How does an airplane toilet work at 40k feet?

The aviation industry consultant who has worked for airlines including Delta and United, Al Saint-Germain, said it’s “very cool when you start digging deeper into it,”

adding: “When it comes to almost anything on board, you’ll realise how much effort goes into it from an engineering perspective, even when you’re just having a meal.

Everything on the plane is twice as difficult as on land.”

Water is not used to expel aircraft toilet waste due to restrictions on the weight of these carriers. Instead, airplanes use air.

The modular evacuation system uses differential air pressure to empty the toilet.
The litter tanks, to which everything that falls into the toilet are transferred, are usually located in the back of the plane, as well as in the front.

When you press the empty button in the bathroom, a valve opens at the bottom of the toilet bowl that connects it to a tube below.
This tube and the waste tank are compressed, which means that opening the valve creates a vacuum mechanism that absorbs what is in the container.

Nigel Jones, an aircraft engineering expert from Kingston University in London, who is also a member of the accreditation committee of the Royal Aeronautical Society of the UK, explained that it is “like your vacuum cleaner, that is, it absorbs everything.”

Of course, full tanks must be emptied, and airport service vehicles empty the tank, and its contents taken for processing on the airport grounds.