from it and then die from it. For today there remains terrible problems with sanitation in even the most advanced countries - in spite of all the inventions and laws to the contrary. Countless billions of gallons of "treated" sewage water is pumped into rivers, daily, which then find their way to the oceans. Governments have to figure out a way to do a better job of providing public toilet facilities and maintaining them. Until this happens, everyone is subject to disease from human poop.

Clearly, each individual must come to terms with the actual state of things in the wild places, and then choose to at least deal with their own poop while visiting them. By so doing, they help preserve the very place they've chosen to recreate in. Our personal poop management system makes it simple to deal with your own poop in a totally responsible way.