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toilets on UK trains
In UK trains built before 1980, ‘direct discharge technology’ was used for the toilets – basically they emptied straight onto the track, with the aid of water flushed from a tank. That changed in 1981 when the first train carriages with retention tanks were supplied. Yet it wasn’t until 1996 that all new rolling stock was fitted with tanks for effluent retention. And in 2018 10% of Britain’s train carriages were still disposing toilet waste straight onto the railway tracks.