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Toilet Gas Incinerator

There's a wonderful patent for a Toilet Seat Volatile Gas Incinerator granted by the USPTO for dealing with the problem of "objectionable odors" in bathrooms - an incinerator sitting on your bathroom floor right next to the toilet.

The patent says that a "vacuum pump connected to the hollow toilet seat is used to draw air ... through the hollow toilet seat" and that "an incinerating device ... is placed in the air passageway and used to incinerate the odorous volatile bodily gasses". Then the "odor-free by-products of combustion are free to be discharged back into the atmosphere of the bathroom since all smells have been destroyed by the burning of the volatile gases."

That all sounds great (well, OK maybe it doesn't really) until you think about what might happen if the system experienced an overload of "volatile gases".

This could lead to a nasty burn in a very unfortunate place!

We never knew this before, but you can actually buy incinerating toilets from companies like Incinolet. These of course perform the incineration in an enclosed chamber.

Distressingly, the website of one vendor says that "the burn cycle is very similar to boiling potatoes on the stove", which we really hope isn't the case.

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