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What happens when you flush a toilet on a cruise ship? (Taken from UsaToday)

Comedians love to joke about the toilets on cruise ships, which often sound like they're exploding when you flush them.

But the water-saving, vacuum-driven toilet systems are no joking matter to environmentalists, who have complained about the amount of wastewater that ships are dumping into the seas.
Just how much sewage from ships is making it into the world's oceans? The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which finally released its long-awaited report on the matter Thursday in draft form, says it's a lot, although it may not be as bad as you think.

The report notes that a growing number of cruise ships have new advanced treatment systems that are "very effective" in removing pathogens, suspended solids, oil and grease and other bad news items from wastewater before it's released into the ocean. With the new systems, which are on about 40% of the 130 ships run by Cruise Lines International Association members, "most volatile and semi-volatile organics are removed to levels below detection limits," the report says. About 10 to 15 more ships get the systems each year, it adds.

One interesting tidbit in the report: The typical toilet on a ship uses just a third of a gallon of water per flush (thanks to that noisy vacuum system). Compare that to a typical residential toilet on land, which uses 1.3 gallons. With water increasingly scarce in parts of the USA, will "exploding" vacuum toilets become a mainstay on land, too? We wonder.

Can't get enough information about toilets on cruise ships? You can download the entire report, dubbed the Draft Cruise Ship Discharge Assessment Report, by clicking here. In addition to sewage, it talks about the hazardous waste, solid waste and other waste products discharged from cruise ships. Readers have 45 days to comment on the draft report to the EPA before it prepares a final version.