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BBC: Why is human waste falling from India's skies?

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D

Dalek

Member
Why is human waste falling from India's skies?

In India, as in many other countries around the world, it is considered good luck when a bird poos on you.

But as an unfortunate Indian woman has discovered, there is nothing lucky about being hit by other kinds of falling excrement.

The Times of India reports that Rajrani Gaud from Madhya Pradesh suffered a severe shoulder injury when she was hit by a football-sized chunk of ice last month.

Her injuries could have been much worse, according to eyewitnesses. They say she only avoided being killed because the icy ball crashed into the roof of a house before hitting her.
And the strong suspicion now is that it this chilly projectile was composed of more than just frozen water.

The newspaper claims that aviation scientists believe she may well have had the misfortune to become one of an incredibly rare group: people who have been hit by what the airline industry coyly calls "blue ice".

That's its euphemism for the frozen human waste that very occasionally forms around the overflow outlets for aeroplane toilets, and then falls to earth. "Blue" because of the chemicals added to the toilets in planes to reduce odour and break down the waste.
Blue ice falls are unusual, but not unheard of.

Plane toilets store human waste in special tanks. These are normally disposed of by ground crews once the plane has landed, but international aviation authorities acknowledge that lavatory leaks can occur in the air.
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B

Betta Lines

Member
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A

Anion

Member
That story with the family in the US LOL
Out of nowhere from the sky comes a bunch of faeces," the girl's stepfather, Joe Cambray, told a local television station.
"We'd just gotten done with the cake, thank God," said his sister, Kristie Rogy.
"Because within two minutes something fell from the sky. It was brown. It was everywhere. It got on everything… it was gross".
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Is this even real life lmao
 
A

Any Questions

Member
Mohonky said:
Hey, there's nothing wrong with going to the beach to feel the sand......and shit between your toes
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My wife got of the train in Delhi, walked onto the street and a bloke squatted right in front of her, glared her in the eye and shat right there on the street.

The dirty beast didn't even have the decency to use the road, but left his spoor right there in the middle of the pavement as you exit the station.

WTF!

Am guessing he didn't worry about wiping or washing his hands. A simple shit and go man. I mean who wants the inconvenience of using a toilet when you need to go about your daily routine.
 
Battersea Power Station

Battersea Power Station

Member
What a stupid article and title by the BBC. Here's all this story was worth:

A woman in India was struck and seriously injured by falling ice most likely containing waste from an airplane toilet. While the incident is shocking and distasteful, such accidents have been known to happen periodically.

We'll follow up with major airlines to see what the causes are and why the problem hasn't been eliminated yet.

Instead, they dressed it up with childish references to "icky poop" and invited unrelated discussion to India's waste management problems (which are important but deserve their own story).
 
I

industrian

will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
BennyBlanco said:
I'm so confused why UNICEF would make a video encouraging people to shit in toilets
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Any Questions said:
My wife got of the train in Delhi, walked onto the street and a bloke squatted right in front of her, glared her in the eye and shat right there on the street.

The dirty beast didn't even have the decency to use the road, but left his spoor right there in the middle of the pavement as you exit the station.

WTF!

Am guessing he didn't worry about wiping or washing his hands. A simple shit and go man. I mean who wants the inconvenience of using a toilet when you need to go about your daily routine.
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http://www.bbc.com/news/health-33980904

In India, nearly half of the population - more than 590m people - relieve themselves in the open.

For many it's a daily ritual and often something they do even when public facilities are available.

[...]

"We've made public toilets but people still don't use them," said Anil Prajapati, chairman of the Gujarat Sanitation Development Organisation. "Some of these people fear that there are witches inside or that their children will be kidnapped."

[...]

Faecally transmitted infections are also the main reason why nearly half of Indian children under five are underdeveloped.

So health officers at Ahmedabad Municipal Council came up with a new approach to try to encourage residents to use the toilets, some of which are free while others cost money to use.

"So we realised we have to introduce some other scheme. We are giving one rupee (less than a penny) to the children per day, or we're giving them chocolates to encourage use of the toilets."

[...]

Under the new scheme, Bhumi is making one rupee every time she uses a public toilet. Her visits are recorded on a card and she receives her money at the end of the month. "The toilets are good," said Bhumi. "I will use the money I make for school."

[...]

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made eliminating open defecation in India a priority, and wants every home to be installed with a toilet by 2019.
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P

params7

Banned
lol, open defecation is a problem in some rural areas India as they lack even the most basic infrastructure and electricity, and among the extreme poverty class near the big cities. Except dogs and cows which shit everywhere.

BBC definitely singled out India for this one in the title for no reason though.
 
C

CREMSteve

Member
Didn't Mythbusters cover this?
Edit - yup.

If the contents of an airplane toilet are jettisoned mid-flight, they can freeze into a solid mass capable of inflicting severe damage upon hitting the ground.
CONFIRMED
To set the stage for this myth, Kari spoke to an airplane technician and learned that although a pilot cannot dump the toilet mid-flight, the contents could leak out if multiple valves and seals failed.
For their tests, the Build Team made a small section of an airplane fuselage, including a lavatory service outlet (designed to suffer a slow or sudden leak, as needed). They took this rig to a wind tunnel at NASA designed for high-altitude simulation (including low air-temperature). When the toilet was dumped all at once, the fluid quickly atomized in the wind, leaving only a thin film to freeze on the fuselage. However, a slow leak allowed the ice to build up into a large mass that did not break loose until the rig “descended” (i.e. the air temperature in the wind tunnel was increased) to 12,000 feet (3,650 meters).
To determine the ability of such a chunk of ice to survive a fall to earth, Kari dropped a 35-pound (16 kg) block of ice from an airplane at 12,000 feet. Grant and Tory tracked it from the ground while Kari skydived. The block remained intact and embedded itself deeply upon impact, prompting the team to declare the myth confirmed, although unlikely due to the multiple mechanical failures needed to achieve the result.
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I

industrian

will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
To all the people whining here, the BBC isn't singling out India. They're answering a question about how common blue ice is based on a recent report of its occurrence in India.
 
Z

zugzug

Member
I totally thought this was a story of those Indian Billionaires who build high rises overlooking the slums and somehow someone throws or ejects something from said high rise down onto the peasants
 
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