Latest / Stuff You Should Know / How Porta-Potties Work

Transcript

How Porta-Potties Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: San Francisco, the s by s K Tree, Yes, San Francisco, Oakland,
0:08
Speaker 1: the entire Bay area and dare I say, all of
0:11
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley. Yeah, we love you. And we're coming back
0:14
Speaker 1: to Sketch Fest this year in January. Yeah, we're gonna
0:17
Speaker 1: be there on Sunday, January fift at one pm, a
0:21
Speaker 1: very rare afternoon show. Uh, and we will be ready
0:25
Speaker 1: to go. So you guys better be drunk from the
0:27
Speaker 1: night before or getting drunk for that evening. Yeah, however
0:30
Speaker 1: it crosses over, I think it'll be proof positive that
0:33
Speaker 1: uh we endorse afternoon drinking, you know, yeah, you know,
0:39
Speaker 1: a couple of drinks, maybe i'd be bloody Mary. What
0:42
Speaker 1: were we talking about. Oh, yeah, we're promoting our show. Oh,
0:45
Speaker 1: that's right, So we're doing that show on January. Uh.
0:48
Speaker 1: You can go to the s F Sketch Fest website
0:50
Speaker 1: to get tickets and it's awesome. It's a great, great
0:54
Speaker 1: comedy festival. Lots of awesome shows that weekend and for
0:58
Speaker 1: the following weeks. So I encourage you, like to buy
1:02
Speaker 1: lots of tickets just by arts first. Yeah, and hurry, hurry,
1:05
Speaker 1: because they're selling out fast, no joke. That's not a ploy.
1:08
Speaker 1: It's not as a marketing ploy. No, they're really selling fast.
1:11
Speaker 1: We get emails every time. Guys, you told me to hurry,
1:14
Speaker 1: I didn't hurry. I'm shut out. And since this promos
1:18
Speaker 1: petered out, it ends right now. Welcome to Stuff you
1:23
Speaker 1: Should Know from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and
1:32
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W
1:35
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant, Jerry Master, Ace Roland. Uh, and this is
1:43
Speaker 1: stuff you should Know. Yeah. Poopy addition, this one's gonna
1:47
Speaker 1: get disgusting. Yeah, I mean, I don't think you need
1:52
Speaker 1: trigger warnings when the title of the episode is got
1:55
Speaker 1: porta potty in it. But um, we'll just throw it
1:58
Speaker 1: out there. We're gonna be talking about poop and pea
2:01
Speaker 1: and so if you're having lunch, maybe just put that
2:07
Speaker 1: chili dog down gag easily, Yeah, you know, sure, Yeah, Okay,
2:15
Speaker 1: we'll check. I don't think we can put it off
2:18
Speaker 1: any longer, you know that kind of beat it out. Um.
2:22
Speaker 1: I kind of like how this article actually starts though,
2:26
Speaker 1: by Dave Ruse. He talks about the taste of Chicago.
2:30
Speaker 1: Was this a rug jam? Yes? It is good. So
2:33
Speaker 1: he talks about how if you go to the Taste
2:35
Speaker 1: of Chicago. Right every every July they hold it at
2:38
Speaker 1: the Grant Park alongside the Lake. When was our show there,
2:42
Speaker 1: by the way, was that July? No, it was chillier
2:46
Speaker 1: than that. I think it was October. Okay, they had
2:49
Speaker 1: something had happened in Grant Park because I remember seeing
2:53
Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds of porta potties on the drive in.
2:56
Speaker 1: Oh really, yeah, so something they just always have them there,
3:00
Speaker 1: don't think so. Okay, Well, for the Taste of Chicago,
3:05
Speaker 1: they definitely have Porter potties, in fact for two thousand
3:07
Speaker 1: and fourteen, and we should say there's like a million
3:10
Speaker 1: people that come through this thing over the course of
3:12
Speaker 1: the weeks. It really is. Have you ever been to
3:16
Speaker 1: Atlanta's Taste of Anything? Uh? No, I haven't either. I
3:20
Speaker 1: don't think it's I don't think a million people show
3:23
Speaker 1: up for it. It makes me want to go try
3:25
Speaker 1: Chicago's um But so you've got a million people. UM
3:30
Speaker 1: and Service Sanitation, Inc. Which is the company that landed
3:34
Speaker 1: the Porter potty contract crunch the numbers. Looked at the
3:37
Speaker 1: food that was gonna be there, uh said, you're gonna
3:42
Speaker 1: have some beer? Yeah? Okay? They carried the one and
3:46
Speaker 1: they came up with three hundred and eighty regular porta potties,
3:50
Speaker 1: twenty eight wheelchair accessible porta potties, and eighty hand washing stations.
3:55
Speaker 1: They have soap and fresh running water. Not bad, right,
4:00
Speaker 1: So here's the thing, Like, that's great, they delivered all
4:03
Speaker 1: those things. But had they just walked away and said,
4:06
Speaker 1: see at the end of taste of Chicago, it would
4:10
Speaker 1: have been a living nightmare for everyone involved. That would
4:14
Speaker 1: be it would be more than the taste of Chicago,
4:19
Speaker 1: be the sickening smell of Chicago. Yeah, that would have
4:24
Speaker 1: been bad. Because well, we'll get into it. But porta
4:28
Speaker 1: potty sometimes you can leave them, come back a week
4:31
Speaker 1: later and just take them away if it's a temporary
4:34
Speaker 1: work side or something. But sometimes when you're selling beer
4:37
Speaker 1: and chili, you need to come at the end of
4:39
Speaker 1: every day and clean those suckers out. Yes, and that's
4:44
Speaker 1: what they did. They came at night when everyone was
4:47
Speaker 1: sleeping from well, I guess if you went to bed
4:50
Speaker 1: at nine pm, that's when I'm sleeping. But they would
4:54
Speaker 1: come every night from nine and i pm to three am,
4:57
Speaker 1: and they would work. And here's the thing, Like, porta potties.
