Introduction

Tim Harford in his book, Fifty Things that Made the Modern History,listed the S-bend as one crucial invention . He noted that in 1800’s, as London’s population  expanded in number, the city’s system for disposing of human waste became woefully inadequate. The main system used then was cesspits, which were prone to leaking, overflowing and generating significant odour. A number of inventors came out with solutions to address this human waste problem. One prominent inventor was Alexander Cummings, who was known for mastery of precision mechanics. However, his well-known invention was a pipe with a curve in it.

In 1775, Cummings patented the S-bend. This became the missing part to create the flushing toilet, which led to public sanitation as we know it today, according to Tim Harford. Previously, flushing toilet was a failure due to the problem of smell: the pipe that connected the toilet to the sewer,allowing urine and human waste to be flushed away, would also let  sewer odours waft back-up, unless an airtight seal could be developed.

Cumming’s solution was simple: bend the pipe. Water settled in the “dip”, stopping smells  coming up;flushing the toilet replenished the water. His design had a sliding valve in the outlet above the tap. The design is still used today.  

We all should be thankful to Cummings for giving us the personal convenience in managing our daily needs.  We noted the modern toilet only touched our live in the early 1970s. Before that we used rivers, small streams, small ponds and open space. Many times, especially in early mornings, there were many people lining up the river in our village. Personal convenience vastly improved when the Malaysian government provided subsidies to Malaysian families to build outdoor toilets using bucket of water to flush the toilet. What a total relief for all of us, especially for women folk.

Now, we have modern indoor toilet in our house. We spend a lot of time sitting on it while surfing the internet, read book or magazine and even answer emails.

A Lot of People Still Do Not Have Toilets

Yet, there are more than 2.3 billion of people still without basic sanitation according to Guy Hutton, a senior adviser for water, sanitation and hygiene with UNICEF, when he was quoted in the Staronline, a Malaysian newspaper on 6.11.2018.

In addition, according to WHO, more than half of the volume of human waste escapes into the environment untreated.

The “toilet” problem has attracted the attention of Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda. The Bill and Melinda Foundation spent US$200 million over seven years funding sanitation research, developing some 20 novel toilets and sludge processing designs and convert bodily waste into clean water and fertilizer.

Conclusion

The S-bend and flushing toilet have improved the quality of lives of billion of people worldwide. However, a significant number of the world’s population is still inaccessible to basic sanitation. Thanks, we have philanthropists like Bill Gates and Melinda who saw the need to solve this basic human sanitation.We are afraid that one day, these people have no more open space to bury their waste!