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Living in an isolated environment, off of the city grid, requires some thought about what you do with waste, especially of the human variety. \u00a0Since arriving in Antarctica, we have used a variety of different toilets.\u00a0 And I know some of you are curious about what toilets are like here in Antarctica.<\/p>\n
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When we first arrived in Antarctica, we spent part of a day at a Norwegian airstrip, Troll.\u00a0 Because the airstrip is about 10km away from the research station, they had set up temporary tents to house us while we waited for our small plane flight to the Belgian station.\u00a0 As part of that tent city, there were two toilet tents.\u00a0 These toilet tents were round tents that were 10 feet in diameter and tall enough to stand up inside.\u00a0 However, inside there was only a used fuel drum set into the snow with a toilet seat on top and a simple wooden shelf that had wipes and toiletpaper on it.\u00a0 For this toilet, there were no set rules about what could go into the drum; human waste and paper products were all allowed.Once we left the Norwegian airstrip, we flew on to an airstrip at a Russian Station, Novo.\u00a0 At this Russian airstrip, there were two containers that had toilets.\u00a0 One container was painted like a zebra, which quite honestly was an odd sight for being in Antarctica.\u00a0 The toilets at Novo were such that you did your business and paper into a plastic bag that drops unsealed into a drum below the container.<\/p>\n
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Here at the Belgian station, three different types of toilets. There are urinals for men, a pee only toilet for women and a special toilet for the poo.\u00a0 The urinals and pee only toilet are no different than what you see at home, with the only major difference being that toilet paper put in separate garbage.\u00a0 In the Arctic, we have used toilets where the toilet paper separated from the rest of the waste, so this part of using a toilet here at the station was no different than other field we have done.\u00a0 The big difference here is the special poo toilet.\u00a0 Normally, at the station the human waste is treated in a bioreactor. Ideally, the black water (human waste) should only contribute 10 to 20% of the wastewater to the bioreactor, with the remaining amount of water coming from grey water (showers, sinks etc.).\u00a0 However, right now because there are more people at the station, we are using these special poo toilets.<\/p>\n
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The poo toilets here are special portable toilets that are made in Japan.\u00a0 If you do a Google search for \u201cportable Japanese toilets\u201d you will find that there is a big market for them.\u00a0 Who knew?\u00a0 The Japanese toilets we have here are the \u201cWrappon Trekker 3\u201d, which wraps and seals your waste into a plastic bag.\u00a0 For the men of the station, they are only supposed to poo in this toilet.\u00a0 For the women of the station, we are actually allowed to do both pee and poo.\u00a0 Why the difference you ask? Some of it is because this waste is shipped back to Africa and pee is more weight to ship out.\u00a0 Some of it is also because when you pee in these Japanese toilets, you need to add a powder that jellifies the urine.<\/p>\n
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These Japanese toilets are funny because after you finish your business, you need to push the button to seal the bag.\u00a0 It takes two minutes to finish the sealing process.\u00a0 That means you need to wait beside the toilet for two minutes to collect your poo bag and deposit in the garbage.\u00a0 Otherwise, you are leaving an unfortunate present for the next user.\u00a0 These two minutes can be quite awkward because you are hanging out in the bathroom while others may come in to use it.\u00a0However, the Wrappon people provide a multipage comic book about how to use the toilets and change to a new roll of bags.\u00a0 This comic book is taped to the wall in a few of the bathrooms here.\u00a0 Therefore reading this comic is one way you can pass your two minutes.<\/p>\n
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If nothing else, this whole experience of using toilets in Antarctica has made me think about how to deal with human waste.\u00a0 Back in the \u201creal world\u201d, there are toilets that you can purchase where you can separate your pee and your poo, which is important to do if you want to treat the waste yourself or in a more ecological way without smell.\u00a0 Someone here has a friend who has this type of toilet on his boat.\u00a0 The idea is that if the poo does not stay wet, and dries out, and then it does not smell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Living in an isolated environment, off of the city grid, requires some thought about what you do with waste, especially of the human variety. \u00a0Since arriving in Antarctica, we have used a variety of different toilets.\u00a0 And I know some of you are curious about what toilets are like here in Antarctica. When… <\/p>\n