5:01
Speaker 1: It turns out I was overthinking them. I thought there
5:04
Speaker 1: was maybe a little more going on. No, they are,
5:08
Speaker 1: they are self, I don't. I really don't know what
5:12
Speaker 1: I thought. It escaped me as as the reality of
5:14
Speaker 1: porter potties sunk in my my delusions about my illusions
5:18
Speaker 1: about them kind of um escaped me to trickle away.
5:22
Speaker 1: And now I can't remember what they were, right, sure
5:25
Speaker 1: I have, but I was like holding my breath and
5:28
Speaker 1: like like just barely had my eyes open because I
5:32
Speaker 1: didn't want any germs to get on my eyeballs. Um,
5:35
Speaker 1: So I wasn't paying that much attention. It's an in
5:37
Speaker 1: and out kind of thing. Um. It turns out that,
5:41
Speaker 1: like when you serve as support potty, what you're doing
5:44
Speaker 1: is you're showing up with a trunk or a truck
5:47
Speaker 1: as a tank with a vacuum on at a pressurized tank, um,
5:51
Speaker 1: and you are sucking the contents out of that porter potty,
5:56
Speaker 1: and then you put it in the truck, you drive off,
6:00
Speaker 1: you dump it off at the waste treatment plant of
6:03
Speaker 1: your local city or town. It's like a gigantic wet back. Yes,
6:08
Speaker 1: it is for poo poo and pep, Yes, and a
6:11
Speaker 1: very dangerous one. I saw at least one story um
6:14
Speaker 1: in a porta potty trade magazine that of somebody who
6:19
Speaker 1: I've read a bunch of those, in what was a
6:20
Speaker 1: magazine called It's called Portable Restroom Operator. It's a it's
6:25
Speaker 1: a good mag man. They I actually found, um uh
6:30
Speaker 1: this one issue online going all the way back to
6:33
Speaker 1: two thousand nine that I was looking for. So they
6:35
Speaker 1: they're legit. Yeah, but they could have been a little
6:37
Speaker 1: more fun with the name and bro well, I think
6:39
Speaker 1: they're they're saying like, hey man, the fun you want,
6:43
Speaker 1: but we're saving your behind. Hey see. Though that sounds
6:48
Speaker 1: like a slogan, I'm sure it is. Well. They do
6:51
Speaker 1: point out a couple of the slogans because porta Potty
6:53
Speaker 1: Companies or Porta John's, Jiffy John's, port Deloo if you're
6:58
Speaker 1: in England, Toy Toy if you're in Malaysia. Yeah. Uh,
7:03
Speaker 1: they're very famous for having pretty fun peny um slogans
7:08
Speaker 1: like we're number one in the number two business. Not bad, No,
7:13
Speaker 1: it's not bad. There's no one takes care of our
7:15
Speaker 1: business like Mr John. Sure I saw that too. Yeah. Um.
7:20
Speaker 1: There's also one called got to Go but it's spelled
7:23
Speaker 1: really impressively. Um, it's g It's all of one word,
7:28
Speaker 1: and it's lower case, so it's super mod g O
7:32
Speaker 1: T you with an oom l out g O. I
7:37
Speaker 1: love it. M. Do you like that one? Yeah? I
7:41
Speaker 1: just I thought you were going in a different direction.
7:42
Speaker 1: I thought it was going to be a little more
7:44
Speaker 1: like G E A U X. No, that's like if
7:47
Speaker 1: they were in Louisiana. Maybe, Yeah, that's what I thought. Sure, No,
7:50
Speaker 1: this is this is an um out. That's what got me.
7:53
Speaker 1: And that's why you love Motley Crue so much. Sure
7:57
Speaker 1: it is alright, So um, should we talk a little
8:02
Speaker 1: bit about the history? I think so? Al right, Well
8:06
Speaker 1: we need to go back to World War Two in
8:08
Speaker 1: this case, and um, because World War Two was going on,
8:14
Speaker 1: there was there was there was a need for more
8:17
Speaker 1: poopers essentially because they had like manufacturing plants popping up,
8:24
Speaker 1: they had temporary manufacturing plants going up, They had places
8:27
Speaker 1: where they didn't want to build full service permanent bathrooms
8:33
Speaker 1: all over the place. All of a sudden, these people
8:35
Speaker 1: needed to go potty. Um what I saw I saw
8:39
Speaker 1: a few different origin stories, but the one I saw
8:41
Speaker 1: the most frequently was that the um shipbuilding docks at
8:46
Speaker 1: Long Beach during World War Two. They're building warships for
8:50
Speaker 1: the US. The guys working the docks would have to
8:55
Speaker 1: working building the ships would have to get on a
8:58
Speaker 1: rowboat and go back to the dock to use the bathroom.
9:01
Speaker 1: And this is no good. And they were like, this
9:02
Speaker 1: is a terrible waste of time. Can we just get
9:05
Speaker 1: something down the ship? So they started building temporary what
9:08
Speaker 1: amounted to the first porta potties there on the ships
9:12
Speaker 1: for them to use. Yeah, and these first ones, Um,
9:15
Speaker 1: you can look up a picture of the Andy Gump.
9:18
Speaker 1: Is that what it's called? I didn't see. I gotta
9:21
Speaker 1: look that up. I think it's the Andy Gump, like
9:23
Speaker 1: one of the just type in like nineteen forties porta
9:26
Speaker 1: potty and there will be a picture and it's basically
9:29
Speaker 1: this big, heavy metal square. Sometimes they were would, but
9:34
Speaker 1: they were super heavy and they weren't easily transported. Um
9:39
Speaker 1: they you know this is pre uh using like chemicals
9:44
Speaker 1: which we'll get into to help break these the poop
9:47
Speaker 1: poo down and stuff. So it was just a disgusting
9:50
Speaker 1: affair having trouble. Right now, I see the Andy Gump?
9:55
Speaker 1: You see it? Wow? It looks like, um, it looks
9:58
Speaker 1: safe to be in you know what it looks like.
10:00
Speaker 1: It looks like what they used on mash Yeah, like
10:03
Speaker 1: the latrine. Yeah, same idea. Basically, Yeah, it's just a latrine.
