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The Big Necessity: Adventures In The World Of Human Waste
Produced behind closed doors, disposed of discreetly, hidden by euphemism, shit is rarely out in the open in 'civilized' society, but the world of waste – and the people who deal with it, work with it and in it – is a rich one.This book takes us underground to the sewers of New York and London and overground to meet the heroes of India’s sanitation movement, American sewage schoolteachers, the Japanese genius at the cutting edge of toilet technology and the biosolids lobbying team. With a journalist’s nose for story and a campaigner’s desire for change, Rose George also addresses the politics of this under-reported social and environmental effluent, and the consequences of our reluctance to talk about it. Witty and original, The Big Necessity proves that shit doesn’t have to be a dirty word.
272 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 14, 2008
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July 20, 2023
Or as we call it, “The Poo Book.”
If you are expecting a Mary Roach approach, forget it. While there are more than a couple of yucks in George’s book, they provide spice and not substance. This is a sober examination of a crucial public health matter. George offers plenty of supportive stats, without letting them clog her storytelling pipes. How do societies in diverse cultures cope with human waste? George looks at methodologies and social standards in the USA, Japan, India, China and beyond. It is clear that there is no single best solution.
Rose George from her TED talk
Be prepared to learn a lot about how people eliminate. (Illuminated elimination?) It is very educational and thought provoking, a must read for people with an interest in public health, city planning, international aid, water use, agricultural, and energy issues. The Big Necessity is very good public health book that should not go to waste.
Review first posted - 2009
Published - October 14, 2008
=============================EXTRA STUFF
Links to the author’s personal and Twitter pages
Definitely check out George's TED talk
August 21017 - National Geographic Magazine Editor in Chief Susan Goldberg Talking Toilets With Matt Damon - He is involved in trying to reduce open defecation across the planet
August 21017 - National Geographic Magazine - Nearly a Billion People Still Defecate Outdoors. Here’s Why. - by Elizabeth Royte
Ok, I was not shameless enough to end the review with this, but I am indeed shameless enough to
tuck this into a dark corner of a re-post ten years later.
The Big Necessity might not be the number one book of 2008, but maybe number two?
Ok, there, I've done it, and I am not ashamed. Embarrassed maybe?
If you are expecting a Mary Roach approach, forget it. While there are more than a couple of yucks in George’s book, they provide spice and not substance. This is a sober examination of a crucial public health matter. George offers plenty of supportive stats, without letting them clog her storytelling pipes. How do societies in diverse cultures cope with human waste? George looks at methodologies and social standards in the USA, Japan, India, China and beyond. It is clear that there is no single best solution.
Rose George from her TED talk
Be prepared to learn a lot about how people eliminate. (Illuminated elimination?) It is very educational and thought provoking, a must read for people with an interest in public health, city planning, international aid, water use, agricultural, and energy issues. The Big Necessity is very good public health book that should not go to waste.
Review first posted - 2009
Published - October 14, 2008
=============================EXTRA STUFF
Links to the author’s personal and Twitter pages
Definitely check out George's TED talk
August 21017 - National Geographic Magazine Editor in Chief Susan Goldberg Talking Toilets With Matt Damon - He is involved in trying to reduce open defecation across the planet
August 21017 - National Geographic Magazine - Nearly a Billion People Still Defecate Outdoors. Here’s Why. - by Elizabeth Royte
Ok, I was not shameless enough to end the review with this, but I am indeed shameless enough to
tuck this into a dark corner of a re-post ten years later.
The Big Necessity might not be the number one book of 2008, but maybe number two?
Ok, there, I've done it, and I am not ashamed. Embarrassed maybe?
April 14, 2023
I read this years ago. What stands out in memory is that many poor Indian households do not have a toilet, 10 toilets to 60,000 people, and those that do, may not have them hooked up so they are dry, porcelain thrones to be worshipped not used. So what do these people do, other than go into the fields if they are in the country, or by the side of the road if they are in a city? That's when I learned the term, 'parachuting'. Doing your business in a plastic bag (everywhere in the world has plastic bags) and launching into space. The lowest caste in India, the Dalits have to clean their shit up.
They are called 'manual scavengers' (to distinguish them from the 'real' scavengers who sort through piles of garbage looking for useable or saleable items) and without protective gear, using buckets, brooms and shovels they have to move the poo whether in the street or in the parachuted plastic bags to a disposal site in the baskets they carry. It is an illegal practice but no one stops it because what is the alternative?
I thought this book would be the only one I would ever want or need to read on human excreta and how it is dealt with but no, years later I read The Other Dark Matter: The Science and Business of Turning Waste into Wealth and Health which is slanted more towards the business end, in a manner of speaking. I wouldn't recommend you give either as a Christmas present. It could be taken the wrong way :-)
They are called 'manual scavengers' (to distinguish them from the 'real' scavengers who sort through piles of garbage looking for useable or saleable items) and without protective gear, using buckets, brooms and shovels they have to move the poo whether in the street or in the parachuted plastic bags to a disposal site in the baskets they carry. It is an illegal practice but no one stops it because what is the alternative?
I thought this book would be the only one I would ever want or need to read on human excreta and how it is dealt with but no, years later I read The Other Dark Matter: The Science and Business of Turning Waste into Wealth and Health which is slanted more towards the business end, in a manner of speaking. I wouldn't recommend you give either as a Christmas present. It could be taken the wrong way :-)
December 4, 2013
If you glance over my previously listed books, you'll have noted that I'm on a "end of civilization as we know it" reading jag, and this book fits right into the series. In fact, in many ways it's the best of the lot. Excreting is something we all do and almost none of us like to think about it, let alone talk about it, let alone read a whole book on the subject. But, because of this, our ignorance is immense. Who would have guessed, for example, that the world divides between those who clean themselves after defecating using something dry (leaves, corn cobs, toilet paper) or with water (or other liquid substance like a disinfectant), and that the logic lies with the half we (you and me, pal) don't belong to. This alone was enough to unsettle me, whereas a whole book on where our trash goes utterly failed in making me a recycle nut.
But enough about me. Disposing of human waste is a huge problem in the world and only getting worse. If you think out of sight is out of mind, consider the arrangement for this in Dar es Salaam, called "flying toilets": you defecate into a plastic bag and toss it onto a neighbor's roof. He doesn't complain, because when you're not looking, he tosses his on your roof. Generally speaking, this is a metaphor for how we all deal with the problem. The situation in third-world countries is desperate, to be sure, but we have a long way to go ourselves. And this book isn't just eye-opening, it's jaw-dropping as well. And, if you want an interesting thought experiment to perform, ask yourself what might replace toilet paper (the average American uses 57 sheets a day) in our own lives.
