Channel: Destination Tips

Category: Travel & Events

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Description: Poo raining down from the sky! People getting their intestines sucked out! Or people getting pierced by an icicle made of urine! There are a lot of legends and myths about airplane lavatories, but what really happens when you poop on a plane? 1. Loud and fast. When you flush a vacuum toilet it roars like it's firing your waste into outer space, but that noise is just the vacuum sucking the waste down through the pipework. The force is such, that the waste actually travels faster than a formula one car. 2. No Dumping. Contrary to common belief an aircraft toilet doesn't evacuate waste into the sky, neither does the pilot have a button that allows them to dump this excess weight. The waste from the toilets travels through pipes to a rear storage tank that can only be accessed and cleaned from the outside of the plane by special waste disposal trucks designed for that purpose. 3. Vacuum loo. Traditional siphon toilets can't be used on an airplane because they use too much water and the waste in the tank could come back out of the toilet when the plane descends, to solve this problem, James Kemper invented and patented the Vacuum toilet in 1975 to be used together with a blue disinfectant liquid known as Skykem. 4. Waste tank Even though the vacuum toilet uses about seven times less water than a traditional toilet, a fully occupied 747 on a long-haul flight will produce around 1000 liters of wastewater. That's about as much as it takes to fill a 6 person jacuzzi, although thanks to the Skykem, it probably contains fewer bacteria. 5. Blue Ice. There have been several cases of homes being hit by blue ice, this ice is caused by human waste and Skykem leaking out from the external valve, onto the undercarriage and freezing, then, as the plane descends to land this blue ice becomes loose and falls. 6. Intestine myth. Even though airplane toilets used to have disclaimers about flushing whilst seated, there isn't really any danger involved in doing so. Even an obese person can't actually create an airtight seal whilst sitting on the toilet because the toilet seat and the bowl have a gap between them. Even if you were to use the toilet without the seat by sitting directly on the bowl, the negative pressure caused by the vacuum wouldn't be enough to suck out your intestines. 7. Dirty Now you no longer have to fear falling poop or getting your guts sucked out by a toilet you may feel better about flushing an airplane's toilet but you should still be cautious, the number of people using the same bathroom means that there are a huge amount of bacteria and germs in there. Use a paper towel to push the flush button and then wash your hands, dry your hands with another paper towel, and then use it to open the door before throwing it in the trash. We hope you enjoyed this video, let us know in the comments, and please like and subscribe for more! Get more Tips here! destinationtips.com