10:09
Speaker 1: You could take places. But I came across this really
10:13
Speaker 1: cool little thing on a website about World War two
10:17
Speaker 1: fighter pilots, and um, with World War Two came along
10:22
Speaker 1: planes that could stay in. These bombers, I could stay
10:25
Speaker 1: in the air for a lot longer, and they started
10:28
Speaker 1: to think like, Hey, these these dudes are up there
10:31
Speaker 1: for like, you know, ten to fourteen hours, we have
10:34
Speaker 1: to come up with ways for them to go to
10:36
Speaker 1: the bathroom, right, Yeah, I mean like you don't think
10:40
Speaker 1: about that. Like when we put the frost bite episode.
10:43
Speaker 1: I certainly didn't think that they were up there getting
10:45
Speaker 1: frostbite because it was so you know cold. I also
10:48
Speaker 1: didn't think that they were up there so long that
10:50
Speaker 1: they couldn't use the bathroom. They had to hold it, right,
10:53
Speaker 1: So yeah, And the earliest ones were, well, here's the
10:57
Speaker 1: funnel and it's attached to two tube and it leads
11:00
Speaker 1: out of the plane, so go ahead and p Yeah,
11:03
Speaker 1: and that's basically just for like the pilot and co
11:06
Speaker 1: pilot this relief tube. Um. After that, they're like, well,
11:10
Speaker 1: what do we have to poop? Yeah, they said, can
11:14
Speaker 1: you get your hands on a produced crate? And the
11:18
Speaker 1: crew would say like, well, yeah, sure, we have produced
11:21
Speaker 1: creative course, what are we commies and the people in
11:24
Speaker 1: charge to say, we'll poop in that? Take that up
11:26
Speaker 1: in the plane and just pooping that, buddy, and maybe
11:28
Speaker 1: wash it out when you get down here and put
11:31
Speaker 1: it back in for later use. Yeah, or maybe just
11:34
Speaker 1: get a new crate. I guess if you're not thrifty.
11:40
Speaker 1: Eventually they came up with something called the Elson E
11:42
Speaker 1: E L S A N. It's a chemical toilet and
11:45
Speaker 1: it was really kind of one of the first little
11:48
Speaker 1: porta potties. But if you look up Elson and on
11:52
Speaker 1: the images on Google, you will find that it's it
11:55
Speaker 1: looks like nothing more than a metal oil in that
12:01
Speaker 1: you sit on. It's basically what it was pretty much. Um,
12:05
Speaker 1: and you're all they're exposed. I mean, there's no room
12:08
Speaker 1: that this is in. You're just doing this in front
12:09
Speaker 1: of you know, your all your buddies on the plane,
12:12
Speaker 1: right like prison. Sure, and that I mean that that
12:15
Speaker 1: Elson toilet was still, I mean, as primitive as it was.
12:18
Speaker 1: It was an advancement, but it had certain problems, right
12:22
Speaker 1: like if you were flying through turbulence, that elson would
12:26
Speaker 1: spill its contents out into the plane. Yeah, there's a
12:33
Speaker 1: few quotes here. I'd like to read a couple of
12:34
Speaker 1: these from some of these fighter pilots. Um, here's one,
12:40
Speaker 1: and this is from a British pilot. While we were
12:43
Speaker 1: flying in rough air, this Devil's convenience often shared its
12:46
Speaker 1: contents with the floor of the aircraft, the walls and ceiling,
12:49
Speaker 1: and sometimes a bit remained in the container itself. It
12:53
Speaker 1: doesn't take much imagination to picture what it was like
12:55
Speaker 1: trying to combat fear and airsickness while struggling to remove
12:59
Speaker 1: enough gear and cramp quarters, and at the same time
13:01
Speaker 1: trying to use the bloody elson. If it wasn't an
13:04
Speaker 1: invention of the devil, it certainly might have been one
13:07
Speaker 1: foisted on us by the enemy. When seated in frigid cold,
13:10
Speaker 1: amid the cacophony of roaring engines and whistling air, away
13:13
Speaker 1: from what should have been one of life's peaceful moments,
13:16
Speaker 1: the occupant had a chance to fully ponder the miserable
13:18
Speaker 1: condition of his life. This lowsome creation, invariably overflowed on
13:22
Speaker 1: long trips and in turbulence, was always prone to bathe
13:25
Speaker 1: the nether regions of the user. It was one of
13:29
Speaker 1: the true reminders to me that war as hell, you
13:33
Speaker 1: don't think about this stuff. You hear about all the
13:35
Speaker 1: glory of being like a bomber pilot. You don't think
13:37
Speaker 1: about sitting on a can and having your your friends
13:41
Speaker 1: poop and pe slash up on your fannie. Sorry to
13:45
Speaker 1: those in the UK, doesn't even make sense in that context.
13:48
Speaker 1: That means something different here in the US. But right, so,
13:53
Speaker 1: uh yeah, that's the the first I guess chemical toilet,
13:58
Speaker 1: which is a designation of a porta potty, right, like
14:02
Speaker 1: a porta potty is a chemical toilet, but not all
14:04
Speaker 1: chemical toilets are porta parties. But a chemical toilet is
14:08
Speaker 1: any kind of toilet where you have um something in
14:12
Speaker 1: there that's intended to break down waste. And actually I
14:17
Speaker 1: don't know that an elson toilet, I guess it was
14:19
Speaker 1: a chemical toilet. I see now, but that's gross because
14:22
Speaker 1: in addition to getting the rest of the cruise poop
14:25
Speaker 1: and pe slopped up against your rear end, Um, so too,
14:29
Speaker 1: were you getting very very hazardous chemicals as well? Yeah,
14:35
Speaker 1: so that's a good man. That guy may have had
14:40
Speaker 1: his buttocks removed after the war. Uh. One of the
14:44
Speaker 1: uses of the toilet they said that this is supposedly
14:46
Speaker 1: very true, is that some members of the Royal Air
14:49
Speaker 1: Force um actually jettisoned the Elson toilets with their bomb
14:54
Speaker 1: payload onto German targets. So they would drop these toilets
14:58
Speaker 1: will apoo on the Germans. Mm hmm. And uh that
15:02
Speaker 1: was an American too, had a great quote about peeing
15:06
Speaker 1: through the little hose. He said, as the urine ran
15:09
Speaker 1: through the tube, it turned to ice and dropped like
15:11
Speaker 1: topaz colored hail to the ground. I like to imagine
15:14
Speaker 1: every time I urinated over Germany, my my acidulous projectile
15:20
Speaker 1: would plank on some Nazi Burger's aryan nose poetry. Yeah,
15:27
Speaker 1: there's some more good stories in here. You should, uh man.