But enough about me. Disposing of human waste is a huge problem in the world and only getting worse. If you think out of sight is out of mind, consider the arrangement for this in Dar es Salaam, called "flying toilets": you defecate into a plastic bag and toss it onto a neighbor's roof. He doesn't complain, because when you're not looking, he tosses his on your roof. Generally speaking, this is a metaphor for how we all deal with the problem. The situation in third-world countries is desperate, to be sure, but we have a long way to go ourselves. And this book isn't just eye-opening, it's jaw-dropping as well. And, if you want an interesting thought experiment to perform, ask yourself what might replace toilet paper (the average American uses 57 sheets a day) in our own lives.
April 16, 2013
Rating: 4.75* of five
This review has been revised and can now be found at Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud.
It really and truly IS The Porcelain God. Worship it, because it's the reason you're not dead yet.
This review has been revised and can now be found at Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud.
It really and truly IS The Porcelain God. Worship it, because it's the reason you're not dead yet.
February 4, 2010
Yes, I am a science geek. This is terrific read. When I was a kid, I would read "historical" books, like Little House on the Prairie, and I would be thinking, hmm, where did they go to the bathroom? What did they use for toilet paper? Dad said they used leaves and I said no way! How could that work?
I guess I was destined to become interested in microbiology and tolerant and compassionate enough to work with people's poo samples and try to figure out what was making them ill.
I will never drive by a sewage treatment plant and think "that stinks!" again. The alternative! Ewwww!
I guess I was destined to become interested in microbiology and tolerant and compassionate enough to work with people's poo samples and try to figure out what was making them ill.
I will never drive by a sewage treatment plant and think "that stinks!" again. The alternative! Ewwww!
January 14, 2010
To be uninterested in the public toilet is to be uninterested in life.
OK, folks. 2009 is over, and the results are in. There were plenty of honorable mentions in the nonfiction category for the year - Henry Alford's "How to Live", Alain de Boton's "The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work", and the Brafman brothers' excellent "Sway".
While these three books were particularly engaging and well-executed, they are nonetheless eclipsed by the sheer unadulterated genius of Rose George's inspired exploration of - well - shit. This book is completely awesome - Rose George is an ideal guide to what Newsweek refers to as "the history and implications of a daily act that dare not speak its name". She's a trouper - having decided to take the project on, she's not one for half-measures. Whether she's touring the sewers of London, getting to the bottom of the success of intelligent toilets in Japan, interviewing toilet crusaders in South Africa and India, contemplating the devastation wrought by inadequate sanitation across the world, learning about China's biogas boom, or the controversy that swirls around the use of retreated sewage ("biosolids") as fertiliser, she is a gung-ho and engaging reporter, with an instinct for asking useful questions. The material covered in the book is far-ranging, fascinating, and fun, presented with with just the right balance of wit, curiosity and seriousness.
My favorite chapter was the one about public toilets. However, the discussion of Japan's progression from a nation of pit latrines to high-end robot toilets with brains high-end is pretty kickass as well. Fascinating nuggets of information abound - for instance, the fact that soybean paste (miso) is a lethal weapon in the battle for toilet market domination, as it is a vital ingredient in making realistic "fake body waste", essential for quality control testing. Then there's the plasticity of disgust, the term used to describe the phenomenon that mothers find the smell of their own baby's diapers less disgusting than that of unrelated baby's diapers.Fecal
transfusions are becoming an increasingly common procedure in modern medicine. One should beware of the 5Fs - different pathways for fecal-oral contamination:
5F diagram
This book is terrific. Particularly suitable for bathroom reading.
OK, folks. 2009 is over, and the results are in. There were plenty of honorable mentions in the nonfiction category for the year - Henry Alford's "How to Live", Alain de Boton's "The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work", and the Brafman brothers' excellent "Sway".
While these three books were particularly engaging and well-executed, they are nonetheless eclipsed by the sheer unadulterated genius of Rose George's inspired exploration of - well - shit. This book is completely awesome - Rose George is an ideal guide to what Newsweek refers to as "the history and implications of a daily act that dare not speak its name". She's a trouper - having decided to take the project on, she's not one for half-measures. Whether she's touring the sewers of London, getting to the bottom of the success of intelligent toilets in Japan, interviewing toilet crusaders in South Africa and India, contemplating the devastation wrought by inadequate sanitation across the world, learning about China's biogas boom, or the controversy that swirls around the use of retreated sewage ("biosolids") as fertiliser, she is a gung-ho and engaging reporter, with an instinct for asking useful questions. The material covered in the book is far-ranging, fascinating, and fun, presented with with just the right balance of wit, curiosity and seriousness.
My favorite chapter was the one about public toilets. However, the discussion of Japan's progression from a nation of pit latrines to high-end robot toilets with brains high-end is pretty kickass as well. Fascinating nuggets of information abound - for instance, the fact that soybean paste (miso) is a lethal weapon in the battle for toilet market domination, as it is a vital ingredient in making realistic "fake body waste", essential for quality control testing. Then there's the plasticity of disgust, the term used to describe the phenomenon that mothers find the smell of their own baby's diapers less disgusting than that of unrelated baby's diapers.Fecal
transfusions are becoming an increasingly common procedure in modern medicine. One should beware of the 5Fs - different pathways for fecal-oral contamination:
5F diagram
This book is terrific. Particularly suitable for bathroom reading.
February 23, 2021
This is not a new book (published in 2008), but while reading it in 2021, it still has the effect it was written for: to open your eyes for the most granted thing of our lives - sanitation and getting rid of our well.. shit.
Author could have put the info together in more compact way, but overall it was worthwhile read. It made me think and get curious. I will probably spend a good deal of time researching how the numbers of goals have been progressing since the release of this book.
As toilet visits are daily routine, it is really strange how this topic is still somewhat taboo even nowadays when it seems nothing is without a podcast/channel/viral videos. Maybe there are some poo influencers I'm not informed of?
(Funny to read that she refers to human going to Mars in 2012 - well.. we're few years late with that)
Author could have put the info together in more compact way, but overall it was worthwhile read. It made me think and get curious. I will probably spend a good deal of time researching how the numbers of goals have been progressing since the release of this book.
As toilet visits are daily routine, it is really strange how this topic is still somewhat taboo even nowadays when it seems nothing is without a podcast/channel/viral videos. Maybe there are some poo influencers I'm not informed of?
(Funny to read that she refers to human going to Mars in 2012 - well.. we're few years late with that)
March 1, 2020
Sewage. Hot, right? But as the title implies, it needs to become a hot topic, because the way we deal with sewage impacts all of us, and will continue to do so as the population grows.
“Toilet culture,” as the author says, is disintegrating and we’re all just oblivious. For example, 47% of public restrooms in London have closed in the past decade. But where is the public outcry as we lose our stalls? Where are the academic articles analyzing and decrying this travesty? It’s just not sexy enough! We need to make it sexy. We need to pay attention. Save the toilets!
