You can’t see it, but that’s what happens when you leave the toilet seat open when you flush

In a new study, US researchers use lasers to show what happens when an open toilet is flushed. The result is the Flicker: a fountain of tiny droplets up to 1.5 meters above the toilet bowl.

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Even though you rely on your letter to disappear into the toilet, a large column of spray invisible to the naked eye wafts through the air. It is not healthy at all. According to researchers, it facilitates the transmission of all kinds of germs. In the midst of a pandemic, virologists have already pointed out the danger of coronavirus spreading in this way.

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So it was already known that the toilet does not flush all the way into the sewer. But in the journal Scientific Reports, the researchers report that no one knows how many particles are blasted away and how far they’ll come. To make the drops visible, they illuminated the front of the toilet bowl with a bright green laser. Upon rinsing, most of the droplets moved upwards or backwards, against the back wall. Within eight seconds, some of the drops managed to reach a height of 1.5 metres. Large droplets quickly settled on the surrounding surfaces. Smaller ones hover for minutes.

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According to the researchers, the shaft is stronger than expected. So closing the toilet seat is the message. Although, according to the researchers, some particles will exit through small openings between the lid and the seat. For the study, they used a flush meter-type toilet. This is a toilet where the water does not flow from the cistern, but by the water pressure of the water connection. (repeatedly)