A Sept. 4 Commons article [“Can towns without infrastructure still attract growth?”] boldly tackled an often-overlooked topic: toilets and the wastewater they produce.
Inadequate and aging septic systems throughout Windham County are stifling the region's economic development, the article explains, because lack of public toilets and limited wastewater disposal capacity prevent businesses from expanding. The stock solution to this problem is a sewer system, but for small towns the cost can be prohibitive.
But let's step back and untangle the issue of toilets from the related issue of wastewater.
Standard toilets take pure drinking water and mix it with human waste, producing large quantities of highly polluted wastewater that must be disposed of carefully.