The author gives us some pretty wild facts here. Like the fact that 2.6 billion people don’t have sanitation. And by the way, that doesn’t mean “2.6 billion people don’t have a toilet in their homes and have to use a public toilet” or “2.6 billion people have to use an outhouse or a rickety shack with a hole in the ground to grouch over that empties into a filthy drain or pigsty.” That doesn’t even mean “2.6 billion people have a bucket that they must empty daily.” That means 2.6 billion people have no choice but to take a shit in the woods, in alleyways, next to train tracks, in a bush in a village.
That’s roughly 4 in 10 people on the planet, by the way. Approaching half.
Here’s another grim statistic: more children have died from diarrhea in the last 10 years alone than people have died in armed conflict since WWII. That period involves dozens of bloody civil wars, the Vietnam War, the Korean War, the Gulf War, the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts, on and on and on.
Two waste-related diseases alone, cholera and dysentary, kill as many children as two jumbo jets full of kids crashing every four hours.
A rather more positive fact: every dollar invested in sanitation brings an average of $7 return in health costs averted and worker productivity gained. So there’s a lot to be lost in continuing to ignore sanitation, but a lot to be gained in paying attention and investing in it.
It’s not just 3rd world countries that have bad sanitation, by the way. Underneath their polished exteriors, practically every country has, well, shitty underbellies.
Galway, Ireland had a many-years battle with cryptosporidium (a result of their untreated sewage water being released into drinking water supplies). Milan, Italy, up until 2005, just emptied its raw, untreated sewage into its river. Ditto Brussels until 2003. Ditto Milwaukee, whose system is literally designed to dump raw sewage into Lake Michigan whenever there’s too much storm water (between 1994 and 2008, when this book was written, Milwaukee had dumped 935,000,000 gallons of “full-strength, untreated sewage” into the lake. New York and the Hudson? 500,000,000 gallons (of diluted, but untreated sewage) when it overflows. . . about every week. Yum.
Meanwhile, those of us with adequate sanitation take it for granted. Into our sewers go dead goldfish, pieces of motorcycles and baby strollers (pushed through manholes), coins, jewelry, cellphones (850,000 per year in the UK), condoms, sanitary products, diapers, bandages, syringes, underwear, cotton swabs, liquid concrete that later hardens and blocks sewers, even . . . according to one London “flusher” (person who works in sewers) . . . a live hand grenade.
Sewage workers have their own culture that you’ve never heard of. They have their own vernacular (which varies dramatically by country—in London, a “turtle” is a device that detects harmful gases; in NYC, “turtle” is slang for turds). In America, they even have nation-wide “Sludge Olympics” which involve rescuing mannequins from fast-moving sewers, fixing machinery, and playing Wastewater Jeopardy. God bless America.
One more thing: I need to give mad respect to Rose George. In India, she interviewed manual scavengers (people in India who, by virtue of their caste, are forced to remove others’ shit with their bare hands). Anyway, they’re chatting and her hosts hand her a glass of opaque, yellow water. AND SHE DRANK IT, because she didn’t want them to think it was because the person handing it to her was considered “untouchable” (when, in fact, it’s because the water was YELLOW and probably had cholera or tapeworms in it). That is true social grace and kindness. (She also ate a watermelon from rural China fertilized by the farming family’s own shit. The woman is truly dauntless.)
Anyway, read this book, let’s wake up and start a toilet revolution.
“Toilet culture,” as the author says, is disintegrating and we’re all just oblivious. For example, 47% of public restrooms in London have closed in the past decade. But where is the public outcry as we lose our stalls? Where are the academic articles analyzing and decrying this travesty? It’s just not sexy enough! We need to make it sexy. We need to pay attention. Save the toilets!
The author gives us some pretty wild facts here. Like the fact that 2.6 billion people don’t have sanitation. And by the way, that doesn’t mean “2.6 billion people don’t have a toilet in their homes and have to use a public toilet” or “2.6 billion people have to use an outhouse or a rickety shack with a hole in the ground to grouch over that empties into a filthy drain or pigsty.” That doesn’t even mean “2.6 billion people have a bucket that they must empty daily.” That means 2.6 billion people have no choice but to take a shit in the woods, in alleyways, next to train tracks, in a bush in a village.
That’s roughly 4 in 10 people on the planet, by the way. Approaching half.
Here’s another grim statistic: more children have died from diarrhea in the last 10 years alone than people have died in armed conflict since WWII. That period involves dozens of bloody civil wars, the Vietnam War, the Korean War, the Gulf War, the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts, on and on and on.
Two waste-related diseases alone, cholera and dysentary, kill as many children as two jumbo jets full of kids crashing every four hours.
A rather more positive fact: every dollar invested in sanitation brings an average of $7 return in health costs averted and worker productivity gained. So there’s a lot to be lost in continuing to ignore sanitation, but a lot to be gained in paying attention and investing in it.
It’s not just 3rd world countries that have bad sanitation, by the way. Underneath their polished exteriors, practically every country has, well, shitty underbellies.
Galway, Ireland had a many-years battle with cryptosporidium (a result of their untreated sewage water being released into drinking water supplies). Milan, Italy, up until 2005, just emptied its raw, untreated sewage into its river. Ditto Brussels until 2003. Ditto Milwaukee, whose system is literally designed to dump raw sewage into Lake Michigan whenever there’s too much storm water (between 1994 and 2008, when this book was written, Milwaukee had dumped 935,000,000 gallons of “full-strength, untreated sewage” into the lake. New York and the Hudson? 500,000,000 gallons (of diluted, but untreated sewage) when it overflows. . . about every week. Yum.
Meanwhile, those of us with adequate sanitation take it for granted. Into our sewers go dead goldfish, pieces of motorcycles and baby strollers (pushed through manholes), coins, jewelry, cellphones (850,000 per year in the UK), condoms, sanitary products, diapers, bandages, syringes, underwear, cotton swabs, liquid concrete that later hardens and blocks sewers, even . . . according to one London “flusher” (person who works in sewers) . . . a live hand grenade.
Sewage workers have their own culture that you’ve never heard of. They have their own vernacular (which varies dramatically by country—in London, a “turtle” is a device that detects harmful gases; in NYC, “turtle” is slang for turds). In America, they even have nation-wide “Sludge Olympics” which involve rescuing mannequins from fast-moving sewers, fixing machinery, and playing Wastewater Jeopardy. God bless America.
One more thing: I need to give mad respect to Rose George. In India, she interviewed manual scavengers (people in India who, by virtue of their caste, are forced to remove others’ shit with their bare hands). Anyway, they’re chatting and her hosts hand her a glass of opaque, yellow water. AND SHE DRANK IT, because she didn’t want them to think it was because the person handing it to her was considered “untouchable” (when, in fact, it’s because the water was YELLOW and probably had cholera or tapeworms in it). That is true social grace and kindness. (She also ate a watermelon from rural China fertilized by the farming family’s own shit. The woman is truly dauntless.)
