Almost certainly, if you are reading this, you live in a country where easy access to a toilet is something most people can take for granted but when 3.6 billion people do not have access to sanitation then we cannot be complacent about what is clearly a serious world-wide problem.

Dealing with sewage and waste water, in huge quantities, efficiently and effectively, is a surprisingly recent development in even our wealthiest cities so the history of dealing with the effluence of the affluent is a fascinating one.

In Copenhagen, the construct of pump houses and pipes for a safe supply of drinking water and building new sewers - for toilets flushed with water - only became a priority after a devastating outbreak of cholera in the city in 1853 when, over that summer, nearly 5,000 people died. Work began almost immediately on a new water works that opened in 1859 but the first indoor toilet in the city - or, rather, the first private toilet in the city that was flushed with water - was installed in an apartment building in Stockholmsgade in 1894 when there were well over 300,000 people living in the city.

Stockholmsgade was then a new street on the north edge of the city, on the north side of the park of Østre Anlæg, and there, even in those large and expensive apartments, the toilet could only be flushed because a new sewage pipe had been constructed that ran straight down the slope to the east and straight out into the Sound.

As recently as 1952, the well-used swimming areas - the bathing stations - in the inner harbour were closed because there was too much raw sewage going straight into the harbour and swimming, or, at least, officially sanctioned swimming in the harbour, did not return until early this century with improvements to the city drains and with the building of a new public swimming area at Islands Brygge.

Even now, in the city, cloud bursts - floods from sudden and heavy rain storms - can mean that the system is overwhelmed and raw, untreated sewage, has to be released out into the harbour and sound to stop it flowing back into basements or out into the streets.

I’m not getting in a dig against the city …. the same story, or very similar problems, will be found in every European city. It’s simply that large urban settlements are only possible and only safe if water supplies and sewage systems are in place and are not only well maintained but are also improved and updated as the city grows.

from the grandest to the most humble thunder box …

In Copenhagen , until the middle of the 19th century, human waste from the densely-packed city was either emptied into open street drains or it was collected by cart and taken over to the island of Amager to be spread onto fields there as fertiliser … from the early 16th century Amager was an area of small farms that produced food for the city.

Those open street drains emptied out into the harbour and into the lakes immediately beyond the northern defences - actually the source of the city drinking water - or out into the defensive ditches so It was not just the width and depth of the water in the outer ditches that would have put off attacking troops.

For the wealthy, living in larger houses and apartments in the city, there would have been commodes or chamber pots and servants who would take the contents down the back staircases to empty in the courtyard but most citizens, if they had access to a toilet, would have gone down to the yard and used some form of earth closet.

The toilet at the top is in a courtyard behind one of the Nyboder houses that were built in the early 17th century for the navy. Under the wooden seat is a bucket - although barrels were also used - and these would have been emptied onto an open cart and taken away to Amager.

The more refined commode and washbasin are - how can I put this delicately - the en suite for the royal pew in the gallery on the first floor and directly opposite the preaching desk in Vor Frue Kirke - Copenhagen’s cathedral.

In contrast, the double cubicle in a quadrant-shaped structure, with ventilation panels above the doors, was in a courtyard off Adelgade - between the royal palace and the King’s Garden - in an area of slums that was cleared in the middle of the 20th century. The main problems there must have been the lines of neighbours standing outside, waiting for you to finish, or, conversely, everyone having to stand and wait in the cold and rain for someone to come out.

At least the Adelgade toilets seem to have been modernised with water-flushed porcelain bowls that would have been connected to the main sewer system.

Buckets and barrels were used until well into the 20th century - in 1907 there were said to be 32,000 flushing toilets in the city and about the same number of toilets with buckets so how did the city deal with buckets of sewage?

In 1898 a new company was established called Københavns Grundejeres Reholdningsselskab af 1998 - the Landowners’ Cleaning Company of 1898 - but generally referred to as R98 - and it was their job to collect toilet buckets from around the city and take them out to Amager where they were emptied and washed and the contents were either dried and sold to farmers on the island for their fields or it was diluted before being pumped out into the sound.

Apparently, that crucial service was called “night renovation”.

The R98 depot on Amager (below) was on Herjedalsgade - just over the bridge from Christianshavn and to the east of the main road. There is still a water pumping station there and a large recycling station although now it is glass and plastics and paper and discarded furniture that are recycled rather than the contents of the city toilets.

Over the years, so much “night soil” was taken out to Amager that it was called, by locals, Lørteøen or Shit Island and, knowing that now, I look forward to the day when a pilot on an incoming plane, landing at Kastrup, announces “Ladies and gentlemen, we will be landing shortly at Lørteøen. Would you please put your seats back ..……..”

World Toilet Day