15:30
Speaker 1: I don't remember which website it was. Yeah, I'll have to.
15:34
Speaker 1: I have to post that later on Facebook and I'll
15:37
Speaker 1: tweet it. All right. So that's the the war effort
15:42
Speaker 1: that eventually ultimately led to the creation of the porta potty, right,
15:47
Speaker 1: and and again like there were already latrines, there had
15:50
Speaker 1: already been out houses. And the difference between an out
15:54
Speaker 1: house and a porta potty is that and out houses
15:56
Speaker 1: basically some sort of rigid structure that's intended to be
16:02
Speaker 1: permanent or semipermanent, permanent that's dug over a hole in
16:05
Speaker 1: the ground. That's it. A porta potty is a self
16:09
Speaker 1: contained unit that has a place where the waste goes
16:17
Speaker 1: and is held inside that unit rather than like put
16:20
Speaker 1: into the ground, which is extremely dangerous that we learned
16:24
Speaker 1: a very long time ago. Pooping in holes in the
16:27
Speaker 1: ground is not a good way to go as far
16:29
Speaker 1: as public health is concerned. And that's one of the
16:32
Speaker 1: legitimate um marks in the favor of porta potts is
16:35
Speaker 1: gross as as most people who have ever used one
16:38
Speaker 1: thinks they are. They're actually, um, quite beneficial to public health. Yeah,
16:44
Speaker 1: and they're green too. Saves a lot of water. Yeah.
16:46
Speaker 1: I saw, um a hundred and seventy billion leaders a year,
16:52
Speaker 1: about a hundred and twenty five million gallons a day
16:54
Speaker 1: in the US alone. Yeah. So, um, you want to
16:59
Speaker 1: take a break for a second, Yeah, we'll break in.
17:01
Speaker 1: We'll talk a little bit more about the evolution of
17:03
Speaker 1: the porta John. Right after this should know y s
17:23
Speaker 1: a Dr Josh Clark. Alright, Chuckers, So we're talking about
17:34
Speaker 1: the evolution of the porta John. You've got the Andy Gump,
17:38
Speaker 1: You've got the Elson toilet, and then finally and actually
17:42
Speaker 1: the sixties, you have what is the what we think
17:48
Speaker 1: of as a porta potty. Um a patent was developed
17:52
Speaker 1: by a guy named George Harding Um and he called
17:55
Speaker 1: it for a portable toilet cabana and that was made
17:58
Speaker 1: from plastic and um. Although he had the patent for it,
18:02
Speaker 1: the guy who actually gets credit for actually creating the
18:05
Speaker 1: first real modern porta john reporta potty was a guy
18:09
Speaker 1: named Um Harvey Heather and he created what's called the
18:13
Speaker 1: Strong Box. It's a great name. Did you see Have
18:16
Speaker 1: you seen the Strong Box? Oh? You did? That's what
18:20
Speaker 1: I went and found the December two thousand nine UM
18:24
Speaker 1: issue of Pro magazine. Um to find because I saw
18:28
Speaker 1: a reference that they had published a picture of it,
18:31
Speaker 1: and I couldn't find it anywhere else. Those things are ugly, Yeah,
18:36
Speaker 1: it wasn't. It wasn't a great looking Uh, it's not
18:38
Speaker 1: like the fantastic port to John. Say, have today. Yeah,
18:42
Speaker 1: so gorgeous to look at right now. This thing was ugly. Yeah,
18:46
Speaker 1: it had no alibi. Uh. Yeah. And these were made
18:49
Speaker 1: of fiberglass, which, um, it was good. It was lightweight
18:54
Speaker 1: but um, and it was sturdy. It was as sturdy
18:57
Speaker 1: as metal or wood, and it was a lot easier
18:59
Speaker 1: to clean. But the problem with the strong box and
19:02
Speaker 1: the fiberglasses it was a big kind of one piece
19:05
Speaker 1: mold um. It was dark inside, which was not good. Uh.
19:11
Speaker 1: They weren't stackable as far as transporting them, and so
19:15
Speaker 1: that just made it really expensive to get them where
19:19
Speaker 1: they needed to go and back again. It did. And
19:22
Speaker 1: the fact that like it was completely opaque um and
19:25
Speaker 1: there was no light that could get in. That's that's
19:28
Speaker 1: an issue. Plus I also get the impression that the
19:31
Speaker 1: floors could get pretty slick and you could fall and
19:35
Speaker 1: die of physitional asphyxiation and important. Yeah. And they were
19:42
Speaker 1: also fiberglasses pretty fragile, so they would break a lot. Uh.
19:45
Speaker 1: Fiberglass absorbs odors, which was not good. Uh. And so
19:50
Speaker 1: shortly after the fiberglass came along, someone said, you know what,
19:53
Speaker 1: how about poly ethylene um. This is what we will use,
19:57
Speaker 1: and George Harding who you meant and co founded the
20:00
Speaker 1: Polly John Corporation, and he started building the polyethylene portable
20:05
Speaker 1: toilets that were much better because they lasted longer. They
20:08
Speaker 1: would last like a decade, although I would not want
20:11
Speaker 1: to use a nine year old port of John. Well,
20:15
Speaker 1: so the that picture of the strong box that was
20:17
Speaker 1: published in Pro magazine apparently had been out in service.