Anyway, read this book, let’s wake up and start a toilet revolution.
May 1, 2016
My cousin A. (who is a kind and generous person, a sterling example of the apple falling far, far away from the family tree) once complimented me on my willingness to address problems. Well, I said, what gets done when we ignore things?
This book makes me feel like I've spent my life willfully blind. HOW IS IT THAT I'VE NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT POO?
Sad-faced celebrities talk about helping people obtain access to water and helping girls get menstrual supplies so they can go to school -- what they mean (sayeth George) is that the girls' school toilets are filled with shit. There is shit on the floor and shit in the sinks; plastic bags are available for wiping, and the bags are left in a pile. This isn't about lazy people who can't be bothered to flush, it's a structural problem: almost no one has a flush toilet. Hundreds of thousands of people use latrines. The unlucky people use a bucket. The really unfortunate don't have that much.
People don't like talking about shit. It's gross and it smells bad and it's embarrassing. So until very recently, there existed no global organization to deal hands-on (as it were) with our global problem -- which makes things worse. Human shit brings disease: cholera, dysentery, typhus, worms of all sorts. I mean, you know about Typhoid Mary; she inadvertently killed any number of people because she had crappy (sorry) toilet access. (And then she was locked up for the rest of her life, a convenient scapegoat for a problem she hadn't really caused, and couldn't fix.)
Cleaning up human shit is human work. Specifically, it is women's work. (Even in our first-world countries, yes. Who changes the most diapers? Who cleans the most bedpans?) My cold, jaded heart feels a sneaking suspicion that the sexism in the division of labor, moreso than the act of the labor itself, is the real reason why shit is shameful, hidden, unspeakable, and ignored in favor of "more important" topics. But what is more important than the basics (she asks, rhetorically)? And how much more basic than shit can you get?
We're embarrassed to talk about it. Maybe we should be embarrassed to ignore it.
This book makes me feel like I've spent my life willfully blind. HOW IS IT THAT I'VE NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT POO?
Sad-faced celebrities talk about helping people obtain access to water and helping girls get menstrual supplies so they can go to school -- what they mean (sayeth George) is that the girls' school toilets are filled with shit. There is shit on the floor and shit in the sinks; plastic bags are available for wiping, and the bags are left in a pile. This isn't about lazy people who can't be bothered to flush, it's a structural problem: almost no one has a flush toilet. Hundreds of thousands of people use latrines. The unlucky people use a bucket. The really unfortunate don't have that much.
People don't like talking about shit. It's gross and it smells bad and it's embarrassing. So until very recently, there existed no global organization to deal hands-on (as it were) with our global problem -- which makes things worse. Human shit brings disease: cholera, dysentery, typhus, worms of all sorts. I mean, you know about Typhoid Mary; she inadvertently killed any number of people because she had crappy (sorry) toilet access. (And then she was locked up for the rest of her life, a convenient scapegoat for a problem she hadn't really caused, and couldn't fix.)
Cleaning up human shit is human work. Specifically, it is women's work. (Even in our first-world countries, yes. Who changes the most diapers? Who cleans the most bedpans?) My cold, jaded heart feels a sneaking suspicion that the sexism in the division of labor, moreso than the act of the labor itself, is the real reason why shit is shameful, hidden, unspeakable, and ignored in favor of "more important" topics. But what is more important than the basics (she asks, rhetorically)? And how much more basic than shit can you get?
We're embarrassed to talk about it. Maybe we should be embarrassed to ignore it.
April 18, 2009
With passion, humor and integrity, Rose George makes a rock-solid case for sanitation as the world's most critical development issue. Without easy access to safe and effective sanitation, communities cannot provide clean drinking water or food free from contamination or lower the risk of life-threatening diseases. Without access to sanitation, women are chained to the Sisyphian drudgery of seeking out and carrying water, girls are too shamed to attend school once they begin menstruating, villages and cities alike cannot escape a cycle of disease & poverty.
No laughing matter, this, but George presents all aspects - historical, technological, cultural, environmental, scientific and utter vileness- with unflinching good humor. The world is full of shit and its bravest citizens risk health and sanity to lift the lowest out of the mire. Literally.
Unforgettable, irresistible and so important.
No laughing matter, this, but George presents all aspects - historical, technological, cultural, environmental, scientific and utter vileness- with unflinching good humor. The world is full of shit and its bravest citizens risk health and sanity to lift the lowest out of the mire. Literally.
Unforgettable, irresistible and so important.
April 19, 2009
This book's biggest shortcoming is the lack of any real narrative or central thesis beyond the fact that we don't pay as much attention to human sanitation as we should. George jumps around between disconnected topics like pit latrines in Tanzanian slums and the history of luxury toilet technology without even trying to justify it. And, as you might expect, the book gets a little slow as it goes on - one can only take so much sewer talk. Still, this is the sort of book that makes you look differently at an everyday something, and it's got plenty of good stuff for anyone curious about the subject (especially someone who wants to feel more guilty about conditions in the developing world).
August 19, 2021
A lot of excellent reporting was done to make this so comprehensive and enjoyable. I love the multicultural global scope of her investigation. The book focuses on bottom up solutions, scrappy dreamers trying to make a difference. Not puff pieces on Bill Gates style top down super toilets, that local people will not actually use. Like all broad books written by journalists, it can get a little “the sky is falling” at times. It describes a depressing present and a depressing future. Some problems are solved but new problems arise. Life is shitty. We need to spend more time talking about sanitation.
What I learned: Why America had trouble with low flush toilets, but Europe did not. Japan went from squat latrines to smart toilets in like sixty years! An incredible revolution in culture. Martin Luther ate his own shit as medicine. Toillete is just French for cloth. The English word “loo” comes from gardez l’eau. The French used to call toilets “lieux à l’anglais.” “Shit” comes from words that mean to divide or separate. Jennifer Aniston had a toilet cleaning double in the movie “friends with money.” Touching a member of the “untouchable” caste can be remedied by eating cow dung and cow urine. “Civil inattention” is the social practices that make living among unknown people tolerable. In China, used toilet paper is put into a basket, not into the pipes. An equal number of restrooms for men and women is not equality. I learned a lot about “slums” some are “peri-urban” they have shops, wide streets, decent homes, maybe even banana plantations, but they are still illegal squats, and so infrastructure services are minimal. A plastic bag can become a “helicopter toilet.”
What I learned: Why America had trouble with low flush toilets, but Europe did not. Japan went from squat latrines to smart toilets in like sixty years! An incredible revolution in culture. Martin Luther ate his own shit as medicine. Toillete is just French for cloth. The English word “loo” comes from gardez l’eau. The French used to call toilets “lieux à l’anglais.” “Shit” comes from words that mean to divide or separate. Jennifer Aniston had a toilet cleaning double in the movie “friends with money.” Touching a member of the “untouchable” caste can be remedied by eating cow dung and cow urine. “Civil inattention” is the social practices that make living among unknown people tolerable. In China, used toilet paper is put into a basket, not into the pipes. An equal number of restrooms for men and women is not equality. I learned a lot about “slums” some are “peri-urban” they have shops, wide streets, decent homes, maybe even banana plantations, but they are still illegal squats, and so infrastructure services are minimal. A plastic bag can become a “helicopter toilet.”
