NEWS: Happy birthday to loo, Crapper’s invention celebrates its 150th

Here’s one birthday that’s a total crapper. Thomas J. Crapper, actually.

January 13 marked the 150th birthday of plumber Thomas J. Crapper‘s invention, a one-piece pedestal for a flushing toilet that would revolutionize their operation—and sanitation in general.

The Independent blogged about the birthday last week:

…thanks to Thomas Crapper and his inventions, toilets
are not only vastly more pleasant, but they play an important role in
ensuring that our homes and public places are far better sanitized,
limiting the spread of diseases.

The story also cited a WaterAid statistic that two-fifths of the world’s population does not have access to a toilet, and one of every six people in the world does not have access to clean water.

It’s a stat we can take for granted living on a Great Lake, but the work it takes to clean the water we flush is very important to our personal and environmental health.

So happy belated birthday to the Crapper creation. It’s something most of us will visit more than 2,500 times in our lives. Doesn’t it deserve at least a bit of appreciation?