20:22
Speaker 1: It was still in service and it had been built
20:24
Speaker 1: like thirty years before. Well, yeah, you would know that
20:27
Speaker 1: your company could not have cared less about you if
20:31
Speaker 1: you show up to your job site and there's a
20:32
Speaker 1: strong box there. Yeah, and that's what you're expected to
20:36
Speaker 1: use with all of the with all of the possible
20:39
Speaker 1: choices that your company, uh could choose from, and they
20:42
Speaker 1: went with the strong box. They don't care about you
20:45
Speaker 1: or your happiness. The polyethylene and the other good thing
20:49
Speaker 1: about them where they were assembled into different parts and pieces.
20:53
Speaker 1: So it made him a lot easier to transport, a
20:55
Speaker 1: lot cheaper. Uh. And if apart broke, you might be
20:58
Speaker 1: able to replace it. Oh yeah, that that's kind of good.
21:03
Speaker 1: Makes sense. So hooray for poly ethylene toilets. But one
21:06
Speaker 1: of the things that George Harding um created in this
21:09
Speaker 1: patent that I noticed was a ventilation system. This is
21:13
Speaker 1: a big improvement, right, because when you're just piling human
21:16
Speaker 1: waste upon human waste into a hole, um that it's
21:20
Speaker 1: going to create gases, noxious gases, because bacteria is going
21:24
Speaker 1: to start decomposing that waste, and as a byproduct of
21:27
Speaker 1: that decomposition, they're going to produce what we see what
21:30
Speaker 1: we experience as rotting fecal material. Right, It's not just
21:35
Speaker 1: that it's stinky, it's dangerous. It is dangerous and as
21:39
Speaker 1: that gas tries to find a way to escape upward,
21:42
Speaker 1: if the only hole available to it is the toilet
21:45
Speaker 1: that you're pooping or peeing into, those gases are going
21:48
Speaker 1: to come out of it and you're going to vomit
21:51
Speaker 1: while you pooper p as well. So what George Harding
21:54
Speaker 1: had I told you this one is going to be cruts.
21:57
Speaker 1: But George Harding figured out was that if you could
22:00
Speaker 1: just basically create a pipe venting off that gas upward
22:05
Speaker 1: and out of the porter potty, people would be willing
22:09
Speaker 1: to use porter potties a lot more. And that was
22:11
Speaker 1: a huge improvement. Yeah, he also said, how about we
22:14
Speaker 1: make this rooftop translucent white, so we can let in
22:19
Speaker 1: some natural light. At least, why don't we improve the
22:22
Speaker 1: flooring so that it's not as slippy and um, Maybe
22:27
Speaker 1: even further down the line, we'll have porter potties that
22:29
Speaker 1: have a little urnal that's separate, so you don't even
22:32
Speaker 1: have to sit your butt down on that most horrid
22:36
Speaker 1: of places. Right, Yeah, what about the rollaround toilet? Did
22:42
Speaker 1: you see these? Yeah? Those? I mean that it makes sense.
22:45
Speaker 1: So basically, if you are on like a job site,
22:48
Speaker 1: right um, where there are like different multiple stories being
22:55
Speaker 1: built and you're up on one of the higher stories,
22:58
Speaker 1: it's the same thing as when you're working in the
23:00
Speaker 1: shipyards building a ship. You don't want to have to
23:02
Speaker 1: come all the way down to use the bathroom. So
23:04
Speaker 1: they created porta potties that were a lot more mobile,
23:08
Speaker 1: that could be um hoisted by cranes. Um. Just two
23:12
Speaker 1: different different levels. Yeah, if you look up roll around toilet,
23:16
Speaker 1: it basically looks like one of those um coolers that
23:20
Speaker 1: has the two wheels and the handle and you can
23:23
Speaker 1: pull the cooler around, except it's larger and um sitting
23:28
Speaker 1: above the wheels is a is a urinal, Right, I
23:32
Speaker 1: don't see how you go poopy in those, So maybe
23:34
Speaker 1: maybe that's when you go downstairs. Uh yeah, I don't
23:39
Speaker 1: know either because it's not enclosed or anything, and it's
23:41
Speaker 1: just wide open, just like prison. And there's actually a great, um,
23:46
Speaker 1: a great scene from I think the First Police Academy
23:49
Speaker 1: starring our friend and Twitter followers Steve Guttenberg and um,
23:56
Speaker 1: I think it's Mauser who uses a porta potty and
24:00
Speaker 1: Steve Guttenberg goes over and gets some some crane operator
24:04
Speaker 1: to lend him the crane. And now it's Mouser's um,
24:08
Speaker 1: his right hand man. I don't remember that guy's name,
24:11
Speaker 1: but they lift the porta potty up while he's inside
24:13
Speaker 1: using it. It's hilarious, wacky wacky stuff and sues. Uh.
24:18
Speaker 1: And then if you really are living the good life,
24:22
Speaker 1: or you have a maybe a really nice upscale wedding
24:26
Speaker 1: that's out in a remote area, you don't want to
24:29
Speaker 1: bring in just even the nicest polly ethylene porta John
24:33
Speaker 1: won't do. You will bring in what we call in
24:36
Speaker 1: in the movie business, a honey wagon. Um it is
24:40
Speaker 1: a restroom trailer. And these are actually nice. They are
24:45
Speaker 1: have running water, they have stalls, they have porcelain, uh, toilets,
24:50
Speaker 1: it's all partition. They have sinks and running water and mirrors,
24:54
Speaker 1: hand towels. It's like a rolling trailer full of toilets. Yeah.
25:00
Speaker 1: Like you can breathe through your nose in these things.
25:02
Speaker 1: You could lay down on the floor if you want to. Yeah.
25:04
Speaker 1: And apparently these first started in nineteen four h Polly
25:09
Speaker 1: John in Columbus, Ohio. Go buck, guys. Yeah, And the
25:13
Speaker 1: original trailer was eight stalls or as we said in
25:15
Speaker 1: the movie business, an eight banger at three journals, and
25:20
Speaker 1: it was thirty two ft long. And now there are
25:24
Speaker 1: nineteen companies manufacturing luxury restroom trailers around the world today. Yeah.
25:28
Speaker 1: I saw one um like that they market for like
25:31
Speaker 1: outdoor weddings and stuff like that. They said, all you
25:34
Speaker 1: need are like I think six outlets, maybe six and
25:38
Speaker 1: twenty bowl outlets. Yeah, and like standard garden hose connection.