March 7, 2025
I’m extremely passionate about toilets now
May 7, 2019
從近代下水道與馬桶濫觴說起，走遍歐亞非美的「廁所」／「排泄物淨化處理」現況指南，讓人驚愕世界上有如此多人既負擔不起也「不想」使用廁所。筆調雖諷刺，倒也點出了資源不均、文化差異等問題（甚或印度的階級制度讓他們落入便宜行事的陷阱）。
印度人恐糞、中國人戀糞，這段結論使我想起「肥水不落外人田」，挺耐人尋味。作者說世上寫廁所或下水道的著作少，而方才查臺灣的碩博士論文系統裡以廁所為關鍵字的就有六十幾筆，此其為漢文化特色乎？舉世需求乎？
只是作者參觀的綿竹沼氣池，川震後不知是否還在？
印度人恐糞、中國人戀糞，這段結論使我想起「肥水不落外人田」，挺耐人尋味。作者說世上寫廁所或下水道的著作少，而方才查臺灣的碩博士論文系統裡以廁所為關鍵字的就有六十幾筆，此其為漢文化特色乎？舉世需求乎？
只是作者參觀的綿竹沼氣池，川震後不知是否還在？
August 17, 2015
A very interesting book.
"2.6 billion people don't have sanitation. I don't mean that they have no toilet in their house and must use a public one with queues and fees. Or that they have an outhouse, or a rickety shack that empties into a filthy drain or pigsty. All that counts as sanitation, though not a safe variety. The people who have those are the fortunate ones. Four in ten people have no access to any latrine, toilet, bucket or box. Nothing. Instead, they defecate by train tracks and in forests. They do it in plastic bags and fling them through the air in narrow slum alleyways. If they are women, they get up at 4 a.m. to be able to do their business under cover of darkness for reasons of modesty, risking rape and snakebites. Four in ten people live in situations where they are surrounded by human excrement because it is left in the bushes outside the village or in their city yards, left by children outside the back door. It is tramped back in on their feet, carried on fingers onto clothes, food, and drinking water."
By contrast:
"Japan makes the most advanced, remarkable toilets in the world. Japanese toilets can, variously, check your blood pressure, play music, wash and dry your anus and 'front parts' by means of an in-toilet nozzle that sprays water and warm air, suck smelly ions from the air, switch on a light for you as you stumble into the bathroom at night, put the seat lid down for you (a function known as the 'marriage saver'), and flush away your excreta without requiring anything as old-fashioned as a tank."
The book bounces back and forth (rather erratically) between the unspeakable lack of sanitation found in the third world to the problems faced by first world countries. The author visits villages in India where activists are trying to convince people to change unhealthy behavior that has been going on for generations. She tours villages in China where biogas digesters, which turn human excrement into fuel, have been installed. She suits up and wades through the aging sewers of London and New York. She interviews experts trying to figure out what to do with the 7 million dry tons of "biosolids" produced by American sewage treatment plants every year - dump it in the ocean? In a landfill? Use it for potentially toxic fertilizer?
There's lots of other interesting stuff. This is a good read.
"2.6 billion people don't have sanitation. I don't mean that they have no toilet in their house and must use a public one with queues and fees. Or that they have an outhouse, or a rickety shack that empties into a filthy drain or pigsty. All that counts as sanitation, though not a safe variety. The people who have those are the fortunate ones. Four in ten people have no access to any latrine, toilet, bucket or box. Nothing. Instead, they defecate by train tracks and in forests. They do it in plastic bags and fling them through the air in narrow slum alleyways. If they are women, they get up at 4 a.m. to be able to do their business under cover of darkness for reasons of modesty, risking rape and snakebites. Four in ten people live in situations where they are surrounded by human excrement because it is left in the bushes outside the village or in their city yards, left by children outside the back door. It is tramped back in on their feet, carried on fingers onto clothes, food, and drinking water."
By contrast:
"Japan makes the most advanced, remarkable toilets in the world. Japanese toilets can, variously, check your blood pressure, play music, wash and dry your anus and 'front parts' by means of an in-toilet nozzle that sprays water and warm air, suck smelly ions from the air, switch on a light for you as you stumble into the bathroom at night, put the seat lid down for you (a function known as the 'marriage saver'), and flush away your excreta without requiring anything as old-fashioned as a tank."
The book bounces back and forth (rather erratically) between the unspeakable lack of sanitation found in the third world to the problems faced by first world countries. The author visits villages in India where activists are trying to convince people to change unhealthy behavior that has been going on for generations. She tours villages in China where biogas digesters, which turn human excrement into fuel, have been installed. She suits up and wades through the aging sewers of London and New York. She interviews experts trying to figure out what to do with the 7 million dry tons of "biosolids" produced by American sewage treatment plants every year - dump it in the ocean? In a landfill? Use it for potentially toxic fertilizer?
There's lots of other interesting stuff. This is a good read.
December 4, 2013
I just thought of a weird fact about myself. When I was little, instead of using the word ‘poop’ we called it ‘rocks’, as in “Mommy, I need to make rocks.” When I grew up I studied what in college? Geology.
I think this book should have been called, “The History of Toilets and Sewers Around the World” or “Poop: How To Get Rid of a Whole Lot of It’. It really wasn’t so much about human waste itself, but how it makes people sick and what the world does with it. FYI: India creates 200,000 TONS of human waste per day!!!
Ok, some parts of this book was interesting, some parts were just informative. But you should read it. I had no idea that so many people in the world did not have toilets or any kind of sewers. I guess it makes sense, but it had just never occurred to me. I am very grateful for my throne. Actually, I have two of them in my house. I’m thankful for both. Neither is stinky and I don’t have to share them with people who will trash it. And I
don’t have to pay a good chunk of my day’s wages in order to use it.
When we were in China we went to the village where Tom Cruise runs across the roof tops in Mission Impossible 3. Remember that? (I didn’t. I had to re-watch the movie.) Anyways, it is a little village along a river. While there, I really had to pee. On a scale of 1 to 10, I was at a 40. So we finally found something that was a bathroom. I had been trying not to go because I knew where we were only had squat toilets. (I have a great fear of accidentally peeing down my leg!) I paid my 30 cents and went in. That was the best 30 cents I ever spent. A little while later we went on a boat ride down the river. We noticed the river was pretty murky. Then we saw the pipes coming straight out of the building and pouring right into the river. The water from those pipes came out in spurts, often yellowish. There were also women at the river’s edge washing dishes and laundry. What disturbs me the most is that we ate at a restaurant there, right along the river.
