Publishers Weekly
02/08/2021
Science journalist Wald debuts with a thoughtful and funny survey of “today’s toilet revolutionaries.” The “Great Stink” of 1858, she writes, when putrid smells permeated London, necessitated the creation of a new sewer system; since then, the flush toilet and indoor plumbing have been the standard of civility. Wald argues a growing world population and an increasing need for clean water has made the modern toilet (and the “flush and forget” culture it created) “anachronistic” and unsustainable. Along the way, Wald interviews toilet innovators and sanitation engineers in the Netherlands who are working on “vacuum toilets,” and workers at a nonprofit in Haiti who struggle to provide sanitary living conditions in low-income communities (in 2017, Wald notes, 700 million people worldwide relied on “hanging latrines” or “bucket toilets,” which are emptied into streams or open sewers). Wald covers toilet concepts and decentralized wastewater treatment models that conserve water and provide useful by-products, like grass that can be harvested and fed to livestock and sludge that can be baked into bricks. At home with an awkward topic, the author lucidly discusses “pee-cycling” (including the extraction of phosphorous from urine to be used as agricultural fertilizer) and myriad designs for water-conserving toilets. The green-minded will find this insightful and entertaining study to be a fresh angle on a perhaps underappreciated environmental concern. (Apr.)
From the Publisher
One of Science News’ Favorite Books of 2021
One of BuzzFeed’s 25 Great Books You May Have Missed in 2021
“Readers couldn’t ask for a more qualified guide to take them on a world tour of next-gen sewage schemes. . . . [Wald’s] narration is frank and funny, and her sewage savvy allows her to weave in fascinating scientific and historic details. . . . Pipe Dreams leaves readers knowing everything they ever wanted to know (and probably more) about toilets, perhaps inspiring them to start giving way more of a crap about crap.” —Science News
“[A] deeply researched, entertaining, and impassioned exploration of sanitation ancient and innovative.” —Nature
“Heavily researched and entertaining . . . a must-read for anyone interested in learning more about the ways everyday living affects climate change.” —BuzzFeed
“Wald brings humor and curiosity to this history of the toilet and the ongoing environmental concerns surrounding it. . . . A surprisingly lively read about the science and history of waste that will engage fans of Mary Roach and popular science.” —Library Journal
“Well-written and researched, with much in-person investigation by the author . . . Pipe Dreams is engaging, informative, and an unexpected must-read for readers interested in sustainability, and should have a place in nearly every library.” —Booklist
“A thoughtful and funny survey of ‘today’s toilet revolutionaries’ . . . The green-minded will find this insightful and entertaining study to be a fresh angle on a perhaps underappreciated environmental concern.” —Publishers Weekly
“Toilet humor is one thing, but toilet fact, as digested by skilled science writer Wald, is quite another. . . . A highly informative, well-reasoned call to rethink the throne.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Engagingly written, meticulously researched and referenced . . . a rewarding and enlightening read.” —Civil Engineering magazine
"A very interesting . . . travelogue, wherein Wald talks to innovators in sanitation science and witnesses contemporary and historical attempts to bring best practices to human health. Her view is that, in our wide and varied world, one solution does not fit all, but we all deserve a sanitary environment." —BookPage
“A prize-winning science writer, Wald writes with punning humor, precision, and urgency about our waste. . . . Wald musters gusto for dozens of new toilet projects, and for their invariably colorful hawkers, sanitation experts in a booming field.” —Times Literary Supplement
“There’s information here that will occasionally make you squirm, but it’ll also make you think twice before blithely using the sewer as a trash bin. So, thank your local sanitation worker. . . . Consider a new toilet and read Pipe Dreams. Doing so will leave you flush with knowledge.” —Terri Schlichenmeyer
"You might be tempted to pooh-pooh the importance of the humble toilet. Don’t! Pipe Dreams shows just how vital toilets are to the future of public health—and does so with charm. Chelsea Wald spans the world, finding laughs and pathos in the surprisingly intricate science of sanitation." —Sam Kean, author of The Disappearing Spoon
"Everybody poops. Pipe Dreams is an utterly delightful and deeply informative investigation into what happens next. Wald takes us around the world to meet waste archaeologists, accidental toilet entrepreneurs, and subterranean sanitation workers, all in pursuit of the dream of transforming human waste into a resource. Along the way, she delves into what this most elemental substance reveals—about disease and human health, technology and infrastructure, and equity and access." —Meera Subramanian, author of A River Runs Again
"I could not stop reading Chelsea Wald’s captivating book. Pipe Dreams is full of fascinating facts about toilets and sewage systems. But Pipe Dreams is also about so much more. It’s about how we live in the world. Wald doesn’t just discuss the technology of sanitation systems, she also captures the human and cultural aspects that drive how we deal with our shit." —Christie Aschwanden, author of Good to Go
Library Journal
04/01/2021
Science journalist Ward brings humor and curiosity to this history of the toilet and the ongoing environmental concerns surrounding it. Mindful that not everyone is at ease reading about this topic, Ward keeps it entertaining throughout, with clever chapter titles and illustrations of scientific wonders. What actually goes into toilets? How is the water treated? Why is the toilet the shape and size it is? Ward answers these questions and more with the inquisitive mind of an investigative reporter. Her research also brings medical history into focus when she describes how infectious diseases, such as cholera and typhoid fever, compelled scientists and engineers to find a solution for waste management that led to the development of modern Western sanitation. With candor and ease, Ward details everything from the intricacies of ancient Roman sewers to the sewage works in mid-19th-century Chicago, and describes what life was like before the invention of the modern Western toilet. She touches on the status surrounding the number of bathrooms in private homes and ends with a fascinating history of the rise and fall of the public toilet. VERDICT A surprisingly lively read about the science and history of waste that will engage fans of Mary Roach and popular science.—Dawn Lowe-Wincentsen, Oregon Inst. of Technology, Portland
Kirkus Reviews
2021-01-13
A chronicle of the quest for the loo of the future.
Toilet humor is one thing, but toilet fact, as digested by skilled science writer Wald, is quite another. Given that the average annual output of each human is “about 100 pounds of poop and about 140 gallons of pee,” human societies have always felt a pressing need to figure out what to do with it. One ancient Mesopotamian settlement, writes the author, devised the pit latrine, with a network of subterranean ceramic rings that helped distribute human output into the nearby fields, yielding agricultural benefits. Many places have devolved since that time. In rural India, for instance, people repair to favored outdoor venues that, with modest usage, can accommodate the visits while Indian cities produce enough output to destroy the country’s rivers. That’s the standard for roughly half the world’s population, Wald reckons, and this yields a lethal roster of diseases. If the human gut is “one of the most densely populated and biologically diverse microbial habitats on earth,” some of its contents include norovirus, E. coli, and other illness-causing elements. Just as the toilets we rely on turned up during plagues of old, so the current coronavirus crisis should prompt a new kind of toilet, one that will “not only thwart pathogens like those that cause cholera and typhoid but also protect against a modern scourge: a wide range of man-made pollutants…that enter our sanitation systems. Beyond that, it might even monitor the daily deposits of users, communicating with doctors and public health officials in order to catch individual diseases and community outbreaks early.” Arriving at new toilet designs figures into much of this lucid narrative, with solutions that produce biodegradable concrete coatings and fertilizer. A new toilet is essential, writes Wald, for “if sanitation doesn’t work for all of us, it works for none of us.”
A highly informative, well-reasoned call to rethink the throne.
