Posts by Phlush
Exclusion by design: a slippery ride
This guest post from Rhonda Cheryl Solomon, master’s degree in Regional and Urban Planning Studies and proprietor of the Gotta Go: Examining Public Toilet Provision in the City blog, is third in our series to celebrate World Toilet Day on November 19 with the launch of PHLUSH Public Toilet Advocacy Toolkit. Before a city installs…
Read MoreUS capital city lacks public toilets: People for Fairness Coalition launches critical initiative
This guest post from People for Fairness Coalition (PFFC) is second in our series to celebrate World Toilet Day on November 19 with the launch of PHLUSH Public Toilet Advocacy Toolkit. People living in, working in, and visiting European and Asian capitals take it for granted that, when they need to go, they will find…
Read MoreAustin’s Trail Restroom is a stylish and functional sculpture
To celebrate World Toilet Day on November 19, PHLUSH is launching a Public Toilet Advocacy Toolkit. Today, we also begin a series of guest blog posts on restroom initiatives. The first in our series is by Kaitlin Krull. She is an Austin, Texas writer who covers design for Modernize. Photos are by Paul Finkel used…
Read MoreLegalize Sustainable Sanitation
“Legalize Sustainable Sanitation” is Molly Danielsson Winter’s prepared testimony on behalf of H.375, the bill that is currently under review in Vermont to expand and incentivize the use of ecological toilets and greywater systems. Molly is Director of Recode, a Portland-based nonprofit whose mission is to ensure access and accelerate adoption of sustainable building and…
Read MoreFacing Facts: A Critique of Legacy Wastewater Treatment Systems
Hearings in the Vermont House of Representatives earlier this month give a penetrating and carefully documented look into the issues we are researching at PHLUSH. House Bill 375, sponsored by Representative Teo Zagar seeks to expand and incentivize the use of ecological toilets and greywater systems. Now that much of the extensive testimony organized by…
Read MoreEnacting Awareness: Water, Waste, and Public Space
With last Friday’s whimsical 5K walk, activists at the University of California at Santa Cruz focused attention on often-evaded issues. “Slugs to Sludge” was created as a playful way to raise awareness of sewage infrastructure and the water it requires, and to advocate for action on ecological sanitation at UCSC and beyond. With the average…
Read MoreGlobal Homeless Day: Toilet Solutions from France for the USA
“The restroom thus becomes a tool for figuring out just how a society functions – what it values, how it separates people from one another, and the kinds of trade-offs that come to be made,” says sociologist Harvey Moltoch. While we at PHLUSH believe in safe and accessible toilets for all people (families, children, those…
Read MoreStaying human through hygiene while houseless
Living houseless in an urban environment requires personal savvy and logistic skill. Days are often an endless series of searches, lines, and waits: finding the next meal, a safe place to sleep, a public restroom. Here at PHLUSH, we see toilet availability as a human right and advocate for building urban public restrooms that serve…
Read MorePoo to Peaches – Educating the Next Generation of Composting Toilet Users
Guest post by Stephen Thomas of Watershed Management Group. Every day, the average person flushes 10 gallons of clean drinking water down the toilet. This constitutes a waste of two precious resources: scarce water supplies and human manure, which could instead be composted to form a fertile soil amendment. While there are various commercial composting…
Read MoreWorld Toilet Day 2014 Recap
World Toilet Day on November 19 brought such a deluge of articles, new reports, infographics, and videos that it’s taken us until now to work through them. International media outlets, when compared to those in the United States, often better convey dynamic technicalities of sanitation systems on multiple scales. But after a review of many…
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