I think this book should have been called, “The History of Toilets and Sewers Around the World” or “Poop: How To Get Rid of a Whole Lot of It’. It really wasn’t so much about human waste itself, but how it makes people sick and what the world does with it. FYI: India creates 200,000 TONS of human waste per day!!!
Ok, some parts of this book was interesting, some parts were just informative. But you should read it. I had no idea that so many people in the world did not have toilets or any kind of sewers. I guess it makes sense, but it had just never occurred to me. I am very grateful for my throne. Actually, I have two of them in my house. I’m thankful for both. Neither is stinky and I don’t have to share them with people who will trash it. And I
don’t have to pay a good chunk of my day’s wages in order to use it.
When we were in China we went to the village where Tom Cruise runs across the roof tops in Mission Impossible 3. Remember that? (I didn’t. I had to re-watch the movie.) Anyways, it is a little village along a river. While there, I really had to pee. On a scale of 1 to 10, I was at a 40. So we finally found something that was a bathroom. I had been trying not to go because I knew where we were only had squat toilets. (I have a great fear of accidentally peeing down my leg!) I paid my 30 cents and went in. That was the best 30 cents I ever spent. A little while later we went on a boat ride down the river. We noticed the river was pretty murky. Then we saw the pipes coming straight out of the building and pouring right into the river. The water from those pipes came out in spurts, often yellowish. There were also women at the river’s edge washing dishes and laundry. What disturbs me the most is that we ate at a restaurant there, right along the river.
March 14, 2009
After a recent trip to India, where the lack of available sanitation is a huge problem, this book was of interest. I was intrigued to read that getting people who are "open defecators" to accept the concept of using latrines is actually very challenging. The strategies that are being successful are an interesting study in psychology.
November 20, 2025
3.5 stars, more because it's out of date and therefore harder to get into than because of any of the book's shortcomings.
I read this because I remembered really liking George's style in Nine Pints, and I was not disappointed. She does a great job of portraying the limitations of each technology that she investigates without ever dismissing them. I also really admire her ability to sketch people as characters. This reads so well because the people she talks to in the watsan world feel like PEOPLE and not just mouthpieces for official statistics. I adore her for just saying "shit," though she couldn't help herself with some of the wordplay throughout.
Besides the fact that its information is now totally outdated (which it can't help, of course), my main frustration with this book is that it doesn't go particularly deep on any one idea or in any one region. I would love longer, more involved histories of these technologies and the people that developed them. Also, where was South America in this text? She brushes over some big ideas coming out of Brazil and then never really touches that continent again. So I guess this review boils down to: Fascinating. More please.
I read this because I remembered really liking George's style in Nine Pints, and I was not disappointed. She does a great job of portraying the limitations of each technology that she investigates without ever dismissing them. I also really admire her ability to sketch people as characters. This reads so well because the people she talks to in the watsan world feel like PEOPLE and not just mouthpieces for official statistics. I adore her for just saying "shit," though she couldn't help herself with some of the wordplay throughout.
Besides the fact that its information is now totally outdated (which it can't help, of course), my main frustration with this book is that it doesn't go particularly deep on any one idea or in any one region. I would love longer, more involved histories of these technologies and the people that developed them. Also, where was South America in this text? She brushes over some big ideas coming out of Brazil and then never really touches that continent again. So I guess this review boils down to: Fascinating. More please.
August 25, 2020
I really appreciated this book. Rose George in 250 or so pages does a great job giving the reader a lot to think about on why it matters and what lies before us. Even though it was written in 2008 it is still relevant today and many tomorrows.
I learned what the different methods of disposing of waste are such as: water based sewage systems; single home systems that collect the waste, create gas for cooking and fertilizer for crops; open defecation which is practiced by billions.
George addresses the different attempts that Governments and NGOs have employed to get populations to abandon open defecation and add toilets in the home or communal ones. They have to figure out what the population will use.
George gives good case studies on the drive for sanitary waste disposal in China, India, Bangladesh and countries in Africa.
She had a chapter on the process whereby human waste is turned into drinking water and fertilizer. She also addressed the problems it has caused with some folks who live around the fields fertilized with the waste.
This is an ongoing issue. I assumed water based sewage systems were best but it takes a lot of water to do that and we may not have it in the future. Plus our waste gets mixed in with heavy metals and other things that reduce its value as fertilizer. We may be going to eco-san toilets in the future where the waste is composted then recycled.
Good book. This was a great general survey on the topic. I read it in 3 days because the library wanted it back. Otherwise, I think it have would been a leisurely 10 day read. One chapter a day.
I learned what the different methods of disposing of waste are such as: water based sewage systems; single home systems that collect the waste, create gas for cooking and fertilizer for crops; open defecation which is practiced by billions.
George addresses the different attempts that Governments and NGOs have employed to get populations to abandon open defecation and add toilets in the home or communal ones. They have to figure out what the population will use.
George gives good case studies on the drive for sanitary waste disposal in China, India, Bangladesh and countries in Africa.
She had a chapter on the process whereby human waste is turned into drinking water and fertilizer. She also addressed the problems it has caused with some folks who live around the fields fertilized with the waste.
This is an ongoing issue. I assumed water based sewage systems were best but it takes a lot of water to do that and we may not have it in the future. Plus our waste gets mixed in with heavy metals and other things that reduce its value as fertilizer. We may be going to eco-san toilets in the future where the waste is composted then recycled.
Good book. This was a great general survey on the topic. I read it in 3 days because the library wanted it back. Otherwise, I think it have would been a leisurely 10 day read. One chapter a day.
January 17, 2010
One of the most unusual topics for a book and that I would never have expected to pique my interest. In fact, I found the topic fascinating and it covered a topic that concerns us all. It is written with humor and intelligence, thoroughly researched, and well-written. The author gives us a lot of great detail and illustrates her findings in a provocative and thoughtful way. It is not a straight chronology like you might expect from other evolutionary social histories. Her examples are from systems and customs all over the world and she does a nice job of contrasting how different cultures treat the big unmentionable. She didn't just resesarch her topic from the confines of a writer's hideaway, nope. She traveled to some of the more unseemly locations to get a firsthand view. Would you crawl into a sewer in Manhattan? Exactly.
I found this book informative, entertaining, and alarming. "Disease spread by bodily waste kills more people worldwide every year than any other single cause of death." Yikes.
I found this book informative, entertaining, and alarming. "Disease spread by bodily waste kills more people worldwide every year than any other single cause of death." Yikes.
August 29, 2021
Did you know that out of 6 billion humans, 2.6 billion have no bathroom, toilet, latrine or other place to tidily and privately relieve themselves? They use a vacant lot, walk a way down a railroad track, or "go" in a plastic bag that they then toss on a roof or over a fence.
"The Big Necessity" is full of such interesting facts.