25:43
Speaker 1: And you got yourself a luxury porter potty trailer. Yeah
25:46
Speaker 1: for your next remote black tie event. Right, what's I mean?
25:50
Speaker 1: Even people in black tie got a pee? Yeah, sure,
25:54
Speaker 1: so you might as well take it easy on them
25:56
Speaker 1: with a nice looks trailer. That's right. So, speaking of Chuck,
25:59
Speaker 1: you want to you want to take a break. Yeah,
26:00
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go to a real bathroom and hug it.
26:04
Speaker 1: And I'm going to get a crane operator to pull
26:07
Speaker 1: a prank on you. All right, we'll be right back.
26:21
Speaker 1: That's why you should know, Clark. Okay, chuck, Yep. We
26:39
Speaker 1: can't put it off any longer. We gotta go inside.
26:42
Speaker 1: We're gonna go inside, deep dive into the bowels of
26:47
Speaker 1: the porta pot Oh my gosh. Okay, okay, you're ready, Yeah,
26:51
Speaker 1: catch your snorkel. Okay. So when you look into a
26:56
Speaker 1: porter potty, you may notice that the stuff that's inside
27:00
Speaker 1: the bowl or inside the holding tank is blue. Yeah,
27:05
Speaker 1: and brown, but it's more blue than brown. And that's
27:09
Speaker 1: no accident, that's right. Any porta potty is going to
27:13
Speaker 1: use a deep blue dye. In the entire purpose, from
27:17
Speaker 1: beginning to end of the blue dye is to visually
27:20
Speaker 1: mask the presence of human feces. Yeah, they don't. They
27:24
Speaker 1: don't want you looking down there and seeing. Uh if
27:28
Speaker 1: it was just like clear, like it's already disgusting. You're
27:34
Speaker 1: you're getting the full experience from the smell alone. You
27:36
Speaker 1: don't need the visual and and you don't pooping these
27:39
Speaker 1: things to you? Oh no, okay, no, I I think
27:44
Speaker 1: I would just put my pants and walk around instead.
27:48
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think I would. I certainly don't
27:51
Speaker 1: remember ever pooping in it. It's possible I blacked out
27:54
Speaker 1: that memory, but I don't think I ever have it, right,
27:59
Speaker 1: I the only time I pooped in these. I'm sure
28:03
Speaker 1: there's been like some extreme emergency, But the only time
28:06
Speaker 1: I can really recall is when Emily and I were
28:09
Speaker 1: getting our master bath built at our house. Um, we
28:13
Speaker 1: had our own we had another little bathroom kind of
28:17
Speaker 1: you know, a little small guest bathroom, and we shared that,
28:21
Speaker 1: and then we had a construction toilet on site because
28:23
Speaker 1: they were doing construction. And so I would get up
28:26
Speaker 1: in the mornings exse. I didn't want to. I want
28:28
Speaker 1: to be a good husband, you know, and not ruin
28:30
Speaker 1: Emily's day in morning, um by getting in there first.
28:33
Speaker 1: So I would. I would get my newspaper and I
28:35
Speaker 1: would walk outside in my slippers and and use the
28:38
Speaker 1: port to john in my driveway every morning. But I mean,
28:42
Speaker 1: I guess it was pretty clean. It was yours, right,
28:44
Speaker 1: it was great. It was me and like you know,
28:45
Speaker 1: two or three dudes. That's that is doable. Festival no
28:51
Speaker 1: Taste of Chicago, Like, yes, there's there are like of course,
28:56
Speaker 1: like surely if you're sharing a porta potty with a
28:58
Speaker 1: couple of other people that you have to look at
29:00
Speaker 1: I hear there, you're gonna take care of it. But
29:02
Speaker 1: if it's random drunk strangers or people on drugs or
29:05
Speaker 1: something like that, you, uh, it's gonna get messy awfully fast.
29:10
Speaker 1: And and again it's more and more people use it,
29:12
Speaker 1: that blue dye becomes more and more important. Right, there's
29:17
Speaker 1: also gonna be a fragrance that they're gonna add to
29:20
Speaker 1: hopefully mass the odor. And apparently, well I was reading
29:24
Speaker 1: in some uh some trade magazines, and I haven't experienced
29:29
Speaker 1: it myself, but I did get the impression that they
29:32
Speaker 1: have come a long way as far as fragrance goes. Yeah,
29:37
Speaker 1: like I saw, um, you can get bubblegum fragrance. This
29:42
Speaker 1: doesn't sound good vanilla um that comes from just standard
29:49
Speaker 1: use of the Taste of Chicago. Yeah, I mean, you know,
29:52
Speaker 1: me with fragrance is period with it. It's even worse
29:55
Speaker 1: to um everything bagel. No. But like I came across
30:03
Speaker 1: the site and there's like a Jaguar brand porta potty
30:06
Speaker 1: fragrance additive, and they have like any fragrance you can imagine,
30:14
Speaker 1: wow uh. And then the finally final thing you're gonna
30:16
Speaker 1: see down there, or that it's going to be down
30:19
Speaker 1: there are biosides to kill the bacteria microbes and UM.
30:24
Speaker 1: Used to be that they would use formaldehyde uh to
30:28
Speaker 1: take care of that, but more and more wastewater treatment
30:31
Speaker 1: plants UM started saying, hey, we can't properly dispose of
30:34
Speaker 1: that stuff now carcinogen, and we don't feel good about it.
30:37
Speaker 1: So they've been phasing that out over the years, going
30:40
Speaker 1: a little greener and now UM they actually use enzymes
30:46
Speaker 1: like beneficial enzymes and microbes that feed on this stuff. Right,
30:51
Speaker 1: they feed they helped break down the poop, and they
30:53
Speaker 1: also feed on the bacteria that causes the smells. Right,
30:58
Speaker 1: So they're making the poop, and but they're also naturally
31:01
Speaker 1: cutting down and smells, which I just find fascinating. UM.
