What Happens To Toilet Waste From An Airliner?
I know planes are not supposed to dump waste, but most of us have heard of many so called blue ice incidents, which refers to waste from airliners landing on people’s houses.
So my questions are, “Where do planes jettison the waste, and if they don’t, then why does it sometimes fall to earth?”.
I have seen signs in train toilets which read, “Please do not flush while train is in a station”, which always made me wonder!
I hesitated to answer this because it will be my second reply to a question about toilets.
Anyway, after overcoming my fear and vanity I decided to reply
The name BlueIce comes from the blue color of the disinfectant used in airline toilets and it’s poking fun at the Blue Ice line of products used for ice chests and similar things.
Airlines are not allowed to dump their waste tanks in mid-flight, and pilots have no mechanism by which to so, even if they wanted to.
All waste is collected in tanks which are later emptied on the ground by special toilet waste vehicles and a vacuum is used to allow the toilet to be flushed.
Leaks happen however and the frozen material that is formed by the leaks in commercial aircraft lavatory waste tanks, is a mixture of human waste and liquid disinfectant, that freezes at high altitude, so when it comes crashing down, it often resembles, blue ice.
As for train toilets, it very much depends on the age of the trains!
On older trains, some of which are still in existence, the toilet empties straight onto the tracks.
On modern trains however. the waste is flushed into a tank, which is later emptied in a similar way to the chemical toilets that are to be found at festivals and in caravans.
This post got me laughing and thinking at the same time.lol…Thanks to your reply, i got enlightened;)
The question is on which usually they do dump their waste tanks?
“What Happens To Toilet Waste From An Airliner?”
lol this is funny. I never thought of this before, after reading this post it suddenly comes to my mind and I also wonder bout it but thanks to you knopfman you just feed me the answer and because of that It ended my confusions . Thanks!
Ewww… I knew about the yellow snow, but I had no idea you needed to worry about blue ice as well. I guess you learn something new every day.