But more than that, the book is an important overview of the current state of sanitation in the world, be it the robotic toilets of Japan or the tossed plastic bags of Mumbai. I had no idea how bad things are in some places, though of course, who in the West really gives the matter much though? For me the book was interesting and very enlightening.
Don't read it while you are eating though.
"The Big Necessity" is full of such interesting facts.
But more than that, the book is an important overview of the current state of sanitation in the world, be it the robotic toilets of Japan or the tossed plastic bags of Mumbai. I had no idea how bad things are in some places, though of course, who in the West really gives the matter much though? For me the book was interesting and very enlightening.
Don't read it while you are eating though.
April 8, 2022
The Big Necessity : The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters (2008) by Rose Gorge is really the shit. As in really, it explores the world of toilets, sewage and sewer systems and how this works around the world in great detail.
Gorge knows her shit and the book details her visits to famous high tech toilet companies in Japan, the sewers of London and New York and more importantly it looks at places where safe disposal of human waste is still a huge problem.
Since the book was written a lot more effort has gone into better sanitation and waste disposal and it appears that things are improving. Perhaps Gorge’s book reallly did help.
The Big Necessity is well worth a read, it’s an important subject that gets little attention.
Gorge knows her shit and the book details her visits to famous high tech toilet companies in Japan, the sewers of London and New York and more importantly it looks at places where safe disposal of human waste is still a huge problem.
Since the book was written a lot more effort has gone into better sanitation and waste disposal and it appears that things are improving. Perhaps Gorge’s book reallly did help.
The Big Necessity is well worth a read, it’s an important subject that gets little attention.
February 18, 2024
A litany of odd facts first and foremost: what began as a sniggering taste for dramatic shit stories posted in grand and literary style on the internet (most notably Reddit) has for me somehow morphed into a genuine interest in all things toilet-related. I think this is probably in part due to desensitisation -- one cannot laugh so hard they cry as many times as I have and come away with the same level of aversion and disgust as most people have towards all bathroom-related topics -- but I also think there's a sense of outrage there, that something so common and natural has been pushed to the side of consideration to such an extent that many people suffer daily for it. Related to this, but this interest is also what inspired me to, while working as a photojournalist in Ukraine, take some time away from chasing the war to visit the Museum of Toilet History in Kyiv, which was fantastic, by the way. You could say I've had toilets on the brain.
All this is to say that after you get the usual shock and giggling out of the way, this is a book well worth reading. Something that I've found most people don't consider at all is that the issue of sanitation and toilet access is not just about the obvious advantage of being able to relieve oneself in relative comfort and without the risk of cholera. Going to the bathroom is the great equaliser. Everybody shits. Everybody has to deal with the reality of shitting. Everybody has very strong opinions about how to shit correctly. It's impossible to talk about any aspect of humanity without sanitation and bathroom access being somehow related. It's part of our history. It's part of our society. Problems with such issues reflect on larger problems in the world. The issue of sanitation touches on basically every hot political issue out there, and if you follow it to its root, you often find it's closer to home than you'd think. For example, we all know that poverty denies people in developing countries a safe and clean place to shit, but what many of us don't consider is the fact that in our own supposedly developing countries, poor people are still struggling with this basic right. They're living in slum apartments with broken toilets the landlord is refusing to fix. They're in sheltered housing, sharing a bathroom with people who leave it filthy. They're homeless, and finding no public toilets nor businesses who will allow them to run in for five minutes. Pretty much every major issue you can think of, I can probably relate it, at least in part, back to toilets. It's a big deal, is what I'm saying.
Which is why books like this are so important. This is an absolutely fascinating glimpse into an area of life most people don't ever visit. People will wonder what there even is to say. You go to the toilet, flush it, and forget about it, right? But for many people that isn't the case, and even for those of us lucky enough that going to the toilet is a brief interruption to our day, all that stuff has to go somewhere. Don't you ever wonder where? Probably not, but if you're reading this review you're at least curious. And it's a subject worth being curious about. There's no subject on earth that has little to be said about it, shitting included; George's book is an excellent place to begin if you'd like to know just how much you don't know. From the intricacies of dealing with sewage, to the controversies surrounding biosolids, to organisations working diligently to persuade people to shit indoors, and with lots of amusing trivia and interesting cultural observations between, this is a well-rounded book that manages to treat its subject matter with respect while at the same time acknowledging that it is, often, a bit funny. It strikes the balance perfectly and it's honestly fascinating. This is a book that's absolutely full of shit, and for once that's not a bad thing.
All this is to say that after you get the usual shock and giggling out of the way, this is a book well worth reading. Something that I've found most people don't consider at all is that the issue of sanitation and toilet access is not just about the obvious advantage of being able to relieve oneself in relative comfort and without the risk of cholera. Going to the bathroom is the great equaliser. Everybody shits. Everybody has to deal with the reality of shitting. Everybody has very strong opinions about how to shit correctly. It's impossible to talk about any aspect of humanity without sanitation and bathroom access being somehow related. It's part of our history. It's part of our society. Problems with such issues reflect on larger problems in the world. The issue of sanitation touches on basically every hot political issue out there, and if you follow it to its root, you often find it's closer to home than you'd think. For example, we all know that poverty denies people in developing countries a safe and clean place to shit, but what many of us don't consider is the fact that in our own supposedly developing countries, poor people are still struggling with this basic right. They're living in slum apartments with broken toilets the landlord is refusing to fix. They're in sheltered housing, sharing a bathroom with people who leave it filthy. They're homeless, and finding no public toilets nor businesses who will allow them to run in for five minutes. Pretty much every major issue you can think of, I can probably relate it, at least in part, back to toilets. It's a big deal, is what I'm saying.
Which is why books like this are so important. This is an absolutely fascinating glimpse into an area of life most people don't ever visit. People will wonder what there even is to say. You go to the toilet, flush it, and forget about it, right? But for many people that isn't the case, and even for those of us lucky enough that going to the toilet is a brief interruption to our day, all that stuff has to go somewhere. Don't you ever wonder where? Probably not, but if you're reading this review you're at least curious. And it's a subject worth being curious about. There's no subject on earth that has little to be said about it, shitting included; George's book is an excellent place to begin if you'd like to know just how much you don't know. From the intricacies of dealing with sewage, to the controversies surrounding biosolids, to organisations working diligently to persuade people to shit indoors, and with lots of amusing trivia and interesting cultural observations between, this is a well-rounded book that manages to treat its subject matter with respect while at the same time acknowledging that it is, often, a bit funny. It strikes the balance perfectly and it's honestly fascinating. This is a book that's absolutely full of shit, and for once that's not a bad thing.
March 3, 2022
I absolutely loved this book. It's packed full of everything you (n)ever wanted to know about toilets and sanitation. It's somewhat dated, published in 2007, but surprisingly/depressingly little has changed since then.
