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The idea of an outhouse seems pretty uncomfortable - having to leave your home just to go to the bathroom, sometimes in the freezing cold or pouring rain, but it turns out that outhouses might be safer than the toilets in modern bathrooms. That's because when you flush your toilet, according to scientists, you are releasing a "toilet plume" filled with germs and bacteria like Legionella, noroviruses and E. coli - some of which can be deadly.
Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder were able to use lasers to illustrate how it and they published what they discovered in Scientific Reports. Speaking about those discoveries, lead author John Crimaldi stated, "People have known that toilets emit aerosols, but they haven’t been able to see them. We show that this thing is a much more energetic and rapidly spreading plume than even the people who knew about this understood."
They concluded that some flushes create what they call a "strong chaotic jet," a cloud of nasty stuff that can reach a height of nearly five feet and a speed of 6.6 feet per second. Smaller particles in the jet can linger in the air for hours and land on bathroom surfaces and objects - even your toothbrush, making you sick.
The scientists shared a video of their discovery, explaining, "If it's something you can’t see, it's easy to pretend it doesn't exist. But once you see these videos, you're never going to think about a toilet flush the same way again. By making dramatic visual images of this process, our study can play an important role in public health messaging."
Thankfully, there is a very easy way to prevent the cloud of bacteria from spraying across your bathroom - close your toilet's lid before you flush.