Ever found a toilet deep along a trail in a national park and wondered, “how does that toilet get cleaned?” Or, “how did that get out here?” There are a lot of toilets in our national parks, and many of them require frequent cleaning or maintenance. Sadly, as more and more people flock to national parks and the organizations that run them get more and more strained on resources, the poop problem only gets worse.
Every day in Rocky Mountain National Park, as an example, custodial crews clean 102 toilets in comfort stations and vault toilets at trailheads and along the road, in addition to the 100 toilets in campgrounds, 30 visitor center toilets, and 35 park staff toilets. That’s 267 toilets, cleaned by a crew every day.
The park uses 1800 miles of toilet paper every year, too. According to Cottonelle, the average person uses about 85 rolls of toilet paper per year. Most rolls of toilet paper are around 75 feet, so 1800 miles of toilet paper would be enough for an average person for around 1490 years. That’s a lot of toilet paper.
