#wastewater

Those would be garbage disposals. And to be honest, I have a gripe with them too but that's unrelated to large scale wastewater and is a septic system gripe.

And yes, adding them would help this flushing cloth issue, but because every toilet having a blender in it would be a pain for servicing (wastewater + electricity + moving parts + unpredictable substances), it's not very feasible compared to a kitchen garbage disposal. We (the wastewater industry) typically call them grinders/maceraters, and almost exclusively use them as municipal wastewater pumps since that's the only time we care to destroy the substance since pumping requires it to be mostly liquidized.

Jessica Valenti and Kylie Cheung at Abortion, Every Day:

Republicans Introduce National “Catch Kit” Bill

U.S. House Republicans have introduced legislation that would make it illegal for women to flush their miscarriage or abortion remains when using mifepristone. The Clean Water for All Life Act, introduced by Rep. Mary Miller of Illinois, would instead require women to use “catch kits” when their pregnancy is ending—forcing them to bag up that tissue and blood and bring it back to the doctor as medical waste. Mary. No. ✋(·•᷄‎ࡇ•᷅ ) Rep. Miller insists that her legislation will “protect both human dignity and America’s water systems,” but regular readers know what’s happening here. For years, Abortion, Every Day has been tracking other ‘catch kit’ bills—like this one that we flagged in Wisconsin last year—along with state legislation that would test the groundwater for abortion pills and hormones associated with birth control and gender-affirming care. The short version is that anti-abortion activists claim that abortion medication, hormones—and even pregnancy remains—are polluting our water supply. I mean, who could forget the “we’re all drinking other people’s abortions” lady?

And while Politico reports that Miller’s legislation is the “first federal bill” that weaponizes environmental laws to attack abortion rights, that’s actually not true. AED discovered a similar piece of federal legislation last summer: the “Respectful Treatment of Unborn Remains Act,” which would have punished abortion providers with five years in prison for disposing of fetal remains “in publicly owned water systems.” In fact, our friend Mary sponsored that legislation, as well! Here’s the thing: for as long as we’ve been reporting on these bills, the response has been almost universal: this will never happen. We’ve been assured over and over again that these bills are too extreme and ridiculous to ever go anywhere.

[while executing a wastewater dump, aka spewing piss into space where it will immediately freeze]

Artemis II Mission Specialist Christina Koch: We looooove a good blizzard !