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The 15-year-old girl had only been a student at South Fort Myers High School in Fort Myers, Fla., for two weeks when she went looking for her new crush in the boys’ bathroom. She’d spent the prior two years in and out of treatment facilities, her mother told NBC2, learning to cope with the horrors of the sex slave industry into which she had been trafficked at age 13. So when she tracked down her crush after school last week and he asked her for sex, her mother said through a victims’ advocate, the young teen agreed. But then word...

When PayPal announced plans to expand in Charlotte, it made headlines by promising 400 jobs and millions of dollars in payroll. Now PayPal is making bigger headlines nationwide as it backs out of the deal with Charlotte, citing the recently passed House Bill 2. PayPal said the law violates their values and principles concerning equality... Congressman Robert Pittenger...released a statement saying, “PayPal does business in 25 countries where homosexual behavior is illegal… yet they object to the North Carolina legislature overturning a misguided ordinance about letting men in to the women’s bathroom? Perhaps PayPal would like to try and clarify...

The chief executive of Pepsi, a company with roots in North Carolina, has written to Governor Pat McCrory to ask him to repeal a new law preventing specific anti-discrimination rules for LGBT people over public accommodations and restroom use. In a letter hand delivered to McCrory on Friday, PepsiCo head Indra Nooyi called the law inconsistent with how her company treats its employees. Nooyi also said the law was undermining efforts to advance North Carolina’s interests, and she said she hoped McCrory would consider repealing the law when the state legislature reconvenes later this month.

A leading British university has put signs in their toilets, “designed for international students”, pleading with them not to stand or squat on the loos or leave their business on the floor.The signs appear on the University of Sheffield’s campus; a ‘redbrick’ Russell group institution, which is rated as one of the top ten universities in the country and top 100 in the world.However, some of the brainy students appear to be lacking in respect for, or cultural awareness of, western sanitary norms.One on the new signs read: “Do not put toilet paper on the floor,” followed by: “Put toilet...

German bathroom manufacturers are developing “multicultural toilets” to help ensure Middle Eastern migrants need not adapt to European sanitation norms. Multiple reports have emerged of recent arrivals finding themselves utterly “mystified” by Western loos. Some have resorted to doing their business on the floor or outdoors, others have used showers, and many migrants will have never seen toilet paper before. The issue caused some serious confusion last year, with one small German village being accused of racism after issuing leaflets politely asking migrants to use to the correct facilities.

Does anyone know anything about composting toilets? I work for someone who wants to install one of these. How many people can they handle? How do they work? What is clean up like if there is no running water through them? Are they microbial? If so, how difficult is it to keep the microbes functioning? Is there anything else I should know? Is there a plumbing ping? Do Freepers know their s***? Thanks

NEW YORK — New York City businesses could soon need to convert some of their bathrooms to gender-neutral facilities. The legislation comes after a report by Stringer’s office found that transgender people experience harassment in public bathrooms. Advocates say it is a common-sense step to tackling gender bias and harassment. New York’s proposal follows similar measures in Philadelphia, West Hollywood and the District of Columbia.

Whether it’s the “throne” or “loo” or “little girls room,” the sheer number of euphemisms speaks volumes about its taboo nature. Still, taboo or not, the toilet is a player in the drought, accounting for 27 percent of indoor water use, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The efficiency of a toilet helps dictate how much water a family uses – or doesn’t – in any given day. In Orange County, a typical home flushes about 19 gallons a day. That’s why engineers are working on all manner of toilets of the future.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) isn't just about hard hats and safer machinery anymore. The federal government agency charged with regulating workplace conditions has formed an "alliance" with a "national social justice advocacy organization for transgender people" primarily to promote gender-appropriate restroom access. The agreement, signed on April 27, is part of a larger OSHA program to partner with groups "committed to worker safety and health to prevent workplace fatalities, injuries, and illnesses."

It may not have been the Japanese who came up with the saying “cleanliness is next to godliness,” but the Land of the Rising Sun certainly has its share of neat-freakiness. After all, the word for “pretty” in Japanese, kirei, also means clean. This cultural obsession with keeping things tidy has resulted in the development of some uniquely Japanese habits regarding one of the more delicate aspects of daily life: the bathroom. For anyone planning a trip to Tokyo who doesn’t want to be caught with their pants down when nature calls (or anyone just looking for a little bathroom...

