Pipe Dreams: The Urgent Global Quest to Transform the Toilet

By Chelsea Wald

Book Overview

Finalist for the 2022 NASW Science in Society Journalism Award
Longlisted for the 2022 AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Books

From an award-winning science journalist, a "deeply researched, entertaining, and impassioned exploration of sanitation" (Nature) and the future of the toilet--for fans of popular science bestsellers by Mary Roach.

Most of us do not give much thought to the centerpiece of our bathrooms, but the toilet is an unexpected paradox. On the one hand, it is a modern miracle: a ubiquitous fixture in a vast sanitation system that has helped add decades to the human life span by reducing disease. On the other hand, the toilet is also a tragic failure: less than half of the world's population can access a toilet that safely manages body waste, including many right here in the United States. And it is inefficient, squandering clean water as well as the nutrients, energy, and information contained in the stuff we flush away. While we see radical technological change in almost every other aspect of our lives, we remain stuck in a sanitation status quo--in part because the topic of toilets is taboo.

Fortunately, there's hope--and Pipe Dreams daringly profiles the growing army of sewage-savvy scientists, engineers, philanthropists, entrepreneurs, and activists worldwide who are overcoming their aversions and focusing their formidable skills on making toilets accessible and healthier for all.

This potential revolution in sanitation has many benefits, including reducing inequalities, mitigating climate change and water scarcity, improving agriculture, and optimizing health. Author Chelsea Wald takes us on a wild world tour from a compost toilet project in Haiti, to a plant in the Netherlands that salvages used toilet paper from sewage, and shows us a toilet seat that can watch users' poop for signs of illness, among many other fascinating developments.

"Toilet humor is one thing, but toilet fact, as digested by skilled science writer Wald, is quite another...[Pipe Dreams is] a highly informative, well-reasoned call to rethink the throne" (Kirkus Reviews).

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1982116218
• ISBN13: 9781982116217
• Release Date: April 2021
• Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.09 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

For anyone with a curiosity in how things work , how we got there and where we are going

Most of us don't think about what happens when we flush nor the infrastructure behind it. We would like to believe that conventional Western wastewater system functions efficiently and effectively, but does it? In this book you learn about Roman toilets, dry toilets, biogas, vermicomposting, vacuum toilets, bidets, smart sewers, fatbergs, reuse challenges, phosphorus, pollution, manual emptying, social and environmental justice, and so much more. Even for veteran wastewater and sanitation experts, this is captivating read with many different perspectives distilled. Wald takes you on a journey of the different systems; a journey that takes the reader around the world, including Haiti, India, South Africa, USA, the Netherlands, the UK. It's a fascinating journey with personal reflection and a few toilet jokes. While a deep investigation with sobering facts, it is cleverly written and easy to read. You certainly don't need a science degree, just a curiosity in how one of society's fundamental systems works. I truly enjoyed reading Pipe Dreams!