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We’re diving right in this year!

Happy New Year to all supporters of PHLUSH, near and far. While we are well into 2022, it isn’t too late to recap our successes from 2021 before providing an update on our current endeavors!

In 2021, PHLUSH explored the social impacts of well-designed sanitation systems.

In May, Board President Genevieve Schutzius delivered a presentation on the role of restroom advocacy in providing dignity for people experiencing homelessness and menstruation for Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health Period Posse Presents – Menstruation and Homelessness: The Double Taboo. Board Secretary Hayley Joyell-Smith contributed to a panel at the Rich Earth Summit in November, discussing a Social-Ecological-Systems Framework to Assess Adaptive Capacity for Regenerative Sanitation Systems.

Volunteer-powered PHLUSH welcomed new Volunteers.

We hosted a Volunteer Summit in February and have recruited volunteers to help with fundraising, graphic design, website content, and managing our volunteer programs. Thank you, PHLUSH Volunteers!

Stay tuned for new volunteer gigs and get in touch if you have a sanitation-related initiative you’d like to take forward.

We’ve opened a new chapter: CincyPHLUSH!

Over the summer, PHLUSH expanded its base into Cincinnati with the formation of CincyPHLUSH. This group of dedicated individuals is working to increase the number of restrooms in the downtown area, especially near transportation hubs. Stay tuned for more toilet talk and success stories from their corner of Ohio!

In 2021, PHLUSH also laid the foundation for new intiatives at the intersection of housing and sanitation.

We were invited to help form a unique local initiative. The Housing Solution Network (HSN) addresses the affordable housing crisis in Jefferson County, Washington. HSN works through volunteer Housing Action Teams, or HATs. Sanitation has proved a challenge for teams concerned with the needs of people living in RVs and residents of a tiny shelter village. In time, Network members saw the need for a Sanitation HAT and asked PHLUSH to help form one.

Finding pathways for action has not been easy. We had to fill major knowledge gaps. Data was hard to find. We kept tearing up our Sanitation HAT concept notes. Neither centralized nor decentralized sewage systems are popular topics of conversation despite their importance to human wellbeing. We delved into state, county, and city regulations to grasp the terminology and concepts. What we found was a jumble of codes from different eras and overlapping regulations with inconsistencies. Technical expertise and mastery of a special writing style are required to produce clear codes and move them to final approval. These are skills citizen advocates often lack.

Moreover, many people are uncomfortable talking about toilet issues. This is all the more so in the case of septic systems that are failing. Such environmental health issues are embarrassing and expensive to fix. When homeowners are penalized for onsite systems that are out of compliance, bringing attention to problems is difficult.

Now we are happy to report that the Housing Solutions Network’s new Sanitation HAT is taking off. With funding from the annual Give Jefferson campaign, PHLUSH has engaged Laura Allen, co-founder of Greywater Action. She assists local communities and officials in understanding water reuse and dry toilet systems and the regulations required to govern them. The inaugural meeting of the Sanitation HAT in early January resulted in the formation of two task groups. One is proposing next steps for action, albeit in the context of longer-term work. Another has convened a group to discuss Laura Allen’s book Greywater, Green Landscape. If you’d like to join in, email us at info@phlush.org for info and Zoom link.

We’ll discuss Greywater, Green Landscape on February 9 from 5 to 6 pm PST.

Sanitation Justice informs our fight for systemic change.

Sanitation is a Human Right. In 2010, the United Nations General Assembly declared water and sanitation essential human rights. In officially endorsing these human rights in 2015, the State of California made a commitment to safe sanitation and clean water for its citizens. This action has made regulatory change there easier. So we’re taking a sanitation justice approach to understanding the needs of households in Jefferson County and exploring ways to meet them.

Access to sustainable systems is incomplete in many parts of rural Washington State. A recent report from the Puget Sound Partnership on 12 shoreline counties testing water quality has revealing data. Local public health jurisdictions lack the resources to provide technical advice to households with failing onsite systems. Only 31% of households received visits, down from 35% in 2019. Low-income homeowners without the $15-30K to upgrade systems often choose to pay the fines rather than make the repairs.

Sanitation Justice offers health and housing advocates a way to consider tested alternatives to expensive, path-dependent, sanitation systems. In light of climate change and disrupted weather patterns, we must consider how long growing populations can flush with drinking water that depends on snowfall in the Olympic Mountains. Consider the elders who built homes before the 1972 Clean Water Act and cannot afford the upgrades now required of onsite systems. Consider working families and essential workers who independently construct systems to expand their living space or to allow off-grid living. Some systems threaten the health of the community and the environment while others might be adapted and brought into compliance under WE Stand codes that are available for local governments to adopt.