How do aeroplane toilets work?

What happens when nature calls at 10,000 metres high?

Aeroplane loos don’t work like your toilet at home, which uses water and gravity to move waste into the sewer system. Instead they use a strong vacuum, along with a blue chemical that cleans and removes smells every time you flush.

A stinky tank

This sucking system is very much like the vacuum cleaners people use at home to remove dirt and dust from their floors. This dirt and dust ends up in a container that you empty into a rubbish bin. Similarly, the waste and the blue cleaning fluid from the aeroplane’s lavatories ends up in an underfloor storage tank, at the very back of the plane’s cargo hold. With so many people on a plane needing to use the toilet, you can imagine how big this tank has to be.