How do boats empty their toilets?

Boats that are equipped with a head (toilet) are required by law to have a holding tank. This tank is pumped out when in Port into a shore based sewage system. If the boat is not equipped with a head , a deck bucket is used and the waste is dumped overboard.



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Sea or river water is full of living organisms, like, algae, plankton, microscopic bacteria, etc. When these organisms go into the inlet pipe of a marine toilet they're starved of oxygen and light, so they die and decompose. That's the smell!

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For starters, don't bother with 2-ply or quilted household toilet paper. It's simply too heavy-duty for your marine toilet system to handle and is sure to cause a blockage of some kind. However, inexpensive 1-ply tissue is often lightweight enough to break down quickly, provided it's 100% biodegradable.

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Most trains don't have sewage tanks so anything in the toilet is dumped straight onto the tracks.

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When a toilet is flushed on a cruise ship, the sewage travels to the onboard treatment plant. Here the waste is filtered before it enters an aeration chamber. The aeration chamber cleans the waste. It is then sterilized using UV light and released into the ocean when clean enough to do so.

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