Free Republic

This is one beauty queen who doesn’t mind being called trashy. Pageant veteran Nicole Doz — the first runner-up for Miss Staten Island 2017 — has added a sanitation worker uniform to her wardrobe of sashes. And the 23-year-old is doing it all for the love of New York City. “That’s why I took the job!” she told The Post. “It’s not the most glamorous look, but that doesn’t mean [the job’s] not awesome.” And getting to her new title of street sweeper was even more grueling than going through talent, interview and swimsuit contests. There’s “the physical test, the...

Diversey, a leading global provider of cleaning and hygiene solutions, will locate its new 100,000-square-foot corporate headquarters at the Lakemont Business Park in York County, SC. An additional 18,500 square feet of lab space will also be created to develop cutting-edge technology for cleaning and hygiene operations. The project is expected to result in $6.1 million in investment and approximately 400 jobs. “I am extremely proud of building Diversey’s new global headquarters in York County, which will become the new home for our employees and their families,” said Diversey President and CEO Ilham Kadri. “Our new state-of-the-art campus will provide...

A top Indian sociologist and social worker has announced to name one Indian village after US President Donald Trump, as part of his efforts to further India-US relationship. "I announce to name one village in India as Trump Village," Sulabh International founder and chief, Bindeshwar Pathak, announced at a community event organized in the suburbs of Washington DC. The village is being developed in Mewat region of Rajasthan. This, he said, is part of his effort to enhance India-US relationship. Giving a presentation to local community and political leaders, Pathak said he is working to provide affordable sanitation and toilets...

Hi! A friend asked me to donate to a charity called water.org. Do you think it is a legitimate charity? I'd love to get your advice. Thanks in advance!

When people think of Rome they think of the Coliseum, but this year the Coliseum has an ancient athletic rival: the Circus Maximus. After years of excavations and improvements, Rome’s charioteer stadium—the ancient equivalent of a NASCAR track—is finally open to the public. But however you feel about the races there’s plenty of interesting stuff to be seen here; the ancient world’s largest shopping mall, among them. But for my money one of the most interesting features is the well-preserved and very public ancient latrines, which operated with water siphoned from the nearby aqueduct. Bear with me. They’re a testament...

NEW YORK (FOX5NY) - The New York City Council's environmental protection committee will consider a bill next week that would fine any store that sells wet wipes often used for infants and adult personal hygiene unless they meet stiff new regulations.

This is the best argument we've seen for peeing in the shower. Note: Catchy 45-second video says it all.

When the Romans expanded their empire across three continents, they probably seemed like the neat-freakiest people to attempt global domination. The Romans brought aqueducts, heated public baths, flushing toilets, sewers and piped water. They even had multiseat public bathrooms decked out with contour toilet seats, a sea sponge version of toilet paper and hand-washing stations.

Don't get into a pissing match with walls in San Francisco. The city's Public Works agency is testing a pee-repellant paint on walls in areas that have been saturated with urine. Anyone urinating on the specially treated walls will get the spray splashed back onto them. [Snip] "The urine will bounce back on the guys pants and shoes. The idea is they will think twice next time about urinating in public," said Rachel Gordon, a Public Works Department spokeswoman. She said the super-hard coating made the "bounce back" effect much stronger than when peeing on a regular wall.

KNBC Los Angeles investigative reporter Randy Mac’s described the streets of L.A. as a “post apocalyptic scene,” as he rode along with the cities one, 13-man trash crew for the nearly 500-square-mile city. Mac reported, “According to a report commissioned by the City Administrator’s office, only 35 percent of LA’s streets are cleaned regularly. The constant state of uncleanliness is threatening LA’s image, making some areas appear unsafe and ungoverned.” The trash crew supervisor Russell Zamora told Mac there was “on a daily basis, somewhere from 30 to 40 tons a day,” of illegally dumped garbage throughout the city.

Diarrheal diseases kill 700,000 children in India every year Nationwide, at least two-thirds of India’s 1.2 billion people still defecate in the open, and many do not understand the dire public health consequences. Diarrheal diseases kill 700,000 children in India every year while also contributing to widespread malnutrition and childhood growth stunting, as well as diseases like typhoid and cholera. (1) In an attempt to improve upon this situation, Indian leaders are taking on the taboo of public hygiene, one of the country’s great problems. Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, says building toilets is a priority over temples. His finance...