Once, as I was reading this, I ran into a whole class of my students on a field trip. "Hi Ms. Cass! What are you reading?" "Uh... a book about toilets." 😆
But as the book itself tells us, "To be uninterested in the public toilet is to be uninterested in life."
Sanitation is primarily the removal of bodily waste, whether with a flush toilet (public or private), an outhouse, or any other method that keeps human waste away from food, drinking water, etc. Even with this loose definition, some 2.4 BILLION people worldwide still lack basic sanitation! And if bodily waste isn't safely disposed of, then clean drinking water really doesn't stand a chance.
The book has chapters dedicated to various countries and cultures, from Japan and its robo-toilets, to developing countries in Asia and Africa, and even to the International Space Station. In India, only 232 of 5,233 towns have even partial sewer coverage. And with India's large population, some 200,000 tons of human feces are deposited in the open every. single. day.
While lack of sanitation causes water-borne illnesses like cholera, diarrhea, TB, and many more, there's some corresponding good news: for every $1 invested in proper sanitation, a country can expect a return of $7 in health costs averted and productivity gained.
One more terrible little anecdote: in the Vietnam War, the Viet Kong were known to make small wooden spikes, contaminate them with human feces, then stick them in the ground in the jungle. The spikes pierced through boots and feet, and the infection was often deadly.
Once, as I was reading this, I ran into a whole class of my students on a field trip. "Hi Ms. Cass! What are you reading?" "Uh... a book about toilets." 😆
But as the book itself tells us, "To be uninterested in the public toilet is to be uninterested in life."
Sanitation is primarily the removal of bodily waste, whether with a flush toilet (public or private), an outhouse, or any other method that keeps human waste away from food, drinking water, etc. Even with this loose definition, some 2.4 BILLION people worldwide still lack basic sanitation! And if bodily waste isn't safely disposed of, then clean drinking water really doesn't stand a chance.
The book has chapters dedicated to various countries and cultures, from Japan and its robo-toilets, to developing countries in Asia and Africa, and even to the International Space Station. In India, only 232 of 5,233 towns have even partial sewer coverage. And with India's large population, some 200,000 tons of human feces are deposited in the open every. single. day.
While lack of sanitation causes water-borne illnesses like cholera, diarrhea, TB, and many more, there's some corresponding good news: for every $1 invested in proper sanitation, a country can expect a return of $7 in health costs averted and productivity gained.
One more terrible little anecdote: in the Vietnam War, the Viet Kong were known to make small wooden spikes, contaminate them with human feces, then stick them in the ground in the jungle. The spikes pierced through boots and feet, and the infection was often deadly.
March 22, 2020
It's a dense book, full of a lot of information and ideas. It took me a long time to finish, because it would send me down weird rabbit holes. Because of this book, I ordered a copy of the book "Scatologic Rites of All Nations". I watched old ads on YouTube for Japanese toilets. I watched part of a documentary about Indian slums called Q2P. It's the kind of book that keeps you saying, "Wait... What?" and then googling for more information.
As a fan of Mary Roach and her books, The Big Necessity reads like a book by a kindred spirit. Rose George reads a bit like Mary Roach, and occasionally includes herself in the story. She's not as polished a writer though, and I found some of her sentences a bit clunky and hard to follow. In places, she can come across a bit like an academic delivering a serious lecture, trying to throw in a joke, and not quite getting it right. And sometimes she jumps from country to country, person to person, and it becomes easy to get lost.
All the same, the book is amazing. It covers sanitation from so many fascinating angles and from nearly every country imaginable. It's one of those books where I occasionally laughed out loud or recoiled in horror. It made me think about my place in the world (in Canada, with great sanitation) and what it must be like to live in the slums of India, with no sanitation.
A really great book, which I would high recommend.
This book was recommended to me by a friend on Twitter, who knows how much I like to take pictures of a particular sewer drain down by the Ottawa river.
As a fan of Mary Roach and her books, The Big Necessity reads like a book by a kindred spirit. Rose George reads a bit like Mary Roach, and occasionally includes herself in the story. She's not as polished a writer though, and I found some of her sentences a bit clunky and hard to follow. In places, she can come across a bit like an academic delivering a serious lecture, trying to throw in a joke, and not quite getting it right. And sometimes she jumps from country to country, person to person, and it becomes easy to get lost.
All the same, the book is amazing. It covers sanitation from so many fascinating angles and from nearly every country imaginable. It's one of those books where I occasionally laughed out loud or recoiled in horror. It made me think about my place in the world (in Canada, with great sanitation) and what it must be like to live in the slums of India, with no sanitation.
A really great book, which I would high recommend.
This book was recommended to me by a friend on Twitter, who knows how much I like to take pictures of a particular sewer drain down by the Ottawa river.
January 1, 2019
This is an informative look at human waste management (or lack thereof) globally. George covers many topics including current sanitation realities in various parts the world, the effects on health of inadequate waste management, the need for a coordinated effort to address lack of adequate waste disposal/treatment, differing cultural practices, and issues regarding water-based sanitation. Also covered are technological advances such as toilet innovation (Japan has it figured out!) and biogas digesters.
Billions of people worldwide still have no access to a toilet. This book was written in 2008, so I need to look for information on what progress has made globally in the last decade.
Although I didn’t find the content of this book new or startling, this was a good synopsis of global human waste management and the need to raise the profile of this public health issue.
Billions of people worldwide still have no access to a toilet. This book was written in 2008, so I need to look for information on what progress has made globally in the last decade.
Although I didn’t find the content of this book new or startling, this was a good synopsis of global human waste management and the need to raise the profile of this public health issue.
January 30, 2019
4 Stars
Although I had hoped for more information on what the wealthier countries were doing about sanitation the amount of information given about world wide issues of sanitation is staggering. As an overview this book is a good start in understanding the problems and why physiological issues need to be overcome as well as practical, physical applications.
Although I had hoped for more information on what the wealthier countries were doing about sanitation the amount of information given about world wide issues of sanitation is staggering. As an overview this book is a good start in understanding the problems and why physiological issues need to be overcome as well as practical, physical applications.
December 20, 2020
Such an important book, so glad I stumbled across this book. Rose does a really great job of comparing the sewage systems not only across the globe but across generations and pointing out why it has been very show or less innovation in the field. This book is full of shit and you will appreciate it!
November 5, 2020
A fascinating read on something I had never really given any thought to, aside from the few times I've gone camping. It seems increasingly important the more time passes and the more things fall apart.
June 15, 2021
An interesting look at a very important but not talked about subject, sanitation. It is engaging and educating and that's all I can ask for in a book of this type. I took off one star just because a bit of the information on India is a bit dated, still relevant but not quite as bad as it use to be.
This is an interesting rabbit hole that is worth going down if you are interested in the things that aren't talked about.
This is an interesting rabbit hole that is worth going down if you are interested in the things that aren't talked about.
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