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 European Commission will adopt criteria next week on delivering an Ecolabel to toilets and urinals, EurActiv has learned. The decision comes after years of efforts by experts working for the European Commission’s environment directorate, as well as “stakeholders” studying “user behavior” and “best practices”. … Work on developing an EU standard for toilets has started in January 2011, according documents of the European Commission’s Joint Research Center, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies. A first Ad-Hoc Working Group meeting was held in Brussels on October 2011, with the second such meeting held in the attractive city of Seville, Spain, in...

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — City authorities in Zimbabwe's second largest city said Saturday they were appealing to home owners to flush their toilets at a specified time as a way to unblock sewers after days of severe water rationing. Bulawayo City Council has asked its more than 1 million residents to flush their toilets simultaneously at 7:30 p.m. when water supplies are restored. City officials say "synchronized flushing" is needed to clear waste that would have accumulated in sanitary facilities which will have been affected by days of water outages.

Bill Gates has announced the winners of the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge — an effort to develop “next-generation” toilets that will deliver safe and sustainable sanitation to the 2.5 billion people worldwide who don’t have it. The awards recognize researchers from leading universities who are developing innovative ways to manage human waste, which will help improve the health and lives of people around the world. California Institute of Technology in the United States received the $100,000 first prize for designing a solar-powered toilet that generates hydrogen and electricity. Loughborough University in the United Kingdom won the $60,000 second place prize...

The Supreme Court justices’ stance on President Obama’s Medicaid expansion provision could be good news for states that want to lower their drinking ages from the federally mandated 21. ... The Supreme Court ruled that threatening to take away a state’s Medicaid funding unless the state does what the federal government wants is “unconstitutionally coercive” and declared it invalid. Because any given part of a Supreme Court decision can set a precedent for future laws and can even invalidate an established law if it is challenged using the Supreme Court’s new argument, the Medicaid decision could affect the National Minimum...

Put a lid on it. That is the conclusion of research examining the amount of Clostridium difficile that flies into the air and contaminates surrounding surfaces with the flush of a lidless toilet. The investigation, published online December 2 in the International Journal of Hospital Infection, is the work of E. L. Best from the Microbiology Department, Old Medical School, Leeds General Infirmary, Leeds Teaching Hospital National Health Service Trust, United Kingdom, and colleagues. Using fecal suspensions of C difficile, the researchers measured airborne suspension of the bacteria in addition to surface contamination by the bacteria after flushing of both...

If you’re an environmentalist, particularly a San Francisco version of that creature (one of the most virulent of the breed), it must have come as quite a shock for you to learn that your muck stinks just as bad as a Rush Limbaugh fan’s output. The stench from the sewers in that earth-loving city has become overwhelming, “especially during the dry summer months.” Why? The low-flow toilets insisted upon (by force of law) by enlightened legislators are not saving the San Francisco environment as the science said they would. According to SF Gate, the near water-free commodes have forced city...

San Francisco's big push for low-flow toilets has turned into a multimillion-dollar plumbing stink. Skimping on toilet water has resulted in more sludge backing up inside the sewer pipes, said Tyrone Jue, spokesman for the city Public Utilities Commission. That has created a rotten-egg stench near AT&T Park and elsewhere, especially during the dry summer months. The city has already spent $100 million over the past five years to upgrade its sewer system and sewage plants, in part to combat the odor problem. Now officials are stocking up on a $14 million, three-year supply of highly concentrated sodium hypochlorite -...

Imagine a toilet that knows how long you've been there and flushes accordingly. Or one that raises the lid as you approach and lowers it as you walk away. Indeed, the toilet of the future will do everything but wash your . . . oh, wait, it does that, too. And then dries you when it's finished. But the toilet of the future is also a molded plastic potty perched over a pit, the waste composting below. These are the two directions toiletry is headed - ultra luxury for the high-end, ultra simplicity for eco-types. Not to mention the 2.6...

When the government regulates how much water a toilet can flush, or what kind of lightbulbs you can put in your table lamps at home, the Constitution looks pretty small in the rear view mirror. Exactly where in the Constitution does it say that it is the government's business how much water my toilet is flushing or what kind of lightbulb illuminates my household? But the busybodies in the environmental movement have folks convinced of a lot of things that just aren't so. Remember the campaign that passed the lightbulb bill? The holier-than-thou greenies told us that if we only...