The Middle Seat The Trouble With Keeping Commercial Flights Clean With the Ebola Crisis in the Background, Standards for Disinfecting Planes Vary Based on Time, Class Just how clean are airplanes? Do they really get scrubbed down after each flight? WSJ's Scott McCartney joins Tanya Rivero on Lunch Break with the answers. By Scott McCartney Updated Sept. 17, 2014 The Ebola crisis and heightened concerns about the risk of spreading disease during air travel have focused concern on what airlines do to keep planes clean. It's a murky area without clear regulatory standards. The Federal Aviation Administration says it doesn't...

India is the dirtiest country I have ever been to. I have heard people say that Pakistan, which is to the west and Bangladesh, to the east, are worse, but that is probably beyond the limits of my imaginatio n. In two months in India, I went from south to north, visiting some tourist towns that I had read about. I also went by train and bus to countless towns and open fields that weren’t so famous, and everywhere there were people had something in common — dirty, messy and stank. Interestingly, I also saw countless foreigners having a great...

Sandra Dudley, director of the Water Resources Division of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation sent an email warning her employees not to flush inappropriate items down the toilet. “People, it’s our job to improve water quality,” Dudley wrote. “It should be self evident that flushing shoes, pens, staplers, and similar items would tend to work against this objective. Please stop.” Administrative Assistant Sheeta Lotte said she considered the email warning “insulting. Everybody knows they shouldn’t be flushing this trash. But sometimes the job gets so boring you gotta do something to liven things up. Seeing what kinds of...

The ice served in six out of ten of Britain’s most popular high street restaurants contains more bacteria than the water found in their toilets, an investigation by The Mail on Sunday has found. Scientific tests have shown that ice from branches of McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, Starbucks, Cafe Rouge and Nando’s all had higher levels of bacteria than samples of water taken from their lavatory bowls. Experts say it could be due to them being cleaned more often than the ice machines. None of the samples found presented an immediate health danger, but four contained such high levels of...

This is the second post in a three-part series on survival sanitation.In a SHTF situation, proper sanitation is of utmost importance if you want to keep your family from getting seriously sick. When you add to that a lack of medical facilities due to grid-down issues, staying healthy becomes even more crucial.In this series I discuss the skills you need to avoid getting and spreading disease, and how to deal with waste and trash when your town and city services are no longer working. Survival Sanitation: It all Begins with the HandsSurvival Sanitation: Disposing of Human WasteSurvival Sanitation: Disposing of Garbage Off-Grid When the grid goes...

The Left: An Occupy organizer admitted over the weekend that the goal of his protest group was to "overthrow the capitalist system and build communism." So the cat's out of the bag again on this bunch. Where is the outrage? The true agenda of the Occupy movement has been revealed — it's a totalitarian one. Billing itself as a spontaneous people's revolution and embraced by the media and Democrat political establishment, Occupy is really a destructive band of thugs whose goal is the violent demise of democracy. Speaking at a "People's Assembly" in Washington, former Amalgamated Transit Union local 689...

After raids, Wall Street protesters shift tacticsUpdated: Nov 30, 2011 4:37 PM EST By CHRIS HAWLEY Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) - The overnight police raids in Philadelphia and Los Angeles that dismantled two of the nation's biggest Occupy Wall Street encampments leave just a few major "occupations" still going on around the U.S. But activists are already changing tactics and warning of a winter of discontent, with rallies and marches every week. The camps may bloom again in the spring, organizers said, and next summer could bring huge demonstrations at the Republican and Democratic conventions, when the whole world...

The Occupy Wall Street movement was flush with relief Saturday after protesters got their own potties. For the past seven weeks, demonstrators have marched to nearby fast food joints to do their business, sometimes riling customers and workers. But thanks to the help of local officials, the protesters have finally secured three Porta-Potties of their own. “It’s good because it provides a place to go so people don’t pee in the street,” said Rossi Meacham, 27, of Portland, Maine. “We can keep the park sanitary without having to rely on anybody else to use their facilities.” The portable toilets are...

Another storm coming Saturday to the Northeast bringing drenching rain also threatens a heavily populated part of the region with downed trees, power outages, and travel delays from heavy, wet snow. Fresh cold air will invade the Northeast through Friday, paving the way for major problems in the Northeast as the second and stronger storm in three days comes calling this weekend. If the storm develops to its full potential, thousands of trees could come down, and over a million people could be without power. The Saturday storm will bring a change to wet snow in many more places, compared...