31:05
Speaker 1: They also, since it's capable of breaking down UM bacteria,
31:09
Speaker 1: it's also capable of breaking down UM any organic material,
31:13
Speaker 1: so that if you use the right kind of toilet paper,
31:16
Speaker 1: they'll break down the toilet paper as well. Yeah, it's
31:19
Speaker 1: just basically magic in a in a porter potty. Yeah.
31:22
Speaker 1: And they the other benefit there is they don't need
31:25
Speaker 1: to be emptied as often. Um, if it's doing the
31:28
Speaker 1: job like it should. Yeah. Um, weather has an effect obviously.
31:34
Speaker 1: If you're in Georgia in the hot summer, things are
31:37
Speaker 1: gonna get even worse. I imagine Chicago and July is
31:40
Speaker 1: probably no picnic either, and the taste of Chicago. No
31:44
Speaker 1: one's gonna go to the taste of Chicago anywhere you're
31:47
Speaker 1: like attended stop by this year. You don't know what's
31:50
Speaker 1: going on. But when temperatures go up, bacteria go to
31:54
Speaker 1: work even harder, and things are just gonna smell even worse.
31:58
Speaker 1: So they might actually use more chemicals and the summer
32:01
Speaker 1: um or more chemicals, especially if it's a summer festival.
32:06
Speaker 1: And then conversely, I saw this, I guess it was
32:09
Speaker 1: a blog post by a m porta potti worker, that
32:13
Speaker 1: was published on Cracked, and um, they basically just went
32:17
Speaker 1: over most of the stuff you can imagine, but just
32:21
Speaker 1: crazy stuff that they found. Um. But one of the
32:25
Speaker 1: things that they made reference to is that the worst
32:28
Speaker 1: thing that they can encounter is um for a frozen waste,
32:34
Speaker 1: because they said, once that happens, you have to break
32:36
Speaker 1: it up by hand. Ah, So to protect to defend
32:41
Speaker 1: their people from having to do this, they well, typically
32:44
Speaker 1: in colder, colder areas during the winter, they'll they'll create
32:48
Speaker 1: a briny mixture that will have a lower freezing temperature,
32:52
Speaker 1: like the Minnesota ice Fishing festival. Right, But eventually you're
32:55
Speaker 1: going to reach a point where it's cold enough that
32:57
Speaker 1: it's it's freezing no matter how much salt you add
33:00
Speaker 1: to it. Yeah, and I did see one of their
33:02
Speaker 1: little tricks of the trade is they put a a
33:05
Speaker 1: cake of this rock salt in the urinal, so you
33:08
Speaker 1: go peepy on it, and as you peep on it,
33:11
Speaker 1: it just adds a little more salt slowly throughout the day. Right.
33:14
Speaker 1: The only issue with those is that you have to
33:16
Speaker 1: keep the deer away because they love salt. Licks you
33:23
Speaker 1: like that one. Yeah, I'm ashamed of basically every joke
33:26
Speaker 1: I've made this whole episode. I don't feel good about
33:29
Speaker 1: myself right now. All right, So uh, let's finish up
33:32
Speaker 1: by talking about the really the worst part of this.
33:35
Speaker 1: If you're one of like eight people still listening, Uh,
33:40
Speaker 1: if you're still listening, then we'll finish up with the
33:43
Speaker 1: worst part, which is servicing these things. And we talked
33:46
Speaker 1: about it. It's like a wet back. You suck it out,
33:50
Speaker 1: drive it to a waste water plant. But uh, you
33:54
Speaker 1: have to add new water. You have to add new
33:57
Speaker 1: blue junk, uh and some more or dry solution. And
34:01
Speaker 1: I saw I saw like a ratio of one to
34:03
Speaker 1: one about fresh water to solution. We don't want to
34:07
Speaker 1: mess that up. Uh. And you think like, all right,
34:10
Speaker 1: so that's pretty gross and everything. But um, especially at
34:15
Speaker 1: like a music festival or something, there's stuff everywhere, Like
34:19
Speaker 1: you've been in these there's there's urine everywhere, there's poop
34:23
Speaker 1: and places where you think, like what in the world
34:25
Speaker 1: was someone doing in there? And they have to be
34:27
Speaker 1: cleaned out by somebody. It's an awful job. Yeah, there's
34:31
Speaker 1: um stuff that people drop down there, Like if you
34:34
Speaker 1: use the sock to wipe your bottom with and you
34:37
Speaker 1: just deposit the sock into the porta potty, that's gonna
34:41
Speaker 1: as you jump up the tank or the pump. Um.
34:45
Speaker 1: So they have to get that kind of stuff out first.
34:47
Speaker 1: What about your cell phone cell phone? Yeah, apparently they
34:50
Speaker 1: find all sorts of stuff, especially things like phones, wallets
34:54
Speaker 1: full of cash, jewelry, drugs, gun yeah, guns. I that
35:00
Speaker 1: correct guy said that, Um he had a friend who
35:04
Speaker 1: showed up at a porta potty where they just found
35:06
Speaker 1: a body. Oh my god. Yeah, and the thing now
35:10
Speaker 1: in the porta potty, not in the actual hole. That's
35:14
Speaker 1: just cruel. Yeah, but um, yeah, they find all sorts
35:17
Speaker 1: of stuff because almost everybody would say, well, that's gone.
