There are many toilet myths, I recently watched an episode of a popular TV series where they investigated the toilet myth that the user of a portable toilet blew himself up when he lit a cigarette whilst sitting on the pan. Allegedly this was due to a build-up of methane caused by the breakdown of human waste. Pretty scary stuff.
This led me to wondering exactly how much methane the human body produces on a daily basis. You would probably be amazed at to how much information is available on the internet on the subject of farting (or flatus), I was!
Apparently a person produces on average, about 500ml of flatus gas per day. Clearly this is variable depending on dietary influences. Apparently the vegetarians amongst us produce significantly more gas than meat eaters. You only have to look at the volume of gas produced by cows and sheep that has been associated with the increase in global warming. Interestingly, not all humans produce flatus that contains methane. In a study of the faeces of nine adults, only five of the samples contained archaea capable of producing methane. However, farts also include nitrogen which is also flammable and therefore may be ignited.
There have been studies that show that the gas harnessed from human faeces could generate electricity for up to 138 million households. They claim that the gas known as ‘biogas’ could product two million tonnes of charcoal-equivalent fuel. That’s a lot of gas but I imagine it would take a lot of poop!
However, having said all that, going back to our TV series, the toilet myth was busted and it is believed that the exploding toilet, which was situated at a methane plant, probably exploded to a leaking pipe and not fart gas!
Of course, the best way to eliminate any risk is to order your portable site toilets from Site Equip. That way you can be confident that they will be well maintained, serviced weekly and much less likely to explode, although with the best will in the world, in the warmer weather, it may be advisable to keep a can of air freshener to hand.
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