The 7 billion poop problem

©  2011  Rose George

I was interviewed for this piece in Livescience about the 7 billion population. I take issue with the headline. With 7 billion people the world has a poop problem? It had a poop problem at nearly every level of population: even the Essenes were killed by faecal bacteria, when the population was sparse. But still, worth a read. Also in the news, the Guardian gets a bit hygiene-obsessed. First, a story about hygiene, disgust, and whether bugs or anti-bacterial zeal are worse for us (that’s my interpretation and paraphrasing), along with a gallery of eight disgusting places to go with the “your cell-phone has e-coli on it” stories of a few days earlier. Then, a piece about an enterprising gastroenterologist who has studied the habit of reading on the toilet and whether that’s good for us. No interviewer has ever asked me whether I read on the toilet, so I’ll save them the trouble: I don’t. I am swift and practical while about my toileting business and save my books for bedtime.