Originally Posted by
Antarius
Planes don't use blue liquid anymore. They use a vacuum system that uses barely any water and as a result, the urinal vs toilet is a wash (pun intended). Urinal would take up more space too with no benefit.
On the older planes like 752's etc. they use the blue liquid still. I believe the liquid is recycled though through a filtration system. At this point I speculate it isn't worth the refit and cost of trying to change.
Incorrect. 737s, the backbone of many airlines, still use blue juice. They might not use as much as before, but they still use it. I'm a ground handler, just serviced a 737 lav 20 minutes ago.
The problem is people flushing the wrong stuff, and/or many other things including lavs being serviced incorrectly. 757/767s are a pain in the ... to service and have multiple lavs, inexperienced lav guys often miss one. Or people who don't deal with these aircrafts that often will easily miss one. But that usually doesn't result in ALL the lavs failing.