35:22
Speaker 1: I'll just have to get a new identity because I
35:24
Speaker 1: dropped my whole wallet into porta potty. Actually, I saw
35:27
Speaker 1: a stat where five percent of people that go into
35:29
Speaker 1: porta potties don't come out at all. So right, the
35:31
Speaker 1: dead body scenario makes sense. They end up in that
35:34
Speaker 1: other dimension from phantasm. Uh. And then our article says,
35:41
Speaker 1: the worst case scenario if you're a porta potty service
35:44
Speaker 1: person is uh that the porta potty, Well, there's two
35:49
Speaker 1: worst case, one worse and one way worse. One is
35:53
Speaker 1: if it just gets knocked over, either by a car
35:56
Speaker 1: hitting it, or the wind, or some jerk you think
36:00
Speaker 1: it's funny, that's not cool, knocks it not cool at all,
36:03
Speaker 1: knocks it over on purpose. But the ultimate ultimate worst
36:06
Speaker 1: is if it tips over on its door. That's its
36:10
Speaker 1: achilles heel, any porta potties achilles heel, because what happens,
36:15
Speaker 1: all of the stuff that's in the holding tank gets
36:18
Speaker 1: dumped out. When it's facing on its front on the door,
36:23
Speaker 1: all of the stuff is liable to come out, and
36:25
Speaker 1: it does, especially when they pick it back up. It
36:27
Speaker 1: just slashes around everywhere, and the poor porta potty service
36:30
Speaker 1: operator has to wash this thing out. And those are
36:34
Speaker 1: the worst. Like it, Like somebody can put poop like
36:37
Speaker 1: on the ceiling or on the walls or something that's
36:40
Speaker 1: pretty bad. But when it falls on its front on
36:43
Speaker 1: the door and everything slashes out, it gets everywhere, so
36:46
Speaker 1: you have to like get inside to clean the whole thing.
36:49
Speaker 1: And at the very least, it takes them a lot
36:51
Speaker 1: more time and screws up their entire day's schedule. At
36:55
Speaker 1: the worst, they're in there cleaning a filthy porta potties
36:58
Speaker 1: nook and crannies from the inside. Yeah, I would just
37:02
Speaker 1: say it fell off the truck, boss, right, Sorry, it's
37:06
Speaker 1: in that phantasm to mention, Boss, didn't Jack asked do
37:10
Speaker 1: one of these, like put one of them in there
37:12
Speaker 1: and tip it over or something. Yeah, I'm sure I
37:15
Speaker 1: think they did that when they were like four. Yeah,
37:19
Speaker 1: I think they did, like I had a crane lift
37:20
Speaker 1: it and turn it over something. I don't know. No,
37:22
Speaker 1: you're thinking police academy and also police academy geeks. You
37:26
Speaker 1: don't have to write in it was Police Academy three.
37:28
Speaker 1: So I was about to say I didn't remember that.
37:33
Speaker 1: You didn't see what na I think I petered out
37:37
Speaker 1: after two even three might have been the best of
37:40
Speaker 1: all of them, which is that what was the full
37:43
Speaker 1: name of it? Uh? Citizens on Patrol? Okay, it's the
37:47
Speaker 1: one where Bob Goldthwaite like goes over from his life
37:50
Speaker 1: of crime to being a junior police academy guy. Yeah,
37:55
Speaker 1: I love Bob Goldthwaite. But good, he's great. Can we stop, sure, man, Okay,
38:02
Speaker 1: we have to say you got anything else? No? Okay, Chuck, Well,
38:06
Speaker 1: actually I do know. If you see these porta potty
38:10
Speaker 1: service people in your neighborhood, if there's construction going on,
38:14
Speaker 1: you see them, bring in the truck, just flash a
38:17
Speaker 1: nice smile, give him a tip of the cap. It's
38:20
Speaker 1: a really gnarly job, and like they say, somebody's got
38:23
Speaker 1: to do it. They're making a living like they've got
38:26
Speaker 1: a job. They went out and got that job to
38:29
Speaker 1: make money and provide for their family. And don't forget,
38:31
Speaker 1: they're defending public health and they're saving a significant amount
38:36
Speaker 1: of water. So there you go, nice chuck, all right,
38:39
Speaker 1: good way to finish. If you want to know more
38:42
Speaker 1: about porta potties, you can type those that hyphenated word
38:45
Speaker 1: on the search bar at how stuff works dot com.
38:48
Speaker 1: And since they said hyphen it's time for listening. Now
38:53
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this quick. John please uh direction or
38:57
Speaker 1: John please exactly. Congratulations on an absolutely marvelous episode concerning
39:03
Speaker 1: Monty Python guys. It's great to hear so much of
39:05
Speaker 1: the history of the group. Well done. One bit of information.
39:08
Speaker 1: I happen to see John Klees present a one man
39:12
Speaker 1: show a few years ago in Carmel, California. He just
39:14
Speaker 1: stood on stage and talked for about seventy five minutes.
39:17
Speaker 1: Um boy, that's a good gig. He discussed his life
39:21
Speaker 1: in general, Python in particular, and lots of things. Other
39:24
Speaker 1: things he noticed noted that his name is pronounced to
39:29
Speaker 1: rhyme with cheese rather than fleece. In fact, his surname
39:33
Speaker 1: was originally Cheese, but his father changed it to CLEAs. Uh.
39:40
Speaker 1: This was a good thing for the Sun being named
39:41
Speaker 1: John because he did not want to go by Jack Cheese. Yeah,
39:46
Speaker 1: I guess not, so it's John Clees. Never knew that
39:49
Speaker 1: that's from David Hewett. Yeah. And um, I also want
39:52
Speaker 1: to say, Chuck, somebody called us out for not mentioning
39:56
Speaker 1: Carol Cleveland. She was, for all intents and purposes, he
40:00
Speaker 1: seventh member of Monty Python. Yeah. We felt terrible because
40:04
Speaker 1: she was in our notes and we mentioned her and
40:08
Speaker 1: lavish praise on her and our runthrough that we did
40:10
Speaker 1: in the studio and it was just one of those
40:12
Speaker 1: live show things that get got biased. Yep. So sorry,
40:15
Speaker 1: Carol Cleveland, We uh, hats off to you. We appreciate
40:20
Speaker 1: your work and we're sorry we left you out. Agreed. Uh.
40:23
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with me, your Chuck,
40:26
Speaker 1: you can tweet to us. I'm at joshuam Clark and
40:28
Speaker 1: there's also s Y s K podcast. Chuck's at Charles W.
40:32
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant on Facebook and at Stuff you Should Know
40:34
Speaker 1: on Facebook. You can send the both of us and
40:37
Speaker 1: Jerry an email to Stuff Podcasts at how Stuff works
40:40
Speaker 1: dot Com and has always hang out with us at
40:42
Speaker 1: our home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot
40:44
Speaker 1: com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
40:53
Speaker 1: Is it how stuff Works dot Com