chocolate factory

Today the entire IT department (7 people) took a tour of the waste water treatment plant.  I think I have heard it called Poo Palace and even if I haven’t, that’s what I’m going to call it.  So we went to the Poo Palace today, it was very neat.  I would have never imagined saying this, but it was pretty cool to see.  It is impressive the way they process everyone’s…waste water before they send it back into nature.  The tour was very informative and we were taken from where the waste water enters the plant all the way to where the solid is packaged up to send back to the US and where the processed liquid goes back into the McMurdo Sound.  The worker and tour guide noted that the liquid being sent into the sound was suitable to drink (no one took him up on that, it was near the end of the tour…)!  I think it used to be dumped in rather raw so what an improvement.

There were lots of impressive facts being thrown around, like the capacity of intake and output and all of the science and strategy of it, but I just couldn’t pay attention.  I do know that they make the “cake” about twice a month and that consists of four huge boxes equaling 1 ton!  The cake is the solid waste drained of all liquid.  [side note:  If left sitting, these “cakes” have been known to produce sprouts (presumably corn).  I did not make that up.  If you think about it, it is fertilizer so it makes sense.  Gross, gross sense.]  Here’s a picture of the cake:

I’m sorry, but that’s all I can remember about the facts.  Here’s what I do remember, the room where all the magic happens was warm, humid/muggy, and didn’t smell too great.  It kind of felt like I was actually inside a toilet.  But I will say that the smell was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.  That was probably the biggest shock, it was a sort of earthy smell that I could probably get used to, but one that I wouldn’t want to.  Oh, and after the tour the guide took a sample out of one of the containers and put it under a slide for us to see.  It was absolutely incredible what you could see under that microscope!  All kinds of little creatures going to town on all the poo.  It was crazy to think that those are inside of us all the time, it was very cool.  I’m sorry that I’ve done such a horrible job relaying the details because the guy was actually very smart and really knew his sh!t…(that’s good stuff, see what I did there?).  But the process used in McMurdo is Activated Sludge and THIS is the wiki I found on it.  Not all pertinent, but take a look if you’re interested.  Here is a chocolate river of no relation to Willy Wonka’s:

I have been meaning to write about the bathroom situation here but just couldn’t find the right way to bring it up.  The Poo Palace provides the perfect segue.  So overall the bathrooms here are pretty nasty.  That is only natural and should come as no surprise.  There are a lot of people here, mostly guys, and they feed us a lot of good food.  It adds up.  What surprises me is the frequency in which the bathrooms are just absolutely dominated.  It is ridiculous and very gross to walk into that on a daily basis.  Now I feel that I need to clarify a few things.  I generally only use 3 bathrooms and I will provide more insight into those later, but they are the one in the dorm, the one at work, and the one in the main building that the galley/store/library/finance/hr office/etc is located.  So I don’t know that all the bathrooms are gross, it’s a broad generalization, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they were all pretty much the same.

Of those 3, I generally avoid the one at work because it is a unisex bathroom.  I don’t know about you, but I just don’t want to walk into funk and have to wonder if the culprit was a woman or a man and I don’t want to have to look them in the eye on my way back to my desk.  I also don’t want any co-workers to go in after me and wonder if the smell was caused by me or before me.  I don’t like the second following knocking on the door wondering if it’s occupied by a woman or a man, but either way (and even if it’s not occupied), feeling bad that I’m potentially interrupting someone’s big business.  I generally avoid it except in the most dire of situations (which happens).

So the dorm bathroom, I am really rarely at the dorm but I try to steer clear of the bathroom at all costs too just because there are so many guys that need to use the limited facilities.  Speaking of facilities, the “urinal” is currently being replaced with waterless urinals, and it has been for a while now, which means that only the two sit down toilets are available for every guy in the dorm’s use.  I don’t even have to mention how guys are pigs and don’t bother moving the seat, up or down, and rarely flush.  But back to the urinal, I put that in quotes because it was unlike anything I’ve ever seen or used, maybe I’m sheltered.  It was basically a section of the wall that was metal and you stepped up onto a grate under which was the drain.  You basically stand on this grate, pee against the metal wall in front of you, and your pee goes under your feet into the drain.  There is a single flusher that send a trickle of water down most/some of the metal wall.  I have never seen anything like that in my life.  The first couple times I didn’t step up onto the grate and was just peeing where everyone else stands…oops.  But the waterless urinals should really help with the smell…  Oh yeah, that bathroom is so gross, so consistently that I often start brushing my teeth outside the bathroom just so I don’t have to be in there as long (I have also started brushing my teeth in the mop closet at work in the mornings).

Now about the bathroom in the main building.  It is the main building because the galley is there but so is almost everything else.  It is the busiest building by far and the main hallway is called Highway 1, that’s where the men’s bathroom is.  There are only 2 waterless urinals and 2 stalls.  It blows my mind how stinky that bathroom is every single time I’ve ever used it.  Every time, without fail.  I relate it to I-95; no matter what time, no matter what day, there is always a ton of cars on it.  It simply doesn’t make sense.  Well, no matter what time of what day I go into the bathroom off Highway 1 it is the most absurd smell imaginable.  Eyes watering, dry-heaving, stutter-step, head shake, instant nausea stink.  And it always smells like I JUST missed the culprit and I have often wanted to shake that guys hand (after he washes it of course) because it is beyond comprehension how a human can produce that smell and live to walk away from it.  Every Single Time!  And after saying all that, that happens to be the one I use most often because of the other reasons outlined above…dah well, such is life.

I apologize if all of this was too much information, but now if you’re ever at McMurdo you will know what to expect.