CU Boulder engineers use laser light to see what happens when you flush a toilet

By Brian Michel on February 4, 2024

Well, this shines a whole new light on toilet flushing.

Engineers at the University of Colorado Boulder used lasers to show what comes up when you flush a commercial toilet. And, let’s just the results don’t appear pleasant.

The school news release called it a “spur-of-the-moment” experiment, which it published on December 8 in the journal, Scientific Reports.

Previous studies, like ones done at the University of Oklahoma and the Centers for Disease Control, have shown that all sorts of stuff gets blasted in the air from these flushes which can include fecal matter. pathogens, and water particles.

This laser light experiment confirms it. See below.


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