In their 4,000-year-long history, toilets have been through a lot.
But I bet they've never seen something like this...
What if everyone on the planet
coordinated to perform the biggest "flush mob" in history?
Pushing all the wastewater in the world down the drain, all at once?
This is WHAT IF,
and here's what would happen
if everyone on Earth flushed at the same time.
Don't be shy, we humans spend about 13 months of our life going to the toilet.
Flushing may seem boring and routine,
but only for two-thirds of the world's population.
About 2.4 billion people lack access to proper sanitation.
But that leaves us with over 5 billion "flush mob" participants.
What's the worst that could happen?
The effect of the big flush would be anywhere from "not much happened"
to epic pipe explosions.
And yes, the waste could back up into your home.
The moment you flush your toilet,
your waste goes down the pipe and flows into a sewer system.
First, it goes through a system of pipes under the street.
Then, it runs into progressively bigger pipes
all the way to your local wastewater treatment plant.
The treatment plant pipes are designed
to hold a whole lot of wastewater.
But are they big enough for everyone to flush at the same time?
That's not something we can know for sure until we try.
It could get ugly.
The first thing to get overwhelmed by the vast amount of waste
would be the lift stations.
These are stations that serve to push your waste uphill
toward its final destination -
the treatment plant.
But you can only push so much poop up the pipe.
Eventually, the pipe gets overwhelmed, and can't handle anymore wastewater.
At that point, it would back up to where it all started -
Your toilet would begin to overflow
with substances that were supposed to be delivered to the treatment plant.
And it wouldn't stop there.
The overflow would fill up every wastewater line in your home,
including your shower, your sink,
even your washing machine.
Not all of our pipes will be able to handle this excess.
Many will begin exploding underground
and flooding the streets with waste.
Yuk. That's quite a mess.
But it's not necessarily going to happen this way.
You see, we might flush all our toilets simultaneously,
but that doesn't mean that the waste will make it to the sewer system
at the exact same time.
Your waste might have to travel a further distance
than the waste of your friend who is flushing two blocks away.
This means that the pipes might still be able to handle the "flushpocalypse,"
depending on how good the sewer system is where you live.
In that case, the worst thing to come out of this "flush mob"
would simply be a big ol' waste of water.
And while you're flushing freely without guilt,
some people live each day without that luxury.
Making do outdoors,
they might pollute their own water sources and get sick from water-borne diseases.
If only we had a cure-all for every illness...
would we become immortal?
Well, that's a question for another WHAT IF.